After our last exciting post from Bagan, we’re jumping slightly back in time to resume our travels where we left off, back in Thailand….
As mentioned before, Jess and I have been consciously building small amounts of independent time into our travel so as to have a brief reprieve (aka: to avoid killing each other) [Editor’s note: I prefer to think about it as quality time to travel independently and have lots of good experiences we can tell each other about later, but hey]. This edition of our travel break took place in Thailand and had a bit more of a practical bent. It’s always been on my personal bucket list to get scuba certified (I almost did it for my 30th birthday before opting instead to go to Bolivia and Chile), but Jess already got her scuba certification a decade ago. So this is why I made my way to Koh Tao, while she went to the nearby island of Koh Phangan to luxuriate at a yoga retreat.
We were ultimately apart for 5-6 days (who’s really keeping track?) of these separate activities, followed by Jess joining me in Koh Tao for a few days of relaxation/scuba diving before we made our great escape from Thailand (or our great arrival in Myanmar, depending on how you look at it). We’ll each write about our separate travel experiences, so there won’t be any snarky editor’s notes in them this time, then I’ll write about our shared time in Koh Tao at the end.
Koh Tao (solo) – by Rorie
Because of the copious amounts of dive schools there (70+) that drive down prices and the relative absence of currents in the surrounding waters, Koh Tao island is one of the best places in the world to get scuba certified. An added bonus of all of this is that the island and waters are absolutely gorgeous, with 90+ F temperatures the whole time. There were definitely worse places to spend a few days performing this task! The process of becoming scuba certified was largely enjoyable, but ended up being far more involved than I had anticipated. Fortunately, I was in a tiny dive school with only two other Dutch gals, so we were able to get tons of individual attention from our instructors. First we had to watch several hours of mind-numbing videos and flip through a handbook while completing a lengthy worksheet as homework (it was basically like junior high school, but for a life/death activity where the instructors encouraged us to cheat and mostly brushed off the significance of the task). We followed that up with a couple of hours of instructional diving in a swimming pool, then were prepared to set off for the real feat – open water training dives in the ocean.
Island sunset, because life is hard.
View from my bungalow because, again, life is hard.
The first time diving in the ocean – which occurred on my second full day of scuba training – was pretty amazing in several ways. Naturally, it was awesome to be able to descend ~60 feet deep into the ocean, seeing the beautiful coral and fish up close. That all goes without saying. The more amusing thing, however, is that I was so focused on not effing up and drowning in the ocean that it was easy to forget all about these facts. I feel like I spent my whole time keeping an eye on my instructor, trying to not to hit coral or other divers, checking my oxygen, regulating my breathing, equalizing the pressure in ears so they didn’t kill me and trying to neutralize my buoyancy (I sucked at this). With all of these simultaneous responsibilities, both of my first two training dives flew by way quicker than I anticipated.
View at my first dive site.
Scuba gear all prepped and ready to jump in the ocean.
Disregard that smile. A scuba tank/gear is really heavy outside of the water.
On the final day of scuba training, we were set to do two more training dives at the soul crushing hour of 6:30am. No bueno. However, there was another factor that completely altered my third dive and disrupted the pattern I had been getting used to: a whale shark. As our boat pulled up to the site, the captain of another boat was frantically waving at us and pointing in the ocean while making the shark gesture with his hand (placing it perpendicular across his forehead, from hairline to his brow). At the prospect of seeing a whale shark, all caution was thrown to the wind and we frantically pulled our gear on and jumped in the water. We then ignored our planned dive and immediately swam to the spot where the whale shark was spotted while trying to simultaneously descend gradually and equalize. We all hovered for a while under the water trying to spot the shark, when all the sudden a large creature emerged – a ~15 ft long whale shark floating over our heads, just below the surface. In that moment, everything slowed down and we were able to take in the amazing creature. So worth it! We all enthusiastically danced under water and were in euphoria at having seen a whale shark on only our third scuba dive, since some instructors have literally done hundreds of dives in several countries without seeing them. Big win!
Everyone on the boat – fellow students, instructors and free divers – after seeing the whale shark.
Group photo under water.
Action shot under water (I’m the one trying not to drown on the far left).
We saw a bunch of other fish (moray eels, barracudas, rainbow fish, giant groupers and other cool stuff) on the third and fourth dive, but the whale shark really was the show stopper. With that, I’m now officially a certified scuba diver! But also, I was super exhausted. All the coursework, dives (really fatiguing!) and early mornings took their toll, such that by the time Jess rejoined me I was more tired than when she left. Oh well, such is life. Well worth it.
Koh Phangan (solo) – by Jess
I headed to the island of Koh Phangan for a quiet and relaxing yoga retreat at Wonderland Healing Center, a beautiful place in the center of the island. It was incredibly refreshing and peaceful, and I couldn’t be happier with my experience there. It was sort of like a summer camp with all healthy activities – a daily schedule full of classes that were completely optional – choose what you want to do and skip whatever you don’t. In down time, there was a pool, steam sauna, and plenty of hammocks to lie in. The classes covered lots of different styles of yoga, in addition to guided meditations and talks about different styles of meditation or yoga-related topics. All the food was included and was fully vegan as well, something I hadn’t really tried before for any length of time. While I won’t be going fully vegan any time soon, it was really refreshing and nourishing to have such delicious food readily available to me.
