Made it to LA!

I am sitting here in the Bangkok airport having a very overpriced Jack and Coca Cola Light (they don’t do Diet Coke here…its light instead).  They are very strict, it seems on the 1oz pour for 190 baht (~30 baht to the dollar…so yes $6 drink).

I wandered around Bangkok for a while today.  Didn’t really have anything I wanted to see, but I ended up at the Jim Thompson house so I took a tour.  Who is that, you ask?  Me too!  After WWII, he came to Bangkok, fell in love and moved here.  He “discovered” the cottage industry of Thai silk making and showed the product to the editor of Elle magazine sending shockwaves through the fashion industry in the ‘50s.  The King and I (the movie) used all Jim Thompson silk in their costumes.  They make fairly high priced silk products (shirts, blouses, scarves) under his name.  His house is made up of 6 or 7 traditional Thai houses (basically one room each) connected together to form a large one.  Pretty nice looking place.  He also collected broken statues and pots and what not as antiques.  Thai people believe broken things are bad luck to have in your house.  I also learned that Buddhists believe people with long earlobes will live a long time.  Our guide pointed me out in particular as being blessed…so thanks, dad.  Anyway, Jim disappeared in Cambodia in 1960’s when he went out on a walk on his vacation.  He was 61 and hasn’t been heard of since.  What they didn’t tell us in the tour is that he was most likely a CIA spy too.  There you go.  My blog teaches shit!  Pow! 

When I was walking down the street/alley the house is on, a random Thai dude asked me where I was from.  I told him Portland and then helped him mentally locate it with “west coast America”.  We chatted for a bit about Bangkok and the tsunami that occurred yesterday from the earthquake.  Apparently they had a wave yesterday about a foot high due to the quake…that’s compared to about 30 feet high back in 2004 when all those people died here.  He was a really nice guy.  Works for a bank.  Told me I was leaving a day too soon cause tomorrow is their New Years (Sangkran I think is how its spelled…could be wrong).  It’s a water festival!  I saw the super soakers going on sale a couple days ago.  Apparently its water guns, water balloons, craziness!  Seems like it would be awesome if you could overlook where the water came from and/or how dirty it might be.  Maybe next time.  I have to say yet again, Thailand is awesome.  I love coming here.  The people are so nice.  The food is awesome.  I could live here….during the cooler months. :-D  If you have the means, come visit…and let me know, cause I might tag along!

I do have a sad tale to share with you, dear readers.  It has been a habit of mine to get an animal figurine from wherever I have traveled usually being associated with something I saw while diving.  Starting in Patong (and probably should have started in Khao Lak) I have been searching for a carved manta ray.  Something small….fits in the palm of your hand…costs no more than a couple of bucks.  But searching high AND low (Sophia can attest to this) we didn’t find anything…except for this tiny (dime sized) acrylic manta that I passed over as being too small.  I even looked here in the airport and nothing.  Business idea: make wooden mantas for the tourist market here.  You will make a billion!   So on this trip, no figurine.  But last time I was here (2005), I bought both a Buddha and an elephant so I stocked up for this trip, I guess.  Plus we got free t-shirts from both diving companies we went through (wicked diving and super divers).  So I am good with memorabilia…just would have been sweet to find a manta too.  I am pretty sure I saw one in the Caymans when I was there…so if (or when) I go there again, I will pick one up.

Oh while I am thinking of it, I cannot recommend Sophia enough as a traveling companion!  Not only is she easy to get along with and we shared similar “whatever is cool” attitudes, she is also a blood hound when it comes to microbreweries!  That’s right, its all about the beer, folks.  She found one in Australia and Myanmar before I met up with her and then she found one in Phuket!  The beer wasn’t too bad either (although they could have used something with some hops!).  She even found a listing for one here in Bangkok, but we didn’t get there. 

Instead, last night we ate at a Thai place for one last Thai food blowout.  Which brings about another sad story (keep the tissues handy).  Sophia likes duck and got a roasted duck in red curry dish that was pretty freaking good.  I was going to go experimental and get “Northern Style Chili Sauce with Minced Pork”.  I mean, come on…that could either be awesome, super hot, both, terrible…who knows?  I was going out on a gastronomic limb (especially since Sophia was anti mystery meat from the roadside grillers).  I point it out to our server and hear “no have”…terrible.  I panicked…told her to take Sophia’s order to give me a chance to look for something else (it took Sophia 1.5s to say “red curry duck”).  Then I asked “what do you recommend” and she pointed to the cashew chicken…which I folded and got.  It was good, mind you, but I also could get that same thing in any Asian place in Portland.  Bleh.  So sad.

