Something that I did recently, defies any Blog entry I may have written in the past -- I uploaded the photos first and haven't gotten around to actually writing about it until now. Perhaps this is a better system anyway... Instead of promising my readers galleries of pictures that may or may not ever come, I can get that out of the way first, and worry about the writing (which, inexplicably comes easier to me than resizing and uploading countless photos) after I've successfully completed the more tedious and tiresome task. However, I must say, that a combination of Faststone image editor (and the batch resizer) combined with CorrectPhoto 2.0 and uploading to Flickr using the Flickr Uploader software has REALLY made swift work of it all. The whole experience is much more pleasurable and when I look back to the way I originally started posting photos, I just shudder.

Well, not to ramble on about it any further, why don't you head on over to the Photo section on Flickr (here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/88031687@N00/sets/72157600050774717/ ) and once you've gotten your fill of pictures from our latest holiday to Thailand, come back here and read about some of the details.

Let's face it, whenever someone goes on holidays, upon their return our first request is almost unequivocally a request to see all the pictures they took, and only then are we sufficiently curious to hear some of the explanations and adventures our friends may have had... Although I must say, I do know a number of very interesting individuals, whose stories, anecdotes and bizarre encounters, recited narratively, almost poetically over several pints of beer, leave one thoroughly entertained, even spellbound -- much like the archetypal image of a Victorian, hardwood and leather decorated gentlemens' club, witnessing a crusty, handlebar-mustachioed, pith helmet-wearing explorer from some bygone era of British Colonial rule in India or Africa, lighting a pipe and sipping fine scotch, telling anyone who will listen, tall tales of hunting lions on safari and surviving grueling encounters with cannibalistic tribes of savages, all the while emerging unscathed and victorious each time.

I cannot presume to possess such wondrous eloquence, though if I do manage to entertain and inform those of you who have patiently undertaken the reading of our own varied experiences, I feel that I have succeeded in my endeavors. To that end, I shall recount the adventures of our journey to the Kingdom of Siam and our hunt for the mythical white elephants.

Well, okay.... I exaggerated the part about the white elephants. We weren't really hunting for them, and the only one that I DID see was on the T-shirt that I eventually bought at a night market, downtown Bangkok.

Speaking of Bangkok, I suppose that is the most logical place to begin, since it serves as the main International gateway to Thailand, at least if you are traveling by air. From Tokyo, the flight is just over six hours, surprisingly far considering we haven't even left Asia. The plane was jam-packed, as Tokyo is only a stop-over for otherwise "direct" flights from the U.S. being offered by Northwest Airlines. We were in the very middle of the plane (both front to back, as well as having the two middle seats in a row of four on the Airbus A330-200). This was the case both ways, to and from Bangkok. I suppose I've had both better and worse flights than this one, but I did happen to be sitting next to a middle-aged American of Thai descent who was going to visit his family, but otherwise a Houston PD detective. He was a little tiresome at times and it really made me wish that I had remembered to make our seat selections as soon as we bought our tickets, not that it may have made a huge difference.

In the style of Ernest Hemingway, I must at this point, pause and go on a brief tangent (okay, so Hemingway's tangents aren't so brief) and explain a little bit of background behind our seemingly impetuous trip to Thailand. It had, in fact, been planned for a considerable number of months, and whose conception was brought about by a similar trip taken by one of our co-workers a year and a half earlier. Following his return from a Christmas holiday, we had learned that he had visited the island of Koh Tao, a small but very well-known scuba diving mecca that is part of a small archipelago off the coast of Thailand, in the Gulf of Thailand (which borders the South China Sea). He had gone with the intention of getting scuba diving certification there, as part of a tropical getaway in the middle of winter.

Excellent, we thought. Since one of our good friends in Kofu is himself an avid diver, we were looking for a good, relatively inexpensive way to also break into this fascinating adventure sport, and being so close to Thailand seemed just the way to do it -- at a price that we calculated would be cheaper than doing the same thing in Japan. In addition, we would be able to get all English instruction and enjoy what this tropical island had to offer. It's interesting to note, that according to PADI, the world's most prolific scuba certification body, the two top purveyors of certification cards are indeed, Cairns, Australia, and Koh Tao, Thailand.

