WalkaboutBri: Phuket, Thailand

I arrived into Thailand from the super hot deserts of Australia and walked out to super-hot and humid Jungle Islands... and it was fantastic! After a beautiful drive through jungle mountains (mostly populated by small villages) and up and down through gorgeous white-sand beaches - I arrive @ Patong Beach, got myself sorted at the hotel (I could afford a nice hotel with exchange rates of 30:1, so it was a VERY nice change from the hostels I'd restricted myself to in Australia ;0) and then I headed straight for the beach and dived into the nice warm ocean... this was only broken up for the next several hours with some beer and really good [and REALLY spicey... people weren't kidding] Thai food ;0) I had my favorite first - Tom Ka Gai soup... yummmmm.

I was so relaxed that when it started raining I just kept on swimming (the water was actually warmer than the rain anyway ;0) and stayed out there until the sunset... it was really nice watching it go down over the Andaman Sea.

I walked around a bit that night and absorbed some of the craziness of Thailand (probably Asia in general actually). Streets are super clogged up with cars, motorcycles, buses, bikes and people shooting across the road whenever there's a bit of a gap in the traffic - Oh and one little motorbike usually has 1-3 people on it, usually with the woman in back holding a baby up and playing with it while the taxi cab is litteraly right on the back of the bike going 30-40 miles/hour... The "sidewalks" (they're really more of the 'not black' part of the road most of the time' are just as crowded with people all jostling up the left side to go forward [generally] with just as many coming at you on the right). It's all very 'survival of the fittest', whatever thing is bigger - car, bus or crowd of people always gets the right of way. The crazy thing is that it works really well, everyone gets around and I haven't seen anyone get hurt yet - but I'll tell you, it's enough to make me wish I'd said yes to the guy who tried to sell me "smokes" in one darkish road I went down ;0)

I found myself in an interesting part of town after a nice fish dinner (prepared right on the sidewalk - makeshift kitchen, servers, tables & all - and it was the whole fish deep-fried and covered in delicious red curry sauce, yum) watched my first katoey show (female impersonaters dressed up in ornate outfits doing really good lip synching in the midst of some pretty stunning dance theatrics) it was very fun to watch but I still got to bed @ a reasonable time as I had to get up the next morning for my 1st scuba dive ;0)

My first dive was @ Koh Dok Mai - it's this crazy little island literally just sticking up in the middle of the ocean. After some equipment and getting to know my dive buddy, we jumped in and I have to say that my course training all came back pretty fast... I was able to NOT slam into the coral below, control my breathing, and actually watch the fish - which were in the thousands all around me. Little ones, big ones - yellow, green, pink you name it swimming amongst huge red fan corals, white corals - I also saw 2 or 3 moray eels and these neat looking Scorpian Fish that look just like the coral there were up against (I didn't have an underwater camera so I found some pics on the web for the fish).

After that we had a break as we headed for the Phi Phi Islands (which were in the Leo DeCaprio film 'The Beach' - terrible movie, but man - location, location, location. The islands were really something to behold as we came up to them - we actually dived the two smaller Koh (islets) next to them.

The last dive was the best - I was finally totally relaxed and able to just drift around with the current and watch then get in nice and close to the sea wall to see all the little fish. There was some minor embarrasment on the 2nd dive when I jumped in and realized my weight belt had come off (you're supposed to hold on to it when you jump... woops) so they had to go all the way back to the boat to get me another one [guess I'm not THAT fat after all ;)] - however... while we were all waiting we were looking below us and a big ol' Leopard Shark swam by!!! It was very cool looking, kind glad we weren't right down with it though ;0) Also saw a Lionfish on that dive which was really fun to watch...

I made it back in town that night just in time to get down to the beach for the 1st night of the Loy Krathong festival. It's held on the 3rd Lunar Cycle in November of every year to celebrate a river/water goddess. People on the beach all bought these giant square shaped cloth baloons with an open flame on the bottom - when it fills up with hot air it eventually (with some gentle pushing) floats off into the sky where it joins up with hundreds of others and just floats off until it looks like they're joining the stars... it's very nice... of course I had to buy one - Mine is one of the 3 next to the full moon ;0) They also sell fireworks that you shoot off from your hand (like roman candles.. it was lots of fun)