Thanks for all the support and thoughts and vibes and prayers and whatnot from my last post. This is a bit cathartic for me, so it’s very much appreciated that you’ve all paid attention and reached out and cared. Anymore, it seems that people don’t really do a lot of either side of this – the sharing “hard stuff” and the reaching out genuinely part…so I really do appreciate it. It means a lot.
That said, I got some more tough news yesterday on my way back from visiting my parents for the 4th in Ohio. I was sitting in the airport in Columbus, about 30 minutes away from boarding my flight, and the vet’s assistant called and asked to confirm my email address…which they absolutely have – so I knew it wasn’t great news. After that confirmation, they said to call the doc after I read everything as he’d like to talk to me about his recommendations and options.
Long and short of it is that it’s not too good. There were 15 things they checked, and 9 of them are “abnormal.” I won’t get into those things here because after a call today, the doc let me know that some of those are just “12-year-old dog” abnormal, and some of them have to do with the tumor on his liver. That’s where some more clarity came out. Turns out it’s two tumors on different sides. The one that’s the big – literally and figuratively – issue…turns out it’s 11.3 by 15.1 by 11.8 cm large. On his liver. There’s a little internal bleeding, but the doc said for a tumor that large, it’s not abnormal to have a little bloodflow within the tumor.
He then told me my options. My gut told me that it’s a “maintain a healthy, happy pup as long as he can be one, and then let him go” but I was anxious to hear the docs reco. He said something along the lines of “if you wanted to do surgery, I just have to tell you that it’s a very, very intrusive surgery at a specialist, and we’re looking at $8-$10k just for the surgery. After that, it’s potentially multiple blood transfusions, chemo, and a lot of trips in and out of the hospital.” Well, I have a credit card and could make that happen, but I don’t want the last part of Bo’s life to be in and out of hospitals. That’s for sure. I asked the doc what his reco would be if it was his dog, and he essentially echoed my thoughts. He’s known Bo for 6+ years, and he’s been awesome, and he knows how well I take care of Bo, and he basically said that he’d be happy to do whatever I want, but did I want to have Bo in and out of hospitals, or do I want to spoil the hell out of him for the next however long he has? I choose the latter.
I asked what happens if the tumor ruptures. He said that if that were to happen, Bo would noticeably slow down even more than he is right now, and although he wouldn’t be in too much pain, he’d be uncomfortable, and that’s not the type of thing that can be recovered from. He also mentioned that the possibility of rupture would be there even if they took a sample of the tumor if I were to choose to do the $8-$10k surgery. I also asked, with the understanding that he’s a busy doctor with a lot of priorities, that if it would be possible – I’d like him to be there when it gets to a time when it’s time for Bo to go. He said he’d absolutely be there, and to call, or email, or anything and he’d make sure he’d be there. Then he walked me through exactly what would happen, whenever I choose for that if it comes to that.
Doc said Bo might make it 6 months. Knowing Bo, that might mean a year because he’s a stubborn old fart. Ideally, I’d like him to make it past September, because mom and dad are coming out to California for a trip, and I’d like them to see him before he kicks the bucket. I’m calling my shot, but he’s officially going to be a service dog by that point because their hotel only allows them. #Amazon #dontcare
Suffice it to say, I’ve been a bit emotional today. I’ll probably be a bit emotional in the coming days/weeks/months? Right now, he’s laying on the ground sleeping like the big dumb dog he is, and nowadays, he lets me cuddle the hell out of him whenever I want. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I don’t care that he wakes me up anymore. I literally embrace it. I’m gonna miss his stank ass breath at eye level at 5 in the morning at some point.
Positive vibes appreciated. Here’s hoping he makes it through September. I’ll update more as I have more feels.
This is going to be a weird one – which might end up leading to multiple weird ones, unfortunately. If you’re not in the mood for something sad, just FYI, this is going to be kinda sad.
Since about a month before I went to Thailand, Bo was acting weird sporadically. He’d wake me up at all hours of the night, seemingly to just wake me up. When I woke up, got moving, made coffee, etc, he’d just flop down and go back to sleep. He’s caused me MANY an awful, sleepless nights since then, which has been tough – selfishly.
Because it was frequent, however inconsistently frequent it was, I started looking into it more. I called my vet, and he suggested trying a few things that essentially link to dogs (like humans) growing older. I tried anti-anxiety meds which didn’t work, I tried senility-slowing chew tabs, which don’t really work, went in and got him checked out and everything seemed fine. But it kept happening. Ended up going back into the vet for blood work, and a few days later found out that his numbers for these things called “Liver Enzymes” were way high. Turns out there are four different things they check for, and three of them were high. One was off the charts high – to the point of it’s supposed to be between 5 and 100, and his was 750. So…that’s not normal. Doc suggests that preliminarily, it looks like it could be something called Cushing’s Disease. I won’t go into what all that can mean, but it’s not debilitating, it’s not the best. He sent the bloodwork to a specialist and a few days later, the specialist suggested more tests. Doc suggested I come in to have Bo get an ultrasound from one of the top Docs in the country to do it. She infrequently goes to the clinic, because she travels around so much, and it’s so specialized, but she was there today and thus, I took Bo to get an ultrasound.
I didn’t realize it, because I wasn’t told (though I could have probably assumed?) but they had to shave Bo’s belly for the ultrasound, and now he’s got a bare belly which is funny and sad. Did the ultrasound, and I knew it was probably bad news when the Doctor asked me to go into a private exam room. Funny, the first thing I thought was “in 6+ years of coming here, I’ve never been in this room. I wonder if this is the bad news room.” Doctor came in and said “I’m not going to sugar coat it” which kind of made my stomach fall out, and he went on to explain that Bo has a large “mass” on his liver. When he said large, he put his hands out in the shape of a cantaloupe. As is typical with me sometimes when bad news is delivered, I burst out laughing and said “oh, damn! that’s enormous!” He then went on to explain that he’d definitely recommend further tests, and a specialist and that surgery might have to happen, but it’s a very intrusive surgery and involved and for a dog his age, and for the cost, and and and…I kind of trailed off.
My Doc’s the best. He’s got perfect bedside manner. He’s eloquent and just a really good, caring guy. He’s going to come up with a full explanation and recommended course of action in the next few days. He said he’s open to talking it out with me as well, which I’ll take advantage of – definitely.
So I don’t know what to do. The money’s not an issue, I’ve got a credit card with a high balance, and I’ve got insurance, as well – which – since this is totally out of nowhere, I’d HAVE to assume at least part, if not all, of a surgery would be covered. But Doc made sure to mention how hard the surgery is, and there’s the potential that Bo wouldn’t make it, and being a dog his age, etc…Pretty tough day.
Highlight of the day, though, was accidentally bumping the car in front of me on the way home because I was zoned out thinking of Bo, and the girl and I went to the side of the road, there was absolutely no damage, and the girl was like “are you okay?” I said, yeah, are you okay? And she’s like, yeah. Didn’t even leave a mark. I’m like…okay, so…and she’s like, I guess just have a good day! All smiles. She seriously made my day. Just a subtle reminder that there are a lot of good people out there like Doctor Mike, and random car girl who can present some good in a bad situation. More to come.
