Day 5 / Tag 5 Getting wet

9 am. Sea Dragon sent a car to pick me up at the Hotel and take me to the dive shop. I have plenty of time to check my regulators and pressure gauge on a tank, all works fine.
After a cup uof tea we all hop on the "Dragon Wagon", the truck I showed you in "Day 4", loaded with tanks, meals etc. , and off we go to Tap Lamu Pier

The Dragon Wagon

Careful with those tanks

On the Road to Tap Lamu

The Longtailboat with Captain Dan is waiting, we load it with the tanks and our dive equipment and head out for the dive site, supposedly called "The face of the sleeping King". There are four Advanced OWDs, an OWD course with two students and me with a personal guide, Silvan from Switzerland.

Cannot say too much about the diving, the water is not clean here close to the port and mainland, but it is enough to get used to breathing through a regulator again and do some weight checks. I started with 6 pieces, but these are not 1 kilo, but 2 pounds, that is around 900 grams. So I had 5.4 kg, definitely not enough with a bone dry wet suit. I was working hard to stay down, and signaled to ascend again. On the surface I got another 2 pound weight which made descending a lot easier. I had booked this dive for these checks anyway.

Longtailboat from Vo Sta on Vimeo.
One hour surface time, fried rice with chicken in reusable Tupperware style box with metal spoon (reduce waste!) and down for the second dive even closer to the port, dive site called "Homerun". I had put another 2 pound weight in my pocket and this time it was right.
We all unloaded the boat and on our way back to the dive shop the driver brought me to my Hotel, where I dropped my dive bag in the shower, changed clothes and rushed out again. I had an appointment with TJ.
TJ is a wonderful Lady and Dive Buddy from the Lofoten, Norway. We dived together last year from Koh Lanta to Ko Lipe and back. She works for a Norwegian Airline, halftime, so she gets tickets at very nice prices, and she has time.
We met at "La Piccolo Maria", an italian restaurant close to Nang Thong Supermarket. It is such a beautiful sensation to meet somebody after a year, who you had a good diving time with.
We chatted for two hours, ate bruschetta and fabulous pasta, they sure can cook! Best italian restaurant in Thailand so far.
TJ had some interesting points to tell on the Flying Seahorse incident earlier this year...
We had the waitress take photos of us two,

Meeting TJ after one year in Khao Lak on her way to the Similans

sent them to Dive Buddys of last year, then I took her on my scooter to the dive shop, where she started her 4 day Livaboard trip to the Similan Islands.
She wanted to give me the card for the National park in Raja Ampat, but it is personalized, so not useful.

Have a safe trip, TJ! And Chok Dee!

After dropping off TJ, I went to the Hotel, had a sunset Mojito, washed my equipment, logged the two dives, started writing this post and fell asleep at 10:30pm.

Can't waitto get on board with Beto and Fernando in two days...
Good night everybody,

See you under water

Day 4 / Tag 4

"I don't need your passport, I trust you." she said with her incomparable smile and handed me the key for the scooter while I was signing the contract. They will treat you nice if you do so and you show up as a person that can be trusted...

I wanted to get my equipment wet before I go on board the Sawasdee Fasai, just to make sure everything works fine. Gemma and Edu recommended Sea Bees and Sea Dragon, but Sea Bees was booked out until the weekend, so I called Sea Dragon this morning and booked a check dive with them for tomorrow. Would have preferred Sea Bees, because they have a nice dive boat with platform, Sea Dragon goes by longtail boat. I never dived from a longtail, so this will be a new experience, let's see.
This will be "house reef" diving, nothing more than 8-9 meters deep, visibility between 5 and 10, enough for my purpose. And it's a lot cheaper than the Boonsung wreck dive. I will see the Boonsung at least six times during the Livaboard trips anyway.

Sea Dragon Office at Khao Lak

Sea Dragon's Pick up truck. With these looks, I wonder how it will sound...

After that, I went further up north to Memories Beach, a super chilled place recommended by Gemma. You can't miss it, at the Elephant Camp you follow their road sign down a gravel road and after 10 Minutes and 4 km you are on the beach.

Road Sign for Memories Beach

They have delicious food, I had fantastic Springrolls with Shrimps, actually shrimps with vegetables wrapped around them and deepfried. Had my first massage on the beach after lunch and relaxed.

Memories Beach, north of Khao Lak

Super chilled vintage stuff at Memories Beach

Tiki is everywhere...

"No Shirt No Shoes No Problem" instead of "No Shirt No Serve"

On my way home got me a new board short and flipflops, saved 200 Baht off the price without bargaining at all (see above: if you treat them nice...), and went home to my hotel. There was a scooter that had just got a new tire on the back wheel, I asked for the old one, because I wanted to build something from the rubber: A torch holder for my BCD, "Mc Gyver "style. Looks a bit techie, but who cares?

