That title has me humming the Little Mermaid...while I scuba dive!
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| Hey Buddy! (that's Kristina, my diving buddy) |
The school just finished the Term 3 break, which means, as
of today, that I only have ten more weeks of work left before my contract is
done. That’s exciting stuff! My week long break was even extended into ten days
due to a holiday on 31 March, perfectly timed for the Monday we were supposed
to come back from our break. Speaking of holidays, we will have three weeks in
April when we only have a four-day work week, what with the government elections
on 9 April, Good Friday on 17 April and one other holiday that I don’t know the
details of.
Anywho, here is the rundown of the Term 3 break trip,
because you know me, so of course I made it a point to travel for all ten days.
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| This Is Thailand |
Kristina and I had been planning a diving trip to The
Philippines, but the flight was relatively expensive (but don’t worry, because
it’s still on the list of future travel). We heard from a friend about a cheap
flight to Bangkok, Thailand, so Kristina had the brainy brainstorm to check out
a place in southern Thailand. (If you recall, I’ve already been to Bangkok and
Chiang Mai in Thailand in October 2012). A fellow diver in Bali recommended Koh
Lipe (pronounced ‘Koe Leepay’), an island off mainland southern Thailand. When
asked where his favourite place so far in his travels, he told us about the
island’s beautiful diving, so we wrote down the name and kept it on the list of
future travels.
We actually flew into Langkawi, Malaysia and then took a
ferry across the (water) border into Thailand. The ferry only took 90 minutes,
and they took care of the immigration for us. This means they put our passports
in a dry bag, and then gave them back to us when we arrived in Koh Lipe to get
them stamped at the little immigration ‘office’ on the beach (I assume there
something official happened while they had our passports or maybe it was like
their version of a head count, so they just could be sure no one accidently
stayed on the ferry or fell in the water).
The most exciting part before the actual trip was our
running through the airport, trying to catch our flight on time. We had a
connection from Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia to Langkawi. Our flight from
Jakarta was delayed for an hour, so we got into KL late, which meant that I had
to get my checked bag and get through immigration before even checking into our
flight to Langkawi. We landed in KL and had way too little time to get this
done. We ran from the luggage belt to the immigration line, paced impatiently
trying to figure out a nice way to cut to the front of the line. A man in line
near us suggested that we go through the empty Malaysian citizens line. We
showed the woman our ticket, and she was nice enough to stamp our passports and
let us through without a hitch. We proceeded to run through the airport, making
it to the check-in counter at 8.42 p.m. (our flight was leaving at 9.15 p.m.).
The woman told us that check-in was closed, but she called someone and said we
could check my bag as long as I paid 40 Ringgit (about $12 USD). We got rid of
my bag, got our boarding passes and rushed off, still running, through the
airport. We made it through security and to our gate by 9.00 p.m., and when we
told the man at the door that we had to get on the flight to Langkawi, he
kindly informed us that it was delayed. We collapsed in nearby chairs, let out
a sigh of relief and then laughed at how ridiculous we must have just looked,
especially to all of the people on our flight who we had just run through to
get to the gate. It was awesome!
Koh Lipe (Koh translates to “island” in Thai) is a small
island that is in its up and coming phase of tourism. There are three beaches,
all within a 15-minute walk of each other. The main beach, with the immigration
‘office’ is Pattaya, and it’s by far the most crowded. We found both the Sunset
and Sunrise beaches much more pleasant (less people and less boats).
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| View of Koh Lipe from Koh Adang |
Ocean Pro Divers, the dive shop we went with, has been open
on the island since 2003. They were fantastic! I appreciated their very
organised boat and super informative guides. They were so great, in fact, that
even though we had only scheduled three dives with them for Saturday, we dove
with them again the next weekend. The visibility wasn’t so great on our first
day of diving, but I now have an underwater case for my camera, so I attempted
to get some pictures of the sea life. The coolest thing I saw was a Cuttle Fish
that our guide snuck up on. When she put her hand near the fish, it changed its
colour as it swam away. The second best part of the diving was learning the
hand signals for all of the different fishes we saw. The strangest thing I saw
was a Sea Cucumber. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera when we dove the second
day.
After our first two days on Koh Lipe, we were ready to be
even more off the beaten path. We took a taxi boat (the traditional Thai
longtail boat, of course) to the neighboring island of Koh Adang. This island
is a part of the Tartuo National Park system, and it was even better than Koh
Lipe. We rented a tent for three nights and then proceeded to set up the
hammock on the edge of the beach. We literally 1. read, 2. napped, 3. sat in
the hammock, usually doing one of the previously mentioned activities, and 4.
ate at the one restaurant on the island. This went on for four days, with the most
grueling exercise being an easy hike to a waterfall on the second day (this did
require some path finding skills and climbing on rocks), a not so easy hike to
three look-out points for fantastic views of Koh Lipe, and then the last day
included a little snorkeling/swimming. Side note: I’m happy to report that I
did not get sunburn, thanks to many reminders to reapply sunscreen from
Kristina (and the fact that I basically stayed in the shade unless I was in the
water). I did manage to get a great tan, though.
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| The Giant Stride entry |
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| Moral of the story...another great trip! |