I woke up and felt the need to write, so here I am.
I haven’t written a consistent blog in a long time, and I look back on when I did – and I hardly even remember the person who was writing. It’s funny, actually, because I KNOW that I’m the writer, and I have ZERO recollection of a lot of the stories from the 150+ pages of blog writing from years ago. I still enjoy re-reading it from time to time though, so why not.
Recently, I’ve been very “up and down.” Being in Los Angeles, working as a bartender while hoping for auditions and forcing myself to write is surprisingly daunting. Before I came out here, I knew it would be difficult – but in recent months, I’ve realized that it’s been more mentally tough, rather than physically tough. I don’t mean anything along the lines of backbreaking work kind of physical toughness, but I just thought it’d be a different kind of tough, if that makes sense.
I’ve noticed recently that I place a lot of significance on things outside of my control. For example, I don’t want to be a bartender forever, but I can’t half-ass my “for now” job. Then, I get frustrated when other people I work with or for don’t care as much as I do. I was having a nice conversation with an acquaintance yesterday, and he echoed in his own life what I’ve been feeling in mine: that he did a lot of things that nobody really appreciated at his job, and he went above and beyond what other people do, and he realized that even though he put in that effort and did it to himself, he wasn’t able to half-ass things so he had to leave in order to start working with people who had a similar drive.
Ultimately, I know I’m not going to be a bartender forever, but “for now” it is what it is. It allows me to have some flexibility, and even though it’s like pulling teeth to get coverage when I have an audition or something else pulling me away, I can usually get everything covered. Plus, if I want to jet off to Thailand for two weeks, I can! People just aren’t as open as I am to covering, which is frustrating. Then, within the work environment, I get frustrated at myself because I DO care. I want to have respect. I move quickly so that other people aren’t waiting for me. I try to do everything right, and I’m meticulous about that. I realize that some people think that I’m not pleasant sometimes, or I’m not “smiling enough” and it’s because they don’t see how hard I’m working. They don’t notice that all I’m trying to do is get a restaurant full of people as many drinks as they want, as quickly as I can, so that everybody can be as happy as possible while providing tips to me and other servers – even though with those other servers, I still get a fraction of the tipout for helping them as I would working at other restaurants. Then, in exchange, some of the people show total apathy, and wander around slowly – to the point of other people needing to pick up their slack. It’s maddening that I care enough about this to write a paragraph…and I could go on.
So, I pursue other jobs, and I write, and I do my best on my auditions. Recently, I’ve been having a very positive run of writing-related things, so I’ve been leaning into that side of my life and it’s been really gratifying for me. I was able to submit a writing packet to a new show that just got picked up with a straight-to-series 10-episode order, and I am in a pilot-writing class, and I’ve got about 6 pages done on a new pilot, too. I also have notes on a musical that I’d like to write – though that’s been percolating for a number of years, honestly, and it’s a bit more involved…but it’s still in there. So – positive!
Even in those paragraphs, you already notice the ups and downs. After having the most amazing time in Thailand, coming back to “reality” has been exceedingly difficult. I decided to give online dating a shot because I’d like to be dating again, and I met this amazing girl. I was pumped! We went out, and it was chemistry all over the place, and great vibes, and awesome conversations, etc. We made loose plans to go out again in a couple days, and I told her I’d call her the next day, which I did. We talked on the phone – which is also a rarity here – and made firm plans for the following day. Pumped! Then, I texted day-of, and she asked to reschedule for the following week. I asked if I had come on too strong, she said “no. maybe a little. i just haven’t dated in 3 years so i want to take it slow.” which was not the impression I got or she gave in our conversations. Cool. I’ll call next week. I did. She never called me back. I’ve been on a few dates with a few different girls since coming back from Thailand and this one really made me excited to date again, and then it was just – nothing. Then, after that, I have gotten some numbers and there’s still hope here and there, but it’s just LA is kind of flaky all around. I try to be open and honest, and then getting ghosted happens. It’s shocking, really, how often people ghost each other here. I’ve heard from a number of my girl friends that it happens with guys all the time, too. I just wish people were more transparent. If you’re interested, great, let’s figure it out. If you’re not, great, thanks for letting me know, now I can move on without thinking about it at all. It’s this “I don’t want to hurt their feelings so I’m just not going to let them know anything” kind of mindset that is prominent that makes me crazy.
Then, on the other side of life, there’s Bo. My 12-year-old dog I’ve had since he was a puppy is getting older. He’s taken to waking me up at 6a-ish every day, and for all intents and purposes, it seems that he just wants to make sure I’m still there. So he’ll wake me up by literally jumping on me, and he’s an 80-pound black lab, which makes that a bit of a rude awakening. He’s slowing down. He’s not able to catch treats like he used to – they just kind of hit him in the face…which secretly makes me laugh and not laugh. He pretty much sleeps all day and takes a while to get going once he needs to change locations in the tiny studio apartment we share. He’s a pain in the ass, and I love him dearly.
I’ve had a lot of realizations about him over the last few months especially – as he noticeably slows down. First of all, I never really thought through the possibility that he’d live to be 12+ years old when I got him. When I got him, I was just out of college…had a new house, a good job, a girlfriend probably? I was doing my adulting all at once. Then, when I moved out to Los Angeles and my adulting changed, it was weird. Now, I have this thing that depends on me, and at least three times a day, every day, every week, every month, every year, he needs to be taken care of. If not by me, then I have to arrange it. I can’t go out to the bars and stay all hours. I can’t stay overnight at a girlfriends house unless I make special arrangements. I can’t go hiking with him because he poops out after about 5 minutes anymore. I can’t travel with him because he doesn’t fit in the overhead bin. It’s weird! What’s super weird is that I know that sometime within the next couple of years, he’s probably going to not wake up one day. Then, I won’t have a dog anymore. I can’t say that I’ll get a dog again in a long time because on the one hand, I just want freedom. I want to be able to go away for a week or a month or a year and not worry about anything. On the other hand, as I look back, Bo’s been pretty great. He’s a pain in the ass, like I mentioned, but I wonder who he got that from? Life’s pretty short, and Bo has seen multiple houses, apartments, jobs, girlfriends, travel adventures, etc, and once that’s gone, I’ll be a basketcase. It’ll probably be my version of a 1/3 life crisis at that point. I took him to the vet the other day to get bloodwork done because he’s been acting weird recently (waking me up, as I mentioned earlier), and the bloodwork came back relatively normal with some elevated this-and-thats…but I found myself laughing because of this morbid thought: my vet bill was $424 for a day that essentially told me nothing was wrong. Then, I found out that a private cremation ceremony is $310, and a joint one is $89. I could have saved $300+! Morbid, yes. Realistic? ehhhh, not REALLY…but kinda. At some point, if I wake up and he doesn’t, I don’t know what I’d do, so I brought this all up to my vet and had a nice little morbid conversation about it, which prompted this entire thought process, but I’ve never had thoughts like that until recently so I wanted to remind future-me about it.