Btw, on the live aboard, for dinner and lunch, when we were having Thai food (pretty much every time) they had this glass jar full of (I think) fish sauce, chopped garlic and chopped green and red peppers.  The peppers (chilis) were such small little things.  Looking so innocent.  Spoon a little on you food and POW.  You have heat, friends.  They might be little but those things are HOT!!!!  It was awesome.  I spooned that stuff on every time they had it out.

Ok….I have rambled enough for now.  I plan to get this uploaded once I hit LA (and after In N Out…priorities, people!)  Hopefully I can get some videos up on this…for sure I have a few more pictures.  I might do a post-travel update too once Sophia gets back.  She said she would burn me a disk with her photos and videos from here too so you can see the octopus go white.

Made it to LA.  I am staying at Custom Hotel near the airport.  The best thing about this place is this.  Did a quick walk down there and back with a #1 in between.

The flight from Bangkok was okay.  I intentionally didn’t sleep much on the plan to try to switch over to pacific time again.  Bangkok time is “add 2 hours and flip AM and PM around”…so right now its midnight here, but my body is thinking 2 in the afternoon.  I am tired, but not really sleepy.  Oh well…I will try in a bit. 

Here are more pics!

Actually...first...octopus!  Upload speeds didn't completely suck.  Sort of small, but what are you going to do?  I probably need a bit better (more HD) camera for movies, but what are you going to do?  Oh and if you turn on the sound, you can hear me breathing.  Just add a French accent talking about "zee octopoose is moving along zee seabed" and its Jacques Cousteau all over again!

Mantas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That's our dive instructor, Joa, there at the beginning doing the manta dance.  We were all doing that at one point or another :-D  This was the first time I ever did video on a dive so the framing sort of sucks (I was also pretty freaking excited to get to see mantas!).  Also, the noise that sounds like a rocket taking off at about the 1 minute mark is a boat passing by overhead.  The fish that is swimming along with it is a trevally that was ~3 feet long.  The fish was big..but the manta was bigger.  Just trying to give you perspective.  Tip to tip, the manta was probably 15-16 feet wide.  

Lion fish

Banded Sea Snake

porcupine fish hanging out.

Moray eeel

scorpion fish hanging out on top of the coral

Nudibranch!

Another Nudi!!

The wall dive on Koh Doc Mai has a cave.  I was inside looking out with someone (Sophia?) coming in.  

Dancing Durbin Shrimp behind he sea urchin.  

Black looking lion fish.  Must be a Raiders fan :-D

Love to all

Our time, the people’s time!

Jim

No tsunami in Bangkok

Well we made it to Bangkok with no problems.  We are staying at a little place called Bangkok Loft Inn that’s really cheap and pretty nice.  Super friendly and only a 5 minute walk from the skytrain that will get you various places in Bangkok.  I didn’t even realize there was a tsunami alert until I was watching BBC news last night.  We are dry other than the sweat…it was 36C here yesterday and based off 9/5*degreesC + 32 that comes out to like 500F….with 110% humidity.  Warm…and damp.

Sophia has already left for the airport.  Her flight to Hong Kong (couple days there and then she goes to China for 8 days) leaves in 2 hours.  I had a great time traveling with her.  Hopefully I wasn’t too annoying.

As I was eating breakfast this morning, I realized I had tried some new fruit that I hadn’t shared.  Yes, this is the pre-picture, wordy, boring part of the blog.  Anyway, new fruit: dragonfruit and jackfruit.  Dragonfruit is pink on the outside and then the flesh is white with little black seeds.  To me it was pretty tasteless…but apparently high in fiber and low in calories so go for it!  Jackfruit on the outside looks like a  big green football (or maybe rugby ball).  The part you eat, however, are fleshy bits that surround the seeds inside it.  Sort of yellow and shell-shaped.  Jackfruit almost tastes like bubblegum.  First bite is a little off putting, but it does grow on you.  Give her a try!  Otherwise, it was your typical pineapple, watermelon, papaya (yuck!) and mango (awesome!!!!!!)