So, with a little bit of luck, and a lot of Internet searching we were able to secure reasonably well-priced tickets to Thailand during Spring Break, which is at least a couple of weeks for us in the Japanese public school system. Japan's school year runs from April to March, with about three weeks of holidays in between. It's a pretty good time to take a trip, especially if you can harangue a departure date of several days prior to the official start of the school holidays. That's the way to ensure a flight ticket that's still fairly affordable but minimizes on the number of work days missed.

Upon our arrival, sifting through the awful mess that they call Suvarnabhumi Airport, we made it to our hotel/hostel shortly after 1 a.m. local time and immediately went to bed. Getting up the next morning and taking a taxi into the centre of Bangkok, we quickly learned what we were in for. Bangkok's a perfectly horrible place. In fact, if you are looking for some positive comments about Thailand, it may be a good idea at this point, to skip through the rest of this paragaph and start reading again when we arrive in Chumphon. I would strongly urge anyone planning to visit Thailand to consider coming in via a different port of entry if at all possible. Much like any large Asian city, Bangkok is polluted, very stinky, crowded, but also very hot, noisy and otherwise about as unpleasant as your imagination can make it out to be. One of its few redeeming features is the fact that there are numerous historical gems scattered throughout, and armed with a good city map, a camera, some cold, bottled water, and a thick skin to deal with the tuk-tuk drivers and everyone else trying to rip you off and make a buck, can make for an interesting afternoon, and may allow you to enjoy the abundant delicious Thai food that can be had just about anywhere. The other aspect of our brief sojourn in Bangkok that made it worthwhile was a wonderful walking tour around downtown, visiting sites and seeing places where most tourists don't get to go. This is all thanks to a wonderful site, namely http://www.oggtours.com/city_bangkok_thailand.html . I was able to download a series of audio mp3 files which I loaded onto a couple of portable MP3 players, one each for Bonnie and me. Then, as we walked down the streets and entered the temples and shops, listened to a very professional narrator give detailed commentary on what we were seeing. This came complete with sound effects, background music and a lot of local history that we would never have otherwise heard. I had also printed out a map of the tour to help guide us along. Most of the pictures from my photo Blog that were taken in Bangkok were part of this tour. However, before we got to finish the tour, we had to grab a quick meal (our first authentic Thai curry) and hightail it to a nearby travel office to catch our bus to the coast.

We left Bangkok shortly after 9 in the evening, via night bus to the coastal city of Chumphon. I could sure do without an 8-hour bus ride but our final destination, Koh Tao is a rather difficult place to get to. I felt better about Thailand as soon as we left the mess that is Bangkok. We arrived at the ferry port shortly after 5 in the morning, and our boat wouldn't leave for another hour and half. In the mean time, I rested, listening to music on my iPod Shuffle, sitting at a concrete slab picnic table, trying not to be disturbed by the incessant rooster crowing his damn lungs out not 10 feet away from me. When they finally opened the chicken coop, the overly friendly birds came right up to me, obviously used to receiving handouts from all the tourists coming through. Every two minutes or so I had to shoo them away with my foot, lest they crap on it, or worse yet, spread some kind of avian influenza... So reluctantly, I got up, head full of horrific images of strange, tropical diseases that I could contract, and made my way to the beach where some local fishermen were just bringing in their boats with the morning's catch. I have a couple shots of them in my photo Blog too.

By half past six we found ourselves on a high-speed catamaran, noisily racing towards our dive paradise destination.

Now, the problem with most paradise destinations is that usually, you have to go through hell to get to them, and Koh Tao certainly fits this bill. In spite of all the misery I already outlined, waiting for us at Koh Tao's harbour, was the same gaggle of people all shouting at you from every direction, nearly physically trying to pull you in their direction so they can take you to some overpriced resort, from which they undoubtedly get kickbacks from bringing in unsuspecting travelers.

Fortunately for us, all our arrangements already had been made, including for a driver from our dive resort to come and pick us up and deliver us to our final destination. This only took about 20 minutes but in the back of a covered safari truck that was completely devoid of shocks, and across some of the most awful roads to grace the planet. The traffic is already something else in Thailand, but the condition of the roads makes it a place best suited for dirt bikes and pickup trucks. In fact, during our entire sojourn on Koh Tau, I can't think of a single time I actually saw a CAR... Everyone there seems to drive some kind of truck. I suppose for practicality and commerce nothing beats it -- especially given the condition of the roads.