All of this blabbering to say that in the scheme of things, I’m doing okay. A friend came into my bar the other day and she and her new husband were very complimentary about me and “what I’m doing” and whatnot, and even though they were just being polite, I appreciated their kind words. I know that if I focus on the positive things in my life, I’d be a flying-high happy camper all the time, but those negative things that pick on me, for whatever reason, hold a little more weight in my life than they should right now – and it’s daunting. I’m aware that at some point, hopefully soon, I’ll be able to translate some of that energy into more ever-positive things, but for now, I’m at least aware of them, which’ll allow me to hopefully get past them – and thus recognize them coming on in the future, which’ll allow me to get past them more quickly next time.
I decided it was better-suited to write a blog on my website, because I don’t want to be tied to Facebook all the time. I’m guilty of that A LOT, as you might or might not know. Good for Bajillionaire McZuckerberger for inventing and propagating an addiction. I wish I was addicted to eating healthy and working out.
When I left you, I had just finished an amazing day with my second German girl of my trip. I slept like a baby, woke up early – as I had my entire trip – got ready for my day, and went up to the roof of the hostel. The sun was coming up, and there were a couple chairs up there, and it was pretty awesome to groggily wake up to a 360 degree view of Chiang Mai in the morning. I could see all the temples around me, along with part of the wall that surrounded the old city. It was quite relaxing.
I texted my German because she said that she’d love to get a coffee before we parted ways in the morning if I woke up early without an alarm. I woke up early without an alarm, so I reached out. She came up to the roof and hung out with me for a while, which was awesome, and then we got ready for our days. She was doing a different elephant sanctuary, and I was getting ready to head back to the US after a day-worth of sightseeing in Chiang Mai. It was a great morning.
After parting ways, I got all my stuff packed up into my backpack, and looked up a place I had researched before even getting to Thailand. It’s called Sak Yant Chiang Mai, and it’s a business that brings people about 40 minutes outside of the city to a small temple where a monk (coincidentally named “Beer”) will do a tattoo on you in the ancient way – with a bamboo stick and “tapping” it into your skin. I was in the mood, and I went to the place, and I ended up getting a perfectly-timed reservation and the person at the business was the one who could be my translator for the monk – who only spoke Thai – and so, we were off!
We drove the allotted 40-ish minutes outside of the city, stopping once at a market to get an offering, and when we arrived at the little temple, we were literally the only people there. It was awesome. It was me, my translator, the monk, and the monk’s apprentice.
Monk Beer was 38 years old, and he’d been doing it since he was 12. His apprentice was probably 15 or 16. When my translator and I got to the room, I didn’t know what tattoo I was going to get because you’re supposed to talk to the monk (via the translator) and say what you want out of life. The monk, then, recommends a tattoo for you.
I told him that I wanted to find and succeed at what I feel is “success”, I’d like to find a relationship I’m excited about, I’d like to be financially stable, and I’d like for myself, my friends, and family to be of good health. He suggested the “Gao Yord” or “9 peaks” which looks pretty badass on the little drawn out sheets of paper beside the chairs in the room. I was in! Sounds like a plan, let’s make it happen.
The monk went to town on my back with a long ass needle, as you can see. The traditional way involves ONLY bamboo, but for sterilization practices, they put a new steel tip on these days. The whole process felt like a bunch of bee stings, and I didn’t feel as much pain as I thought I would, which I was thankful for. Here’s the finished product:
It looks better now that it’s not red anymore. It’s also bigger than I thought it would be, but I think it’s pretty great and I’m excited about having a story aligned with my first tattoo.
After the tattoo, I was flying high. I wanted to do something REALLY crazy, so after being dropped off, I walked to a spa. I had never gotten a manicure or pedicure before, and I found a well-reviewed, beautiful looking place, and I made it happen. For an hour long manicure and an hour long pedicure, the total cost was like $35, and it was fantastic. My nails never looked better. I’d go into intimate details here, but…it’s pretty much what you know of a manicure and pedicure.
I continued walking and found my way to a coffee shop where I had a weird tea-type contraption, and wrote some postcards. I got on the internets, bought a flight back to Bangkok which left a tiny bit of time for me to get through security, and I went to dinner. This place touted rooftop views, but it wasn’t open, so I had a drink and some thai, and decided to make the last thing I did in Thailand be riding a Tuk-Tuk to the airport. It’s one of those little motorized 3-wheeled taxi-esq things, and I felt like a king being escorted away from this amazing country…here was my view:
Made it to Chiang Mai airport, got my phone charged up, flew to Bangkok’s main international airport, got through security after not having the right paperwork and having to wait in line until the very front of a 2-story long line, just to get the paperwork, fill it out, and ditch again…and then I got to the MAIN security line, and finally made it through with enough time to take a sink shower, grab a little food, and get on my flight back to the states.
Now that it’s been a month since I got back, I appreciate being back, but I appreciate being away even more. It’s been a very difficult time for me to be back in the working all the time mindset. I worked the first 12-days in a row after getting back. I know that people do that all the time, but the older I get, the more I realize that I might not be cut out for that kind of work. My bartending gig is fine for now, but I’m working on my own business that I’m starting to ramp up efforts on, so hopefully that’s a thing before too long. And I got new headshots and I’m working on a pilot script, so I have a teeny-tiny ball rolling in what I feel could be the right direction. I’m also deciding to make updates to this blog now and then with some insights I’ve discovered about my journey and myself, so check back every now and then and I hope to have something worth reading for you.
Hello again. Long time no read. Work and life have gotten in the way of my writing as of late, so I hope none of you were holding your breath until this next note.
As you last read, I had just gotten back from the elephant sanctuary. Fun experience. I got dropped off back at the hostel, and immediately went upstairs to take a proper shower and get ready for the evening. The German girl and I, along with a couple of her friends, had made plans to hang out that evening – grab some dinner and whatnot – so I wanted to scrape the rest of the elephants off of me. Showered, got ready, and headed downstairs where I saw my new friend, Bryn, and we chatted about potentially going to Pai via motorbikes together. He’s from Portland/Los Angeles, and as it turns out, we have some mutual friends. Small world, that’s for sure. As he and I were sitting in the kitchen area talking, Igor, from the main room of the hostel stood up and creepily came over, stood – stone faced in a “Chang Beer” t-shirt – directly in front of me and said the following:
“I know you came into the room last night and talked to me when I was asleep. Don’t ever do that to me. I know you had a beer. Beer is bad. I had a bad experience one time when someone talked to me in a foreign language when I was asleep, and they controlled me and it ended up just not a good situation. I know you said I’m sorry in the hallway, but just don’t EVER do that again.”