Oh, I guess I should talk about the 2 day trip to Phi Phi.  It was okay.  For sure, Sophia and I both agreed, had we known better, we would have stayed and done another live aboard in the Similan Islands (where we did the first one).  Much better diving, visibility, people, etc.  I guess you can’t win them all.

First of all, our dive guide, Tom, was awesome.  Really personable, helpful, pointed out cool fish and what not.  Really enjoyed diving with him.  We did 4 dives the first day.  None of them had a ton of fish other than there seemed to be lion fish around every corner.  Visibility ran from “meh” to “don’t look away too long or you will lose your group”.  We did a night dive as the 4^th dive and “cluster fuck” doesn’t begin to describe it.  Its dark (obviously), tons of shmutz in the water to make it low visibility even if it were light, then we all basically dove along a wall down and then back.  Theoretically, they were putting us in the water in spaced intervals, but there was an Asian dude who went in before us who was busy taking pictures and moving at a snails pace so we caught up with and were held up by him.  Then there was a group from Estonia (not saying this is because they were Estonian…just giving you the local flavor) that was all over the place.  Not too many dives, probably shouldn’t have been doing a night dive…and they basically crashed into all of us when we were looking at some seahorses…literally…crashed into…as in slamming into our backs.  Fun times.  That turned out to be a theme with them.  We would be placidly swimming along and then chaos would come paddling through…which is cool.  I understand the excitement and everything…but made it suck for the rest of us.

Anyway, saw some seahorses and some squid that dive.  Didn’t take my camera cause I was holding a flashlight…and it was so chaotic and dark and what not, I wouldn’t have taken photos anyway.  The next day we did 3 more dives.  One of them was on a wreck that had hella current and fairly low visibility.  But it also had some nudibranchs which I think have become one of my favorite things to search for.  They are little so if there isn’t a ton of large stuff to look at, searching for them makes the dive interesting.  We finished up with another wall dive at Koh Doc Mai…an island that rises straight up (and goes straight down in the water – hence “wall dive”).  It was a decent dive…saw some neat stuff…but had the Estonian chaos blow through our group about midway through.  I saw them coming and just backed off until they passed.  Good times :-D

I am now killing time till I need to leave for the airport.  My flight leaves at 7:30 tonight…and lands in LA at 9:30…tonight…only a 2 hour flight!  Plus a date line and 17 hours in the air, but who’s counting?!?!  I stay over in LA this evening cause there isn’t a connection to Portland that late.  In N Out!!!  I will probably do one more blog then just to try to include other bits and maybe more movies….

I tried uploading videos, but the upload speed here is slooooooow.  I will try again once I get to LA (if I am no completely dead).  Until then..here are some more pics:

Blue spotted sting ray half buried in the sand.

I got all macro with the camera on this purple coral.  This was maybe 3 inches high...got some fine details though.

Fish was just snoozing away sitting there.  Thought  it looked pretty cool.

Scorpion fish laying there.  Its funny, with this white balancing, you can totally see the fish.  In natural light, I was about 2 feet from it before I saw it.  Always startling because they are so well hidden...and poisonous.

Lion fish swimming away.  Still pretty cool opened fans.

A couple of clown fish hanging in their anemone.  You can tell, from the anemone strands there was a bit of current going on.  Not too bad.  I like that I got it just as one peaked at me.  Clown fish move around a LOT so getting a good photo of one is just chance.

Love to all

Our time, the people’s time!

Jim

We are about to head to the airport for Bangkok having done a day dive trip and a 2 day trip out to Phi Phi islands diving along the way and back. I think, for the sake of you dear readers, that I will split this up so you get 2 yes TWO posts out of the last 4 or 5 days. Thank me later…

Here we are in beautiful (but VERY hot and VERY humid) Patong. Lots of interesting things to see around here all within talking distance. The streets are littered with tailors, massage parlors, and stalls selling souvenirs ranging from t-shirts through wooden figures of happy Buddha. As you walk down any given street you are pretty much constantly assaulted with “boss, you need a suit?” or “massah?” (the “G” never spoken…and think high nasal-y voice). If you even glance in a souvenir stand, they start trying to cajole you into entering and buying. They even have a T-shirt that says “No, I don’t want a F*$*ing suit, taxi or a massage”. Its tempting to get one, but out of this context, people might not get it.