The dock that eventually I took to get to Koh Phangan. Photo taken around 5:30am after an overnight bus ride.
One of our beautiful yoga class locations
I got to try acro-yoga (a partner-based yoga with poses like “flying” in the air on the other person’s feet), learned about meditation techniques, tried breathing techniques touted as “like drugs without the drugs!”, and went to an “ecstatic dance” session held at another yoga center on the island. It was all a little on the hippie side of my usual, but it was a great way to try it all with no pressure and an open mind. The other people at Wonderland were from tons of other countries and so friendly, and most were there on their own like me, so it was a social and outgoing place. I had originally scheduled 3 nights, with plans to spend another day on Koh Phangan by myself at the beach, but I ended up loving the retreat so much I decided to stay there an extra night and skip the beach. Even then, I didn’t want to leave!
Wonderland Healing Center, complete with pool and relaxation.
I left Koh Phangan for Koh Tao the night of the super blue blood moon, and got a beautiful view of the moon over the islands as the boat made its way on the hour-long trip to Koh Tao where I met up with Rorie.
The sunset before the full moon.
Koh Tao and Beyond (together) – by Rorie
Jess eventually joined me in Koh Tao with the plan of spending a few days there together so that we could check another item off the list – reactivating Jess’s scuba certification (necessary if it’s been more than a year since last scuba diving) and having her try a couple of fun dives. Given that we had planned on doing a bit of scuba diving in Indonesia in the future, we figured it was good for her to get recertified and to try a couple of dives in this setting before committing to that part of our resume. [Editor’s note: I couldn’t quite believe it had been over ten years since I last dived (!) but it’s true. Part of the reason I haven’t kept it up is that I haven’t had scuba-certified buddies on most of my travels since then, but also a huge part of my hesitation has been the memory of the pain and difficulty I had with my ears, as I really struggle with equalizing against the pressure as I descend. It was really hard for me in the past, so I was wary about jumping back in (literally). But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from at least trying again, given that we are planning to go to Indonesia, some of the best diving in the world!]
Koh Tao
After visiting various dive shops on the island, Jess settled on a place where she could do the recertification with a really well regarded (and jovial/patient) fella named Johan. He took Jess into a pool for a one-on-one session and worked with her on getting her recertified, while also helping address her struggles equalizing. [Editor’s note: The best part of this refresher course was that there was no attempt at using or remembering the technical jargon or the detailed homework that Rorie had to do. Johan would point to parts of the equipment and say things like “this is the breathey thingy. Attach it to this other thingy and make sure the not-breathey thingies are on the other side.” It was great, since the focus was really on making sure I wouldn’t panic underwater and I’d be able to do practical things like clear water out of my mask. Just what I needed!] After lunch, I joined both of them for a couple of fun dives off the coast of the island where Jess could reacquaint herself with diving and see if her issues descending would keep her from diving in Indonesia. While it was still a bit painful and she had to go slowly, she was ultimately successful at getting to the necessary depths and we were able to share some cool experiences together seeing fish and coral on the ocean. Given her passion for animals of all types, I really wanted us to be able to do it at least once together and was relieved when it was successful (and pleased at seeing the joy in her bug-eyes (through the goggles) when she saw sea slugs (what a weirdo!) she loved). [Editor’s note: We also saw really cool moray eels, a big spotted ray, tons of fish, and very cool giant clams, Christmas tree worms, and sea slugs! I’m a big invertebrate fan.]
Proof that I managed to re-learn to dive!
Johan showing me an up close view on a sea anemone while we look for small shrimp that live among the tentacles.
Rorie swims above me
These brightly colored yellow and blue triangles are the Christmas tree worms. Cool, huh? (Yes, science nerd.)
Attempt at an underwater selfie
Following our dives and a day of relaxation on Koh Tao, we had to endure roughly 36 hours of brutal commuting to get from Koh Tao, Thailand to Yangon, Myanmar. The first leg of the journey was a 2 hour ferry ride back to the main land, which was so choppy that we both felt nauseous the entire time as a number of passengers around us were forced to use their complimentary vomit bags. We then endured an 8 hour bus ride to Bangkok and an hour ride to our hostel near the airport, at which point we were exhausted. However, the fun wasn’t yet over! Our flight to Myanmar the next morning was scheduled to occur almost immediately after the Super Bowl was finished [Editor’s note: The time difference means that all evening/primetime events are early the following morning for us, but inconvenient as it is, we couldn’t miss the Super Bowl!], so we resolved to wake up painfully early (5am) to go to the airport and set up shop to watch the game uninterrupted. Because they wouldn’t let us through security (it was too early before our flight) and there were no sports bars in the lounge area, we resorted to hovering over an iPhone outside of a Burger King in the food court to watch the game…and it was awesome! We caught roughly 85-90% of the game (we had occasional WiFi disruptions) and were overjoyed about the Eagles victory, particularly because the game didn’t go to overtime (which would’ve probably caused us to miss our flight). As soon as the game ended, we rushed through the airport just in time to catch our flight and wearily begin the next leg of our travels – Myanmar!
This is our “way too early but we got the Superbowl” face!