I said “Ok!” and he turned around and walked away, to sit for no less than 15 minutes staring at the wall at the front desk couch in the main room. Now, there are a few things wrong with his statement aside from the fact that it’s false and absurd. First, beer is great – at this point in my life at least, and fuck off because you’re wearing a Chang shirt. Second, when I was walking by you in the hallway earlier in the day and you wouldn’t move out of the way, I said “sorry” as I had to maneuver out of YOUR way as to not run into you, as humans tend to do to be polite. Third, if I would have talked to you when you were asleep, which I didn’t, it would have been in English, which both of us speak, so you wouldn’t have to worry about me speaking to you in a foreign language and controlling you. Fourth, you can be damn sure I’m never going to imaginarily do that ever again.
Keep in mind, this was the first set of words he had ever said to me. Until then it was blank stares and motioning to the light. I guess he wasn’t deaf.
Incidentally, what I quoted is literally what he said because immediately after he said it, turned around, and walked away…after Bryn and I started talking again to make sure we hadn’t just dreamed that, I whipped out my phone and wrote it all down for me to have for posterities sake. Insane.
I then proceeded to go upstairs, pack everything immediately, leaving no trace, and I came back down to the kitchen where I was able to get Mr. Jay’s attention, who was still in the main room, at the front desk. I apologized to Mr. Jay, but told him that I couldn’t stay there anymore because I was just threatened, and that I need to check out immediately. He asked if I could change rooms, and I said absolutely not and thank you for offering, but I don’t feel safe here, and he understood. He offered me a discount on the $8 room, but I paid the $8 because it wasn’t Mr. Jay’s fault the psychopath scared me away, I told Bryn I’d talk to him later and I left. During the waiting time for Mr. Jay to come back from the front desk, also, I was able to get a room for the night at the same hostel as the German girl, so I had a place to stay – not that there was a worry about that, because hostels are literally all over the place – but it was nice to be able to have a place to GO when I had to go.
I left, and eventually found the GLUR hostel. Not a fun name, but a beautiful hotel-esq hostel…also $8 per night. I was using Maps.me to get there, and since it doesn’t use data, the directions were sometimes not terribly accurate – having me drive down one way streets the wrong way, etc – so after much zig-zagging, I figured it out.
Glur Hostel pool area
The girls were waiting by the pool, and starving, so I tossed my stuff in my room and we were off! But wait, the person at the front desk had put me in an all girls (wonderful smelling) dorm room, rather than a mixed dorm. I hadn’t noticed because I literally just threw my stuff in there, but I wasn’t complaining. Evidently that wasn’t allowed, so I then moved next door to a mixed dorm. Extra time that the girls weren’t terribly happy about, so they went to get some food across the street at a British bar with live music that’s right on the river that surrounded the old city. I met up with them, and we had a nice meal, had a drink, had some fun, and started back.
At this point, my German girl ended up getting super sick. I felt so bad for her. She swears it was because of the fried mushroom appetizer we had at the restaurant, but I still think it was because of the elephant sanctuary because I got so sick later that night. Sickness isn’t fun to talk about, so I’ll just skip over this part and move to the next day after I had slept for something like 15 hours. It sucked, too, because I was going to go with one of Mr. Jay’s friends to get a tattoo this day, but I couldn’t really stomach doing anything, let alone getting a tattoo, so I had to send word to Mr. Jay that I needed to cancel.
Flash forward to the next night, when I was well enough to get something done. I went to the 7-11 to put some Sprite in my belly to calm it a bit, and then I went to a big night market that they have. These night markets were all over the place all the time every night in and around Thailand, it seems. You could walk for miles and get shirts or trinkets or food or anything, really, so I walked around one that was just inside the old city. This was the night I put my feet in the fishtanks, for those of you who’ve seen my instagram posts (@kolberyan). I won’t repost that, because I already did, but I was happy to have accomplished something that day.
I went back to the hostel and just wanted to chill out, so I went by the pool and got a huge bean bag chair that was there and just laid back and relaxed. In hindsight, this wasn’t the smartest thing I did on the trip (similar to eating the food at the elephant sanctuary), because I was so comfortable that I fell asleep with my hands behind my head, thus exposing my lower arms/inner elbows. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but being by a pool in a warm climate, you might guess that there were some mosquitos. Turns out mosquitos love white boys.
This is about 4 days after the mosquitos went to town. I count 15 bites. On one arm.
All together, I got over 30 mosquito bites in that evening and for the next few days they made me insane with how itchy they were. Thankfully, I don’t think any of them turned malarial, but who knows! Went to sleep and was actually woken up by how itchy they were the first night. Super!
Woke up the next day, and felt tip-top. Thankfully my sickness only lasted those few hours the day before. I messaged Bryn to see if he wanted to do the motorbiking to Pai after all, and after a while he responded that sure, sounds good. We agreed to meet up. I bummed around the city for a while before meeting with him, and then went back to the first hostel, where Igor was still there – evidently he paid up front for like a month worth or something – and Bryn and I were off.
I knew SORT OF how to get out of the city, and that Pai was North…so, I put Maps.me on my phone and we began driving. After a while, we were out of the city, and into the forest. We passed by a waterfall that both of us thought about stopping at but didn’t, and as we’re going through this super curvy jungle road, there were all these random little huts or coffee shops just plopped in the middle of nowhere. We decided to stop at one and it was this little open air shop with ice cream and pop and beer and snacks and bathrooms and food and a garden. Pretty random, but it was a good stopping point after a couple hours of driving. Back on the road, the landscape was pretty awesome. It was jungle followed by national park, followed by jungle. At one point about 3 hours into the drive, we came around this corner, and there was a military check point with cones stopping cars and guys with full military gear and dogs and whatnot. Holy shit. This was particularly “oh shit” worthy because a) I didn’t have my passport – it was back at the hostel as collateral for the motorbike rental, and b) I didn’t have an international driving permit, which you’re supposed to have. As I saw my life of joy turn to a life of hard labor in the jungles of Thailand, the military people at the checkpoint hardly even batted an eye at Bryn and me, and we barely even slowed down – so we continued our journey.
We got to Pai without incident, and I realized I was very unprepared. I had left all my stuff in the hostel, and just brought a handful of things…so I wanted to get a t-shirt and some shampoo so I could shower and fake cleanliness. I wanted a Chang tshirt so I could unironically pay homage to Igor, while at the same time sing the praises of the delicious lager that is Chang beer. It was surprisingly difficult to find one, but I ended up making it happen later in the night. Before that, Bryn and I went through a market, and bummed around the city for a minute looking for a hostel. We found one that was fully booked, and they suggested we go across the street, so we did and there was a perfectly good two-person room with a TV that we didn’t use, and a hot water shower. Score. We got ready and went into the city proper, where there was another night market, and we just walked around there getting some appetizers, then found a restaurant that didn’t acknowledge our existence so we left and went to another restaurant that was delicious, then continued walking and we stopped at a “jazz” bar and had a drink and then called it a night because both of us were pretty pooped from the day.