Strolling along the sidewalks you see the red skinned tourists who have been worshiping the sun on the beach all day. There are also “holy crap” tans going on, but most are almost lobster red. You have to feel for them…they will be hurting soon. The other oddity is seeing older men walking around with young Thai women. Surely not all of them are so, but I imagine most are lonely guy & prostitute (there are a lot of them [prostitues, that is] on the streets too).

Through some kind of karmic twist of fate, we are visiting during the elections here. Thai law dictates no sales of alcohol from 6PM the night before the election through midnight the day of. This is basically the two non-diving days we are here in Patong. You can see some restaurants are still serving…with the beer bottles tastefully covered with a koozie to provide the fiction they really aren’t beer, but the main places on Banlga Road are all closed. What’s Bangla Road, you ask? It is the reason they stole the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” phrase and substituted Patong. Bars, go-go dancers, sex shows, ladyboys, craziness…you name it and it happens on Bangla Road…but not on these two days cause the election is going on!

That’s okay though. We had a good time and then it was time to dive again. This was a 3 dive trip out to Racha Noi and Racha Yai. I dove there with Marci back when I came here in 2005 and I thought it was pretty sparse then, but we saw a cuttlefish and that might have blurred the memory. Nope…it was pretty sparse. Not great dives although we did see octopus, a turtle, and I got a great shot of a nudibranch. Our dive guide was a let down after the live aboard. He half-heartedly pointed some things out but wasn’t really all that into it.

He did, however, give us good advice on our underwater photography about using white balance to get better pictures. Both Sophia’s and my camera are Cannon and they have this “underwater” mode that sort of does white balance correction (as you dive deeper, reds, yellows, oranges all fade out to blue/black…white balance corrects for that to give you cleaner looking pictures…you hope). In this case, both our cameras have white balance adjustment where you point your camera at something white (our palms in this case when we were underwater which made it look like we were taking pictures of our hands every now and then) click a button and then it adjusts its settings so whatever you show it looks white. In the case of diving, in general, its adding reds back in. Anyway, even though the dives might have not been the greatest, we at least came away with this learning and, I think, some pretty good pictures. I wish we had known of this for the Manta Rays…they wouldn’t have been so blue. Now, on to the photos!

We went to an Indian place that apparently caters to the lovers of women...didn't see any "penitarian" dishes listed. 

These are little fans on top of coral.  Really took this to practice the white balance thing.  This was taken in about 60 feet of water...but looks pretty crisp, no? 

Octopus.  Got some prettu cool video of it swimming away too.  It kept trying to find some place to hide and couldn't.  Sophia got a clip where it turned white for a brief moment.  Pretty cool.

Nudibranch cruising across the sand at about 80 feet.  Looks pretty good, huh?  The cluster of things sticking up on the lower right are its gills.  I guess I should have rotated this picture 90 degrees, but whatever.

Peacock flounder that Sophia saw as we were crossing this loooooong expanse of sand with pretty much nothing else on it.  Makes them easier to spot when there's nothing else to see.

Looking down inside a giant clam.  Pretty cool colorings....

Turtle!

Hope all are doing well.
Our time, the people’s time,
Jim

Live aboards are cool!

We got into Phuket around 2:30 local time and were met by a nice non-English speaking gentleman holding a sign with my name on it…our driver.  He took us to Khao Lak (town north of Phuket up the coast) where the boat was launching from.  The hotel we stayed in was Phu Khao Lak resort.  Nice enough place except: they have this slot on the wall where you put your keys when you are in the room.  That powers up the AC (and the power for that matter).  In other words, if you leave, the AC no workie.  Oh and the water pressure here is weak to say the least.  The water was stronger on the boat!  Other than that, the place is nice…and has a transvestite in a position of power (I think because he/she is one of the only ones who speaks English).  They directed “boy” to take our luggage to the room.  We had a good time thinking up crazy things “boy” had to do…poor guy.   

Turns out the key in the slot = power for your room trend continues in Patong.  Much nicer room and we have a key card instead of an old fashioned key…oh and a phone!  No phone at Phu Khao Lak (at least in the room).  Back to our story….