At this point in the story, it's almost tempting to allow the photos to recount the rest, as many of them indeed speak for themselves. I will, however point out a few other things so I can finally post this very delayed blog entry. Our resort, Big Blue Diving is considered one of the larger companies operating on Koh Tao, and they certainly have no shortage of instructors, dive masters, dive master trainees and scads of (mostly young) guests eager to undertake their first scuba diving lessons. At first glance, the view of the small office, outdoor restaurant/bar and weather-beaten resort rooms seemed nice enough for our intended stay -- a relaxing, tropical holiday.

Alas, the romantic image (or images, if you've seen my Flickr photos) paint a somewhat rosy picture. This is not to say that we were miserable -- not at all. Well, to be perfectly honest, Bonnie picked up some kind of bug on our first day in Bangkok, leaving her quite ill for the duration of our trip. She truly put on a good face (as much as she could) even going to the local doctor/clinic to see if they could help her. Some anti-nausea, anti-vertigo pills helped her get through the remainder of our holiday, but even upon our return to Japan, Bonnie had at least another week of recovery before returning somewhat to her old self. Nevertheless, illness aside, we found out quickly that paradise was really a hot, bug-infested place!

If it weren't for all the research and forethought that went into planning this trip, I can't imagine how we would have made it through the hot, humid, mosquito-infested rooms offered on the island if it weren't for our room's air conditioner, piles of mosquito coils, gallons of DEET repellent and a tennis-raquet-style bug zapper. When we first walked into our room, we were immediately welcomed by a literal SWARM of the hungry creatures, each bent on extracting their share of my blood, and in so doing, infecting me with heaven only knows what, awful tropical disease that one can contract in this manner. Until now we were virtually untouched by these awful bugs, but this is where the real fun started.

To make a long story short, that, along with a number of other wonderful problems, like things breaking, doors not closing, shower rods falling on our heads and finding sand, used chewing gum and other surprises left by the previous riff-raff to stay at the resort prompted us to complain quite bitterly to the management -- something we should have done immediately upon entering the room in the very beginning. They had no qualms about moving us upstairs to another room, though far from perfect, much more free of the ridiculous problems in our first room. Apparently mosquitoes like to stay much closer to the ground, so my continued vigilance combined with my religious use of 100% DEET lotion, permethrin-soaked clothes and 24-hour burning mosquito coils seriously reduced our infestation further. In the end, when we returned home, I was disappointed to discover that in spite of my best efforts, I had still succumbed to two of the devil-insects' bites. Not bad, I suppose for a two-week stay on a tropical island, but still, two bites too many in my opinion, when all it takes is one to come down with Malaria, Dengue or some other disease I wouldn't care much to think about. What did cheer me up a little, was that the long-term residents (the teachers and instructors at the resort) assured us that Malaria was virtually unheard of on Koh Tao, even though travel-advisory websites (like the American CDC) seem to think otherwise... And as for Dengue, only if there have been many days of daily rain... And even then, I was told, not very common at all. Unfortunately, they don't quite realize how bloody tasty I must be to your average mosquito! I kid you not, that I could be standing, fully clothed, in a room with 100 naked people, (no, I don't know what I'd be doing in such a situation either, but please bear with me for the sake of example) and there could be ONE mosquito there with us, and it would zero in directly on ME! Not only that, but I'm good friends with Murphy, whose law may as well be tattooed on my head. It would be MY luck that the ONE mosquito in a room of 100 naked people, with only me fully clothed, would bite ME and give me Malaria! Yes, I probably would be that lucky!

Well, to get on with the story, our introduction to the world of scuba diving and our diving instructor-to-be was a rather strange one. You see, it turns out that our arrival was also shared by a number of other prospective diving students, all of whom hailed from every possible vestige of Germania -- something also in common with our instructor-to-be. Oh joy! Bliss! Almost as if on cue, the "reunion" began, and I started to feel like I was in Munich again. When we finally got back on task, the instructor gave us her introduction to diving, diving courses and learning systems available to us.

"I am not biased," she claimed, giving us the chance to make up our mind whether we wanted to get our diving certification through one of two rival agencies, PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) or SSI (Scuba Schools International).

Well, for someone who wasn't biased, she had a LOT of wonderful, glowing praises for SSI, compared to the many "drawbacks" she pointed out were hallmarks of the PADI system...

And "Don't get me wrong," she went on. "PADI is fine. After all, I, myself am a licensed and certified PADI diver and scuba instructor."