We woke up early the next day and since my trip was coming to an end, we decided to go to the big white Buddah statue on the hill overlooking Pai, and climb the stairs to the top. We were the second and third to arrive because this dude named Eddie was up there cleaning up the debris at the base of the statue. We struck up a conversation, and he informed us of his crazy journey that brought him to this particular point – now he was studying martial arts, and he converted his family farm to organic, and he has aspirations to do a bunch of cool stuff – so that was cool. We took some pics and headed back down. After a restroom break, Bryn and I decided to go a little ways up the road to try and find this Kombucha stand we saw on the way INTO Pai, but when we couldn’t find it, we snapped a quick pic, and we went our separate ways…me back to Chiang Mai solo, and him to play with elephants, then hang out in Pai and do part or all of the Mae Son Hong loop. Good dude, I’ll look forward to hanging out with him when we’re in the same city again.
Me, Bryn, and my Chang shirt. As you can see from the sign in the background, we were somewhere, some amount of kilometers away from somewhere else.
Wow, I’m writing a lot today.
I make the trip back and it took less than 4 hours this time, which was good because I was supposed to check out of the hostel at noon. Turns out a) I got there at 1, so I was an hour late, and b) I got the dates wrong, and I was actually 25 hours late to check out. In Thailand, evidently, that doesn’t really matter – you just have to pay for the extra day. They don’t even look at you like you’re stupid or anything. I grabbed my stuff, and then headed out.
For some reason, I really wanted to get a manicure and pedicure in Thailand. I figure, I’m most likely not going to get one in the US, so since it’s world-class and super cheap, I’m going to do it, damnit. I’m an adult. So I headed into the old city to find a shop, and it turns out I was at the street where my temple that had the Monk chat was. I took it as a sign, parked, and went in.
This time, the monks were in session, and I was able to find a particularly happy looking and welcoming monk. Monk? I’m not sure if I should capitalize that. I started into this little tent under a tree, and my monkMonk greeted me and was like “do you want to do the Monk chat?!” And I’m like, yeah! And he motioned to his monkfriend, who GOT OUT AN IPHONE AND STARTED RECORDING US TALKING. Turns out, this monk chat is a part of his training, where he practices English, and he has to get it recorded for his teacher to evaluate the conversation. Hilarious. Since he had his iphone, I got out my camera and started recording as well, but he started talking so quickly, I wasn’t able to find my microphone, so the audio could certainly be better, but I got the whole chat. At some point, when I edit my video together, prepare to be officially learned.
My monk chat monk.
As I was talking to the monk, he said to someone over my shoulder “Were you trying to do the monk chat?!” and this girl said “I am, but I’m just a little shy” and he said, “Come on in!” So she did. The two of us ended up chatting with the monk and asking him about his life and whatnot for a while. Then, when we were done, and the monk was done, we were on our way, but I was just buzzing about how cool it was, so I asked the girl if she’d want to talk about what just happened and she was like, sure! So we went across the street to a little coffee shop and talked about it. She’s ALSO german, loves Disney and punk rock, and had some great stories. We talked for a while, then I had to return my motorbike. I didn’t want the conversation to end, so I asked if she had plans for the evening – she didn’t – so I asked her if she’d want to return the motorbike with me, and then walk around the city. She did, so that’s what we did.
I was going to originally fly back and stay in Bangkok for a night because I hadn’t really spent any time there, but since I hadn’t gotten my flight yet, my plans were flexible. She hopped on the back of my motorbike, and I drove us to my hostel to return it. We went in the front, and Igor was there sitting and lurking, the motorbike rental lady came back, gave me my passport, and my German girl and I were on our way.
Since I didn’t have a place to stay for the evening, since I thought I was leaving, we went to her hostel, and I asked if they had room. They did. I checked in, and my German and I decided to get ready and meet back downstairs in 45 minutes so we could start walking.
She cleaned up real nice and looked super cute, and I tried to make the most out of my one clean “look nice” outfit, and we were off. We walked around the city for a while, went to a night market, and just walked around there and talked for hours. It was awesome. I was her boyfriend for the night, except she was hung up on some guy she used to date so we didn’t end up making out or anything. I wanted to, though. Ha. The night was awesome, though. We ate, talked, looked at a whole bunch of masks and clothes and trinkets and it was all open-air market style, so it was cool as shit. We ended up staying up talking til 1:30 or so in the morning. Awesome. More later.
I took a hiatus, as you can see. Bo has been waking me up multiple times a night for some reason – I think it’s just to make sure I’m still alive – because when I wake up, I’ll start my day and then he just goes back to sleep. What a dick. Last night, though, I was so tired I went to bed at 9:30 thinking that if Bo woke me up multiple times through the night, I could at least go back to sleep multiple times and in combining those multiple times, I could get a decent nights sleep…BUT, he didn’t wake me up until 5a! I took him outside, and then went back to sleep until 6:30a! I’m a new man! My fingers are writing like the wind! Lots and lots of exclamation points!
Okay. Back to reality, oops there goes…wait, no. So I left off at finishing up my fun dives and fun times on Koh Tao. Tear. Didn’t want to leave, but forced myself to because it’s a long trip to the other side of the world, and I wanted to see more of Thailand to make sure I’m making the correct irrational decision to pick up and move there at some point. Since we just finished the fun dives, Erin and I had a celebratory drink whilst updating my dive book, and then we had a celebratory drink to celebrate finishing our celebratory drink, and then Albert showed up, and we celebrated that, and then he returned the celebration, and then I thanked him for returning the celebration. By the end of it, they had to ship in more Chang beer to the island. I took a minute with Albert to go buy the scuba diving video from our open water certification, and it looks awesome, I can’t wait to share bits and pieces of it when I finally put together the video I’m going to eventually come up with. I made sure to check out, even though I hadn’t had to pay for my room since I was taking class the whole time, and then I went to the little mini travel agent / laundromat in the front of the resort to see if I could snag a ferry to Koh Phangan in the morning. Since I had been waking up so early anyway, I thought I’d get the 6a ferry, which means I had to be at the pier at 5:30, which means I had to leave the resort at 5 at the latest (since I wanted to walk along the beach, and figure out my way back to the pier, and it’d take about a half hour to do so), which means I wanted to wake up at 4a so I can get my stuff together, and not be late. I’m a selective planner. After buying the ticket, I went back and hung out with Albert for a while and drank a few more, and had a great time. Went to bed to wake up early and say goodbye to this paradise.