The liveaboard was pretty cool.  There were 13 paying customers and 4 dive masters.  We dove in a group of 3 (plus dive master Joa [pronounced yo-ah]…he’s Swedish) and we were all getting our advanced divers certification.  The other diver in our group was named Paper…yes…he was from Hong Kong with his wife…Wing.  We customers all got along really well.  One Frenchman who lives in Mali (lucky bastard!), 4 Aussies, 2 New Zealanders who live in Singapore, 2 from Hong Kong, and 2 from South Africa.  It was a good group to be stuck on a boat for 3 days with.  The dive masters were all super cool.  The days were pretty much: eat, dive, rest, eat, dive, rest, eat, dive, rest, maybe eat again.  We seriously had “light breakfast”, breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and dinner wrapped around the dives we did.  It seems like we ate all the time…but the cooks were awesome and the food was great assuming you like Thai food.  Speaking of, if you DO like thai food in the states, that’s pretty much what Thai food here is like too.  Of course, if you ask for “hot” you might blister your tongue, but hey, life is there to live!  It did become almost a game for me wondering if the red or green peppers in the dish were chili peppers or not.  Take a bite and see.  Is your mouth on fire after a minute?  Yes?  Welcome to Thai chili peppers!  The breakfasts were western (bacon, eggs, etc) but the lunch and dinner were Thai and the snacks were usually fruit…MANGO!!

Our first dive was a wreck dive that was more to shake the rust off everyone than anything else.  Lots of Lion/Scorpion fish…some nudibranchs tons of fish.  It was pretty good.  The next dive was our Navigation dive (part of the advanced training).  We had to navigate underwater using a compass and using the terrain of the seabed.  We even had to do a square with a compass…swimming out, turning, swimming, turning, you get the idea.  That took up most of the dive.  We saw some neat stuff, but nothing great.  Of course, when we got on the boat, we heard the Aussies all saw mantas…that jerks.  Everyone was pretty jealous.  That night we did a night dive.  Also part of the training (although they would do a night dive anyway).  I have always been semi-scared about doing a night dive with visions of giant teeth being just out of range of the light ready to snap chunks out of me.  In reality, your field of view is limited even in day time due to the mask and the flashlights (or torches) really light up pretty well.  So it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be and was a pretty cool dive.  Got to see moray eels out swimming around hunting and what not.  Night diving = cool!

Pics (click to embiggen...and then once you get to the slideshow, you can right click on an image and "open image in a new tab" to get the even bigger version.)

Honeycomb Moray Eel 

Lion Fish

Nidibranch (exposed gills are on the right side)

Blue spotted stingray.  We were crossing this sandy area going from one reef to another and this popped out of the sand right below me.  Scared the crap out of me...which is probably fair since I had scared him out of his hidey hole.

Moray Eel living in the wreck

A little note about our cabin.  Cramped doesn’t quite do justice.  It had bunk beds that were about 3 feet wide and 6.5 feet long.  I know this cause when I lay down on the inch thick mattress on the floor (also known as “lower bunk”) my feet were resting comfortably against the wall.  The cabin was maybe 2 feet wider with no storage and that was it.  Boom.  Cabin.  Put your bags on the bed when not using…put it on the floor when going to sleep.  It worked, but wasn’t comfortable.  The boat had 3 bathrooms, 2 had hot showers and you couldn’t flush paper products down the toilets so they had a little trashcan next to it.  Not the most pleasant, but one does what one must.

The next day we dove Richelieu Rock twice with the first being our “deep” dive (also part of the advanced training) where we went to 30m (98ish feet) before checking out other things.  Played a game down there to check for nitrogen narcosis (you feel tipsy).  The second dive was fish identification dive where we took pictures of all kinds of fish and then used books to accurately identify exactly what we saw.  Good dives, but man was it crowded.  Popular dive site out in the middle of nowhere.

Banded Sea Snake.  Saw one during the night dive too.  They are black and blue banded.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!  Run Away!  Run Away.  Its Sophia!!!!!

Devil Scorpion Fish.  Can you see it?  Its mostly centered and the head is facing the upper right corner of the photo.

Spotted Box Fish.  They are hilarious...and goofy looking swimmers.

