Everything’s Better Down Where It’s Wetter

That title has me humming the Little Mermaid...while I scuba dive!

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.

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).

 

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.

The Giant Stride entry

When we took a boat back to Koh Lipe, we made it a point to stay on Sunrise Beach. We could still easily get to Walking Street, where all of the restaurants and shops were, but it was way more peaceful. We made many trips up and down that street, trying to decide where to eat brunch and then later in the day for dinner. The rest of the days on Koh Lipe were spent doing all of the same relaxing things we had done on Koh Adang, with a little more exciting nightlife (which means we could drink a Chang beer while walking around before dinner). We did go to a bar where a diver was celebrating her birthday as well as the fact that she had just become a master diver that day. All of her supportive co-workers and fellow divers played a trivia game where she had to answer correctly or take a shot. They also initiated her with a drink poured into a “snorkel bong”. Now that's true friendship :) 

Moral of the story...another great trip!