I wanted to go to Koh Phangan because every full moon they have this debaucherous full moon party where everybody gets hammered and dance with fire and make out and dance to techno and paint their bodies and whatnot…I thought about going to it, but decided against it because a) all of that except for the making out sounds horrible to me, and b) the next morning was the start of my advanced diving class, so I didn’t want to be hungover. Regardless, AROUND the full moon party, there’s a water park set up, and they had something called the “slip and fly” which is like a giant, inflated slip ‘n slide down a mountain that launches you into a pool like a ski jump. I really wanted to do that and get it on video, so I went early, and got that ferry to the other island…only to find out that the slip n fly opened at 11a! That morning, I had bought a $32 flight from Surat Thani (the airport I had flown into on the first night/day to get to Koh Tao) to Chiang Mai – which is in the Northern province of Thailand, and my flight was leaving at 4:30. The ferry from this island to the pier at Surat Thani left at noon in order to get there on time (including the 1.5 hour bus trip from the pier to the airport), so since the slip n fly was in the middle of the jungle, I wouldn’t have had time to do it all. Thus, I ended up bumming around this island for breakfast, and I wrote some postcards, and I had some coffee and then sat on the beach with a beer and just relaxed for a few hours. It was awesome. I didn’t know I needed it, but I did. Walked back to the pier and got on my ferry and promptly took a nap.
The ferry was pretty uneventful, and we got back at the time they thought we would (which is evidently hit-and-miss in Thailand), and the bus got me to the airport in time to go through security (where they took my damn aloe), and I had enough time to get a ham and cheese croissant and a beer at the one cafe in the terminal. Then, I was off to Chiang Mai through Thai Lion air, and it was the cleanest, most beautiful plane I’ve been on. Not terribly fancy, but it was almost like a Virgin airlines flight with blue lights highlighting, and good leg room, comfy seats, totally clean. It was awesome. Plus, I had the row to myself, and two very inquisitive little people in the seat in front of me who entertained me for a lot of the two hour flight.
Curious about the big bearded white dude snapping a pic.
I arrived in Chiang Mai without a hitch, and the airport reminded me a lot of some of the smaller airports here in the states. Not as many Americans in it, but similar structure, you see. I figured out how to get out of the airport, and I started looking at my internet device to see where the hostel that was recommended to me was in relation to where I was currently. This place was called the “SEE Hostel” and this guy who came into my bar RAVED about it, and how nice the people at the front desk were, and how accommodating they were, etc, so I was excited to get there and see if they had space for the evening. Turns out it was less than a mile away, so I just started walking. I followed my maps.me app, which does directions without needing an internet connection, but I came to find out on this particular walking tour, it doesn’t really take into account some minor details like how walking through parking lots might not be beneficial if there are locked gates and walls that you have to jump over to get to the route, and dark back alleys that weren’t the most welcoming of spaces to contend with. Aside from that, I was able to find the hostel, and – true to the story – the reception people were so very nice, and they had space. Mr. Jay was the front desk man, and he asked me to follow him to my room on the fourth floor.
Now, if you’ve never had the pleasure of staying in a hostel, you should definitely do it. 9 times out of 10, you’ll meet cool people with great stories, you’ll stay on the cheap in super well-kept rooms that afford you some privacy by having curtains around your bed, or a separate kind of pod all together. I have not had a bad experience in a hostel up until this point, but evidently this was the 10th time I’ve been in a hostel, as you’ll find out soon enough.
Mr. Jay brought me to the door, and he knock, knock, knocked on the door and called out seemingly the current tenant’s name to make sure he knew we were coming. Nothing. Knock, Knock, Knock, tenants name?! Nothing. So, Mr. Jay naturally opened the door, and the tenant was standing at the other side of the 8-person dorm room looking directly at the door, stone-faced, and stretching his arm from right to left. Okay. Mr. Jay said, “oh, Mr. Blahblah, I didn’t realize you were in here.” Nothing. Okay. Mr. Jay pointed to my bed and explained this would be mine for the night, and he pointed to the locker and said this would be my locker and it locks and everything. He then took me out and showed me the bathrooms and the showers, both very nice and private. He then left me to Igor. I tried to introduce myself, and the guy didn’t say anything. Okay, we’re not going to be friendly, sounds great. So I got situated in the room, locked everything up, took a shower – with hot water! – and got some clothes on so I could figure out some food. Left without any interaction with my hostelmate. Didn’t really think anything of it at this point.
I asked Mr. Jay where I should eat, and he directed me to a night market that was about a mile away, so I walked and there were tons of little carts with people making food in front of you. Traditional dishes, sushi, smoothies, meat-on-a-stick, etc. Both sides of the street, and a median filled with these carts and tables and chairs you can eat at. It was great. I walked and walked, got myself a beer (you can drink anywhere there), and found some sushi. Then, I found some corn on the cob. Then, I found some meat on a stick (I got chicken, pork, and heart of some kind. The heart was delicious.) Then, I got an apple/strawberry smoothie. Then, I got some chicken and chili. Then, I was almost comatose from eating for a couple hours and spending a whopping $4 or something ridiculous. I walked around the city for a bit, and then headed back to my hostel. Got one more beer to wind down with for the evening, and I went to my little bed, and just played on the internet device until going to bed. At one point, Igor peeked through the infinitesimally small crack in my curtains and pointed to the light on the wall with an “okay to turn off the light?” kind of look, and I gave him the “okay” symbol with my fingers. Maybe he’s warming up to me. Also, at this point, I think he’s deaf since he doesn’t even attempt words…so I tell myself in the morning, maybe I’ll try and introduce myself in sign language (I know a little), and maybe he’s just shy about trying to talk or something.
Slept like a baby, woke up early, and Skyped with the ‘rents. They got a real kick out of Skyping with me when I was in Thailand. We did it a couple times, and since it was over wifi, the clarity was the same as it is here in the states, which blew their mind. They were happy to see that I was doing fine, and having an awesome time. After that, I signed up for a motorbike, which would be there at 10a – they deliver! And I signed up to go to an elephant sanctuary in the jungle! Its one of the ones where they don’t do riding because that’s bad for the elephants, and this one in particular saved a number of elephants from “work farms” or the like.
The motorbike was delivered on time, and they took my passport as collateral. No pressure! I told them I’d return it in 3.5 days. It cost about $10 per day, unlimited miles, etc. I did a little test driving around the city just to get lost a bit, as it’s been a minute since riding a motorbike. I did just fine, and got back to the hostel in time for the elephant sanctuary tour to pick me up. The driver had his own truck, and the back of the truck was just open-air with bench seating on either side and some grab rails to make sure you didn’t fall out when going down the highway. I was fortunate, as I was the last person to be picked up, and so I got to sit up front in the air conditioning. The ride was uneventful, but we did stop for some reason at a 7-11 and waited there for a half hour while our driver, and a number of other elephant tour-drivers, just waited? Not sure what we did that for, but it was fine. Continued the drive to the middle of nowhere jungle when we got to the final stop.