While we had lunch, we headed out to Koh Tachai pinnacle which is a cone shaped area underwater just off the shore of Koh Tachai.  We dove there and as we were descending, the mantas showed up.  At least 2 mantas who stayed around frolicking with all the divers for pretty much the entire dive.  Our dive master was saying that hardly ever happens.  Usually they show up for 5-10 minutes and then head on back out.  These dudes swam in amongst us the entire time.  One passed overhead so close I could have reached up and touched it.  Very tempting, but we were under a strict no touch policy (as every diving should be) so I shot a picture instead.  I also got some video footage of them playing with us.  I learned I need to work on my framing but I was so excited, I was just happy to get the footage.  So awesome…and they were so big.  Easily 20 feet across from tip to tip.  The next dive was a sunset dive that included a turtle…which was cool but, let’s be honest, not as cool as MANTA!!!

Manta Ray!!!

More Manta!

So cool

Its coming right for us! (with its posse)

Getting buzzed by a Manta is awesome!

A Batfish

This is a slug of some sort.  Pretty cool looking, though

The final day started with an early dive where we were fighting against a current the entire time.  Not a lot of fun when you have to paddle your feet constantly to pretty much stand still.  Blew through air and didn’t really see all that much…but the Ausies did!  They saw mantas AGAIN!  We started giving them crap about not sharing.  Really nice people…had a good time with it.  The last dive was in the same area (Koh Bon if you care).  We dropped further up current in order to just drift which is much easier…and as soon as we were down: octopus!  Just sitting there on a rock…breathing…almost looked like a Devo hat.  Then we saw Napolean Wrasse which are LARGE fish.  This one was around 2 and a half feet long and was maybe half the size of a full grown one.  Then we saw a little fish called a fire dartfish that had this little thingy on top.  Pretty neat…then MORE MANTA!!!  This one was further out “into the blue” as they say…farther from shore and didn’t come in as close and we didn’t go out due to currents….but still it was awesome to see another one that was huge.  After the dive, the guides were commenting that rarely do people get 2 dives with mantas and the Aussies with 4 were super lucky…the bums.  All awesome tho.  Loved it.

Tons of Fish everywhere.  We descended into this flurry on one of the dives.

Octopus...you can see it taking a breath...

Napolean Wrasse...really cool fish.

Made it back to the dock, got out certification paperwork for the advanced open water course.  We actually have to get a picture (passport photo sized) and send it in ourselves…to Australia, but that can be done and we will get the official card.  All is good. 

Now we are in Patong for the next couple of days.  Just got here after a 2 hour cab ride.  WE are going to head out and explore and maybe get some lunch. 

Hope all are well!

Our time, the people’s time

Jim

Made it to Thailand!!!

And we’re off!


Hey travel fans. I am sitting in the Portland airport at Laurelwood having a couple of tasty IPAs waiting for my flight out of here. I love the fact that 2 of the better microbreweries in Oregon (Rogue & Laurelwood) have bar/restaurants past security so I can enjoy a last minute microbrew. On the even more plus side, they charge the same amount in the airport as they do in their breweries…so no “you are trapped” gouging.

I am flying down to LA on Alaskan and then on to Bangkok on Thai Airlines…and then to Phuket. Anyway, the nice Alaskan lady checked my one giant bag through to Bangkok…so theoretically, it will meet me there? I have to admit I am a little worried, but I have a carry-on (on top of my backpack that has the laptop, and what not) that has some clothes, some toiletries, but more important: my mask and Sophia and my camera housings. So if I don’t meet my luggage in Bangkok, I will at least be able to go diving (with 2 t-shirts, one pair of shorts and swimtrunks…)

Some of you have asked if I will be able to watch the KU/tOSU game today and I might get to catch some of the end of the game if the flight into LAX is on time and the game runs a little late. Sophia, who I am meeting in Thailand, will happily remind me that I was the dumbass who said “its not like KU is going to make it to the final 4” back in January when we were planning the trip. I was wrong. After KU beats the crap out of tOSU, it gets even worse: for the championship game where KU slaughters a shell-shocked Kentucky, I will be on a boat heading out to the middle of the Andaman Sea, Granted, I will be in Thailand and you won’t, but missing the title game? CRAP!