What really clinched it, and sold the crowd on SSI was her promise of proudly returning to your land of origin, with scuba certification card in-hand. Whereas the poor, unfortunate PADI graduates would be forced to wait for up to a month before the Asian regional headquarters in Australia would send your card in the mail. She even went on how "cool" it would be if she could present everyone with their dive cards underwater, the whole event, of course, being photographed for posterity. BUT -- the choice was ours... SSI or PADI. Note to self: look up this person if I ever decide to run for office and need a campaign manager.

If I mentioned right now, that we didn't receive our dive cards in an underwater ceremony, you'd know right away what we chose... We agonized over the decision for quite some time, actually... Even though the choice should have been obvious from the moment we set foot in little Berlin. We were ASSURED that all our instruction would be in ENGLISH, and that the only German spoken would be above and beyond the regular course matter. Be that as it may, I could already see the situation in my mind, Die Trapp-Familie skipping along, clad in lederhosen, by Maria, the governess, singing about their favorite things, while Bonnie and I sit in some corner, before finally getting irritated and frustrated, marching off, singing So Long, Farewell!

It worked out for the best. The happy, Deutsches Volk went their way, and we went ours. This, of course, required them to bring in a new instructor, one that would teach only Bonnie and I. This, they assured us, was also no trouble -- that they did so all the time. We were very glad to have our own instructor, as it allowed Bonnie the extra time and focus she needed to complete the scuba course. The course itself was rather intense, and there was a lot of reading, remembering and practical exercises that had to be fit into a rather short time. I know that PADI (and SSI, for that matter) have designed their Open Water certification courses to be achievable in a weekend, but honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit if it were spread out into a longer course. Writing this Blog entry many months later and already having logged over 24 dives at the time of writing, I have seen more than my share of idiocy, incompetence and dangerous behaviour which has almost always been a result of off training, poor retention and insufficient
time spent underwater and in the classroom with a qualified teacher.

In the end, Bonnie and I did five open water dives instead of the standard four, and are very happy we did. Our instructor was a Brit named Alex who had been diving since he was a teenager, and had become a very, very competent diver and instructor. He was absolutely brilliant, and I could only hope that others who manage to take a scuba course end up with someone like him. I was also happy to let Big Blue Diving know this, as I do hope they value their assets and try to keep people like him on by treating their teachers right and keeping them happy.

Our final exams turned out very well. True to Alex's word, who said that he had never seen anyone fail the test, ours were no exception. My final score was in the upper nineties, only having missed one or two questions, and Bonnie wasn't too far behind either. Celebrating fully with many Singha beers, Thai curry and massages, we definitely tried to make the most of our remaining time on Koh Tao. On our second-to-last day, I managed to fit in an extra day of diving, this time as part of a "Fun Dive" group. This was an exhilarating experience, since we went with the usual group of instructors and dive masters who we had gotten know through the week, but for the first time, we did everything ourselves, assembling our gear, pre-dive checks, all without any of their intervention. My dive-buddy was an "insta-buddy." That is, someone who I had never met before until that dive. My new, regular buddy Bonnie was, unfortunately too ill to go. We had two fantastic dives that morning, and I came back with some great underwater photos.

The remainder of our trip was relatively uneventful. That same evening we had to catch the night boat to the city of Surat Thani. This was a night boat that would arrive in the early hours of the morning. Then, around noon we would board a local flight back to Bangkok, and back to the first hotel where we stayed on our inbound leg. Bonnie was worse than ever, so she rested in the air-conditioned room, while I went on to explore Bangkok a little more.

In some ways, I was almost a glutton for punishment. Bangkok did not magically improve from the first day we visited it. It was as awful as ever. Except this time, I actually had a goal and a purpose. Souvenirs and gifts. The first on my hit list was a cigar shop. My co-worker and friend Jarret had bought an entire box of nice, cheap Romeo & Juliettas from Cuba... So I was hopeful that I too might stumble on a similar bargain. This was not in the cards, however, so I had to settle for a few T-shirts, and some Thai artwork, both for ourselves and for friends back home. After a bit of aimless wandering through some of Bangkok's various shopping districts, evening had fallen and I proceeded to one of the city's infamous night markets.

Sex was for sale everywhere, and it was the same old story of beating back the locals trying to sell it to you... Either that, or con men trying to make a fast buck. Oh man, let me tell you -- that's a story for another time, but at times it seems that EVERYONE in Thailand has been specially trained in ripping off tourists. Everything that you read in travel guides and on some Internet websites is true when it comes to Thai people and avoiding getting ripped off. Most Thai people are very polite and shy. They will not walk up to a foreigner and start speaking to them at random. If any Thai person does that (walks up to you and starts talking to you) alarm bells should be clanging - SCAM ARTIST AT WORK! I definitely found this to hold true.