This was very jungle like. Huts and whatnot. But everyone was very nice. The elephanting was pretty badass. We first had to put on the proper clothing for the tribe’s location we were at in the jungle. Then we could start meeting and feeding the elephants by hand. We literally held bananas and fed these giant elephants (and one baby) by hand. It was so cool. I looked like a giant dork, but I had my gopro on my head and filmed a POV of a lot of it. I’ll look forward to sharing that as well. After that, we changed into our bathing suits (in the “bathrooms”) and walked down to the giant mud pit…where we proceeded to throw mud on the elephants and the elephants just started rolling around like enormous dogs…which LITERALLY moved the earth under us. It was wild. Just giant heaps of mud sloshing around on these elephants. It was quite fun. They had a photographer there, too, so even though I have the gopro footage, I’ll add some of those pics later, as well. Then, the elephants were guided down to the river and we splashed the elephants with water to clean them off. Big ol’ water fight. The whole experience was very cool. I’m glad I did a half day, also, rather than a full day. A half was fine. We got back up topside and took “showers” and got ready for the meal they had prepared for us…which, in hindsight, was super stupid of me to eat because a) I had no idea how long it had been sitting there, and b) I had just been playing in mud and elephants and I hadn’t totally deloused myself of everything possible. This came to all be realized later in the evening when my insides woke me up at 3a, and told me they all wanted to be out…immediately. I won’t go into any more detail than that, but the next day I was laying low and sleeping a lot until I felt better in the evening. I met an awesome German girl at the sanctuary, too, and we had some great conversations…and she also got sick that night.
Sit. Roll over!
Aside from the aftermath, the elephant sanctuary was pretty great. Big fan. Now, I’m tired of writing this morning, so I’ll leave you in the dark about Igor’s interaction with me when I got back from the sanctuary…and the resulting immediate move to another hostel that same day. More later…
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to write these because a) I want to make sure I write down and remember every detail of every moment (except for the food poisoning) of my trip to Thailand, and b) each time I write, I want to be back there…rather than writing about it.
I’ve been back to work a few days, and it’s…fine…made some good money, which is…nice…but it’s still super tough to be back. I got back on Tuesday, worked my internship at Second City on Wednesday, worked Thursday, Friday, last night, and will work tonight at the bar…then I have my internship again Monday, writing class starts Monday night, then I work Tuesday through Friday at the bar again…first day off is on Saturday. Ugh. Take me back to the beach.
Back to the trip, I go.
Day 4 of my open water diving certification started at 5a, then 6a for a quick breakfast before getting on the boats at 6:30. We were diving at an area called White Rock, and in the water at 7:23a according to my handy dandy official dive book. This was a fun dive, and we saw all sorts of fish, including (but not limited to) the following: Wiebels Butterfly Fish, Slingjaw Wrasse, Golden Trevally, Moray Eel, Bluespotted Ribbontail Stingray (which I saw again on a later fun dive where I had my GoPro – video later!), Crocodile Needlefish, Sergeant Major, Titan Triggerfish and a ton of these things called Christmas Tree Worms…which looked like, you guessed it, Christmas Trees, but they were about 2 inches tall, and if you got close enough to them and waved your hand over/near them, they’d suck back into their…trunks?…and disappear. They were all sorts of different colors. Awesome dive and we were down about 37 minutes.
Dive 4 was at Twins, and we did our final task, the “Mask removal and replacement” which went off without a hitch. We also saw MORE fish…shocker! This time we saw: Giant Grouper (and holy shit were they giant), Longface Emperorfish, Chevron Barracuda, Yellow Prawn Goby, Parrotfish, Longfin Bannerfish, Sea Urchin galore, and Magnificent Anemone. In the water at 8:57a and out after 42 minutes. After finishing all of this, we surfaced and were officially deemed certified Open Water Divers. That means we could go to at most 12m. We celebrated by doing jumps and dives off the top deck of the dive boat, and then headed back into shore…where I immediately decided I wanted to stay on the island, and do the Advanced Open Water Dive course.
This is precisely the point at which I began appreciating the fact that I hadn’t planned this trip out at all, really. The only thing I planned was getting to Koh Tao that first day, and everything else was researched, but up in the air. Since I didn’t have any return flights booked, or hotels, or anything, I could stay an extra few days if I wanted to…and I wanted to. That night, Nick and I feasted on Steak and Barracuda at the restaurant at Big Blue, and it was fantastic. We officially signed up for the Advanced class, so it wasn’t a crazy partying kind of night because we were to be diving again in the morning. I was okay with it. I actually didn’t really party much at all this trip – it just didn’t turn out to be that kind of trip – which I was okay with. I did some drinking and whatnot, but didn’t really GO OUT go out. I had some nice meals with new friends and I explored and did exactly what I wanted to do.
Advanced Adventurer was the next certification level for an Open Water Diver, and it consisted of 5 more dives (oh darn). Dive 1 of Advanced (dive 5 overall) we worked on Navigation underwater. We lead each other around, and learned the way to get around with a map and points of interest under water. Quite cool. Got to a depth of around 14m at a dive site called Laem Thian. We went back to Japanese gardens for the second dive of Advanced, where we practiced “perfect buoyancy.” I was a little wobbly under water trying to not move at all when I breathed, but it was fun. Part of the “testing” was having a weight put upright on the ocean floor, and us gradually turning ourselves vertical above the weight, slowly lowering ourselves to it, so we can gently knock over the weight with our nose or regulator. It wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever done, but I did it…and it was very rewarding. I had had some issues with my buoyancy and just getting used to it down there, so I was happy to accomplish the task. The third dive was later that day, and it was the night dive. It was cool as shit because we went out on the boat toward sunset, and once we got to the site, we got in the water as the sun was gradually going down, and when we got to about 14 meters, it was totally dark. Eerie and weird at first, but we had flashlights (torches) and a lot of things were coming out that weren’t out during the day so it was all really cool to see. At one point we stopped, held our torches to our chests so it was perfectly dark, and then we waved our hands around in front of us furiously and there were these little bioluminescent things glowing when we moved. It was pretty awesome. Dive four was the next day, where we were doing our advanced deep dive. It was crazy because down to about 15 or so meters, it was perfectly clear! We were swimming by a school of barracuda, and tons of fish were just being all fish-like all around us…then we kept descending, and all of the sudden the visibility just went down to next to nothing. We got down to about 28 meters, where we did some tests to see if the depth messed with our brains because of the nitrogen in our bloodstreams (I’m pretty sure that’s what we were checking). Our instructor did simple math with us – like, he held out 10 fingers, then 5, and you’re supposed to subtract…so you’d show him 5 fingers to show that your brainparts are working right. It was hilarious because one girl, he showed something like 10, and then 5…and she looked at him like he was an alien…then she looked at her fingers like she was tripping balls, then she tried to start counting on her fingers, then she held up like 3 fingers or something. Even underwater I could tell he was getting a kick out of it. He then brought out some eggs, cracked them on his watch, and then due to the pressure, the yolks stayed in tact, so we played a little volleyball with the egg yolks. He also showed us how colors are affected at that depth by displaying this board that had various squares of color, and it all looked like different shades of green to me…and some brown…but when he held his flashlight over the colors, blues and oranges and reds came out. It was trippy. That dive was at a site called Chumpon. Then, the final dive was at a shipwreck! Now THAT visibility was even worse. It was so bad that we had to surface, reposition ourselves above water, then use the buoy line that was pretty much attached to the shipwreck, lower ourselves down and stick close together because we couldn’t even really see our hands in front of our faces. That was eerie as shit because even when we got down to the wreck, we couldn’t see it…but we kept floating around, and then all of the sudden we were literally on top of the wreck. So cool. Up topside we were informed that we did it, and we’re officially certified as Advanced divers, and now I can go diving anywhere in the world to a depth of 30 meters.