I know some of you are going “who is this Sophia you speak of?” Well lemme detour and tell you about her before the adventures begin. Sophia is married to Tam (my friend out here…Bui…went to high school with his brother and sister and didn’t meet him till the first day I joined Intel in Folsom…he sat in the cube next to me. Small world, huh?). She is on sabbatical (Intel RULES! 8 weeks paid every 7 years. Suck it!) and is traveling through Australia and Asia. She is traveling in decadent luxury on this business class ticket for up to 30 thousand miles or something like that. She went to Sydney and is currently in Burma with her dad (they are Burmese). She and I are meeting in Thailand to go diving. She likes to dive, I likes to dive. Then she is going on to China solely to see Panda’s in the “wild”. On other thing to know about Sophia: she LOVES pandas. Panda crazy. Nothing wrong with that…just wanted to warn you in case you are ever standing in between her and a Panda…you WILL be trampled.

We are doing something like 17 dives over the 12 days we will be in Thailand with the first 9 being part of a liveaboard (you go on a boat and live aboard it for X [in our case X = 3 days, 2 nights] days diving from the boat as it goes from site to site). This is also a test run for me when I go on sabbatical as there are a couple of really cool sounding liveaboard trips that I am interested in but are also like 8 days long. If I am a puke factory on this 3 day trip, I am not going to do a longer one. I DO have Dramamine and I WILL be taking it…but still…3 days on a boat. On the other hand, the trip is “whale shark and manta ray expedition” so we should be getting some KILLER dives and photos.

Jump to being Asia somewhere. Right about hour 12 our of the 17 and a half hours this flight is going to take. Premium Economy on Thai airlines is pretty good. Considering it was less than half first class price and only $400 more than economy…these seats recline a lot, have a ton of legroom, and even an on demand movie/tv thingy in the back of the seat in front of you. I have already watched The Descendents and Moneyball. I may do Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy later…or one of the 30 or so other movies.

I slept for a while…they fed us a nice dinner (I did pad thai with salmon rather than the chicken cordon bleu) and then shut the lights off. I would guess they turned the lights off around 1am pacific…and then back on at 8 am for “breakfast” (scrambled eggs, sausage, and hash browns since I know you were sitting on the edge of your seat to know). Turned the lights back off and I am sort of awake right now so you are getting an update.

Slight hitch to the fun, I bought my tickets with Thai airlines online with 2 credit cards. The Bangkok leg was done with my mastercard but the hop to Phuket was on my Amex…which I didn’t bring because they charge a 3% foreign transaction fee and I didn’t want it stolen. Cut to the ticketing desk last night when they ask to see that card to give me the boarding pass for the Phuket leg. Since I don’t have it, they ask if I can remember it (no…although at this point I think I actually do have it remembered…maybe). Basically, they said “go on to Bangkok and get it there” and when I asked about the policy of needing the card they said “oh they won’t ask there”. I don’t have high confidence in this plan. But I get in with about 6 hours of layover so I will have time to convince them to refund to my amex and charge the card I do have or something. Of course, I will probably update this before I post so you, the readers, will not have to wait to find out. Wish me luck.

Oh yeah! Got into LA with like 7 minutes left in the KU/OSU game according to my phone that I turned on and got internet as soon as the tires squealed from landing. Took us 4-5 minutes of game time to finally get off the plane (thank you TV timeouts) and I found a bar with the game on with like 2 minutes left. I liked those last 2 minutes. Whew. Rock Chalk!!!

Made it to Thailand (obviously since you are reading this). The ticket thing: I had to get a refund on my one card and purchase the same stupid ticket with the credit card I had.  At least the ticketing office was right there in the airport.  Other than that, the one scary portion was when I was waiting in the departure area in the Bangkok airport for Sophia to meet up. She (unbeknownst to me) was relaxing in the 1st class lounge cause that’s how she rolls. I, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly more alarmed that perhaps she was kidnapped or delayed or something in Myanmar. When she casually strolled into the gate area 5 minutes before boarding, I was pretty freaking happy to see her. Flight to Phuket was easy, check-in to the hotel was a snap and the first day in paradise was done.

Coming up: Highlights of the 3 day live aboard trip….with pictures!!! I just wanted to get this out so you would know we are indeed alive and well in Thailand! We are headed down to Patong tomorrow and will have a couple of days of just seeing the sites there before a few more days of diving.

Hint on what we got to see when we were on the trip: rhymes with Santa and Play…..and was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love to all,
Our Time, the People’s time.
Jim