In the end, I found a noce little souvenir and art shop where I bought most of my stuff. It seems that everyone who worked there was deaf/mute, as they only communicated in sign language with each other, and my interactions with them was limited to lip-reading (which they did remarkably well) and pre-written scripts on bits of worn paper that they kept in their pockets or around the shop. The English was atrocious but it got the point across, which was good enough for me. I haggled and drove as hard a bargain as I could, but the man was probably happy in the end, because I ended up buying probably a lot more than your average tourist... The T-shirts, well, I just found the first street vendor that looked a smidgen more honest than his neighbours, and purchased a couple from him. Then, I took about 30 minutes to walk through the market, getting harassed every step of the way... Ahhh, memories of Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur... One short, shifty little fellow stopped right in front of me at one point.

"Sir, sir, sir. Ping pong show! Ping pong show! All live! You come see. Ping pong show. Ping pong show. Lovely Thai woman... Please, please. Ping pong show."

So I looked down at him, as he was nearly half my height, and I tried to explain to him, "I'm sorry. Not interested."

Obviously used to this, he just kept repeating himself, "No, good ping pong show. You see."

So, I tried a different tactic: "No... I'm sorry. I can't. I'm a Christian. "

He looked at me very quizzically as this was something he was not ready for. He obviously was struggling to understand what I was talking about, since his English was not so great.

"No ping pong show. Ping pong show bad. I. Christian. Christian. Do you understand "Christian?" It means I follow Jesus. You know "Jesus." Not Buddha. "

Suddenly his face lit up in comprehension. "AHHHH!!!! I see! I see! I see! Ok. No problem! No problem! How about "masageee then?" his face remaining in a full grin as he pronounced his final 'ee'.

As he looked at me hopefully, I just shook my head, and with a sigh told him, "No. No masagee. Masagee not good. Me -- Christian. So sorry. Bye now." Then I continued on my way... But not before having to pass a short, old man standing in the middle of the sidewalk, with a hand-written piece of brown cardboard torn off the lid of a box, with the words "SEX DVD!" scrawled on it. As people would walk along the sidewalk, he would flash "SEX DVD!" to each and every person who made eye contact with him as they passed. I just about burst out laughing, because it really was quite the sight -- but at the same time, it was all very sad, seeing what so many people have to resort to just to earn a living in this awful city. My taxi ride back to the hotel was another adventure, as it seems that we chose a place that was exceedingly well hidden in the heart of a part of Bangkok that was brand new, under construction, with deforestation happening everywhere around us. Hiring a taxi was one thing, as many drivers would literally tell me "no" when I asked them to take me to the location I showed them on a map I had printed out from the hotel's website -- with directions written in Thai so taxi drivers would understand them.. The other challenge was actually finding the place since it was so well hidden. The trip from downtown Bangkok took close to an hour, and maybe even longer in heavy traffic. I'm sure Bonnie would have been worried if it weren't for the fortunate fact that our Japanese cell phones allow us global roaming, and we were able to keep in touch just as easily as when we're back home in Kofu.

Eventually, I returned in the evening, souvenirs in tow, and we packed our bags, getting ready for our middle-of-the-night departure back to the airport, to catch the 6 a.m. red eye express back to Tokyo.

It was an insane trip in so many ways! It was all just too much for my poor wife, and even though she is VERY happy to have her dive card, and also very happy to have experienced Thailand and Koh Tao, the trip left her quite burned out by the end of it all, and had to recover from her illness for almost another full week after returning home. Since then, we've managed to go diving more than a few times, as we vowed that we would not put good money to waste. Getting a scuba license is not cheap, so it would be a shame to go to all that trouble and then not scuba dive. I had already bought my dive mask in Koh Tao, but shortly after our return to Japan, both Bonnie and I had invested in our own diving gear, from wetsuits to regulators. Not only is it more comfortable to use all your own gear, since you get to really know it and become comfortable using it, but renting all the time takes a financial toll -- alright if you do it once or twice, but anyone who dives on a semi-frequent basis soon discovers that new gear pays for itself only after a few trips of not having to rent gear.

Once again, I'm sorry that this silly blog entry took so long to publish, but I do hope that everyone has at least found the time to enjoy our photos in the mean time.