Moped tire

Cut out

Cut small pieces

Torch on BCD voilà

 and hung out at the hotel with other guests.
Then out of the blue TJ from Lofoten, Norway, messaged me that she is around the corner in another Hotel, just coming back from Bunaken, Indonesia. Wasted, by flights. I dived with her last year on the MV Flying Seahorse in the deep south of Andaman Sea.
We made an appointment for a pizzeria tomorrow early afternoon, after I come back from the check dive and before she leaves on a liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands.
Is the diving world a small world? If you keep contacts, for sure.

See you under water

Day 3 / Tag 3

Woke up at 3am and fell asleep at 5 again. What's that, jet lag, time zones? "Time zones are for the weak" an estimated person told me lately, and continued "take another nap."
Knocking on the door woke me up at 11, the room maid looked a bit surprised and said she'd come back later...
The room has coffee, tea, cups, but no kettle to heat water.
They simply forgot it. The Handyman brought a boiler with an obviously burnt cable that didn't work, I offered to fix it if they give me a new plug, but they brought another one instead.
Met Gemma and Edu for lunch at my place. Their parents are here for holidays at the moment, so we had lunch for six, speaking Spanglish all the time.
I met Gemma on my first Liveaboard trip on the MV Pawara to the Similan Islands two years ago, somehow we kept contact. She and her husband (?) Edu live in Khao Lak, organizing tours and diving expeditions. I will be with them at Lembeh and after that in Raja Ampat, later in May. They had some good advice for me.

Edu, Volker, and Gemma at Coconuts Beach Restaurant, Khao Lak

After they left I had a short siesta, followed by a Mojito at Happy Hour, rented a motorbike, well, a scooter, and headed for the surroundings.
I tried to find a dive company for a personal checkdive on friday or saturday, before I leave with the boats, but no luck, all booked out. Fantastic, so I have some thing to do tomorrow!

 Bought a data card for the iphone, changed some Euros, had a Pizza on the beach and everything closes at 10pm. Everything, like: lights off. At least here by the beach, don't know about "uptown"...
Sat on the beach listening to the surf, thinking:"If this doesn't bring you to sleep, what ever will?" Enjoyed the peace.
Didn't they tell me Khao Lak was more quiet than Phuket, not that crazy? For sure, not crazy...

See you under water

Day 2 / Tag 2

Phuket International Airport has a a new terminal with loads of immigration officers.
I was done within 5 minutes, this has never happened before.
I intended to get a phone card again for my time in Thailand, but there were crowds of other tourists at the stands of True-H and dtac, so I simply postponed that and stepped out into the warm and welcoming air of Thailand.

Gemma of ViajayBuceaThailandia had offered to send me a taxi, which would be cheaper than booking one at the airport by myself. About fifty names written on cardboards, papers and reusable whiteboards were waving in front of my eyes, until I spotted the one dedicated to me. Negotiated shortly with the young girl who held up my name, smoked a cigarette, and the taxi arrived.
During the 90 minutes ride to Khao Lak I must have fallen asleep several times... The driver didn't seem to take the speed limits all to serious, so we arrived at Suwan Palm Resort at 1:30 pm

The beach at Suwan Palm Resort

Off course the room was not ready yet, that gave me time for a nice Pad Thai accompanied by a Chang beer at the beach restaurant.

Pad Thai Shrimps and a Chang Beer for a start

Spent most of the afternoon on the beach and around the hotel, taking it easy, texted a bit with Gemma, got a haircut by Mam Khaolak, and asked the landlady for a scooter for tomorrow. 250 Baht per day and a copy of my passport, same procedure as every year.

This is how it sounds:
Khao Lak at 7 pm from Vo Sta on Vimeo.

and it looks like this...

First of many sunsets

After sunset I could test my mosquito repellent trouser and shirt for the first time, and I can say  it seems to work. More on those later.

Good night everyone

See you under water

Day 1 / Tag 1

Starting a bit off track, my flight from Berlin to Cologne was cancelled due to ground staff on strike at both Berlin Airports. The airline offerd a train ticket to Cologne which I accepted, so I startetd at 9:49 am on Monday, March 13th.
The Countdown on this page was set to 2:10 pm, the original scheduled flight time, but who cares about an hour or two...
Nothing to report here, five hours train ride to Cologne, check-in at the airport ond off to Phuket. 11 hours flight and I can't really sleep on flights, so I arrived pretty wasted at Phuket Airport the next day.



I have some people asking for a german version of this blog. I'll make up my mind about that, promised.

See you

Pack my bags

111 - pack my bags720 from Vo Sta on Vimeo.

See you under water

Nice start

No flights from Berlin. 

Got me a rail ticket to Cologne and fly from there to Phuket