I plan on doing just that, too. Once Bo gives his blessing, I feel like I’m going to have a lot of new decisions in my life, and one of them feels like it’s going to be to move to Thailand for a while…get more certifications…maybe get a job there. It seems just crazy enough to work…and be fulfilling and amazing and great. It’s probably one or two or three years off yet, but it’s still a possibility. It was just such an amazing time.
Before leaving Koh Tao, I was able to do a couple more “fun dives” with my friend, Erin, from college. These were my favorite because we didn’t have big groups of people around us, and it was just chill and at our own pace. I was also able to take my GoPro with me, and Steve let me borrow his red filter (which adds red back into the image because red is the first color to “go” within the first 10 meters of depth). I was so close to so many fish and coral and I got some cool ass footage of a couple stingrays – one of which got up and floated away while I was filming! We dove at Red Rock Drop, and then again at White Rock. Such an amazing couple of dives.
Net/net, in about 6 days, I went from never being in Thailand and never scuba diving to being on a beautiful island in Thailand and having two scuba diving certifications under my belt along with 11 dives. Unreal. What an amazing trip, already…and it wasn’t even halfway done. More later…
It’s occurring to me that at this rate, I’m going to have about 13 parts to this story. Admittedly, this is more for me to be able to remember, so the copious amounts of information is beneficial to my ever-aging brainparts, so I won’t be offended if you go glassy eyed (if you haven’t already!) and not read. In lieu of that, onward!
We started off this particular day with a review of everything we’ve learned, followed by a 50-question exam on all of those things from the first couple days worth of class. “Class” is pretty broad, by the way, because I was in paradise learning about SCUBA, so the stigma of “class” wasn’t really present…I could have been learning about some mind numbing subject like Accounting or something and been okay with it in this setting. I ended up missing a few, but I passed – as did everyone else in my class – so we were all able to go out into open water! First lunch, then we grabbed all our things and were off for our first open water dives!
I feel like it’s understood, but just in case – “open water” just means not in a pool. We were in the Gulf of Thailand, which is technically part of the Western Pacific Ocean. The first dive we did was in an area on the North side of Koh Tao called Mango Bay. A little side note, but there are something like 54 scuba companies on Koh Tao…when you go underwater, you understand why. So, when we arrived at Mango Bay, I got a glimpse of about 15 or so of those outfits. It’s funny to think back about how busy it seemed above water – with a bunch of big boats hauling people and gear around – but then under water, it was like we were the only people for miles.
Once we got in the water, and swam a bit toward the shore so we could ease down for our first dive, I started to understand why Mango Bay was our first destination. I’m sure there are a few of these areas for new divers, but this particular area was vast, and sandy. If our buoyancy was off and we were dragging ass on the bottom, we wouldn’t be kicking coral or shipwrecks or anything, and there weren’t a ton of fish so we weren’t terribly distracted. Perfect place for a first dive. That said, I was a little intimidated about the whole “breathing on my own under water” thing still, even though I had spent literally the entire afternoon the previous day doing it. Once we started descending, however, all of that kind of melted away because I was freakin’ breathing under water in the ocean! It was cool as shit. Gradually getting deeper into the water, equalizing (popping my ears), and looking around came very naturally to me and I was focused on form and just trying to see Jaws. I don’t know what kind it was, but the first actual live fish I saw under water while diving was a little white fish that was probably 8 inches long and about 5 inches tall and kind of skinny. I remember very vividly thinking “holy shit, that’s a fish.” It was fucking unbelievable.
We scurried around under water for a while – most of us did pretty well, but one or two people had some difficulties. We were all a team though, and at the end of the day we did fine. We were down there for about 45 minutes or so, which was actually a pretty long time especially for a first dive, and it was awesome. Along with just enjoying being down there, we had to do certain tasks that we had learned and practiced so that we can be smart under water. Steve and Nikki gave us dive log books, so we could remember all the stuff we did and since I didn’t remember all the stuff I did – I shall now recite what all we did from said log book: Regulator retrieval (where we took our regulator – the breathing apparatus – from our mouth, threw it away from our mouths and practiced a couple different ways to retrieve it without freaking out), partial/fully flooded mask (where we put a little water into our mask, or fully flooded it, and practiced the right way to get that water out), hover with oral inflation (where we practiced our buoyancy by breathing into our BC rather than using the air from our tank), air share stationary (where we practiced an emergency of one buddy – you always dive with a buddy! until you get to specialty courses – running out of air, and sharing air to stay alive), and a 3-minute safety stop at 5 meters as to let your body start to get back to “normal” after being underwater. All of the above really made me feel pretty damn cool just to be able to do it. I felt like even though we had only done a couple days worth of training, all of it was (literally and figuratively) sinking in, and I felt comfortable.
Dive two was around the bay a little ways at an area called Japanese Gardens. Again, there were a lot of people around, but once we got under water it was a different world. The tasks we did at this dive were: mask replacement / removal (where we completely take off our goggles and figure out how to get them back on), air share ascent (sharing air with a buddy while doing a controlled ascent), and power inflate (similar to the oral inflation, but using our tanks instead of manually blowing it up). Dive time was 37 minutes, and there were a lot more fish in this area which was cool. I seem to remember that it was pretty cloudy, though, around here because there were so many people kicking up sand, etc. Not bad though. The WORST was when we went to the shipwreck – there was next to NO visibility there. More on that later.
Awesome first couple dives to round out day three of open water. The next morning, we’d be waking up early to do our last two dives before becoming officially certified open water SCUBA divers! More later…
After a lovely motorbikin-son-of-a-bike kind of day, we decided to get some food at a little tiny restaurant up the road called “Mama Piyawan” and here’s a picture of Mama in front of a wall of worldly thank you notes she’s received for her delicious meals.
When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s pad see ew.
I got some kind of dish with a beer, and Hy got a soup thing with a Coke. Then we started chatting with a very nice couple next to us who it turns out met at work, and has taken their jobs on the road. They’re traveling and working all over the world doing social media, and they were just a really cool couple to talk to. I hand it to Hy for being the chatter, but at one point in the conversation, evidently Hy started eating my food and I didn’t notice, and then when I ordered a Coke for myself, evidently she switched mine with hers because mine was more cold. I had no clue.
After lunch, we came back to Big Blue and were to officially start our open water diving course. I’ve had a few people ask me about it, so I’m going to go into more detail about the class itself, but it’s an internationally-known school of SCUBA teaching called SSI. In California, PADI certification is pretty normal, and the only difference between SSI and PADI (as I have been told) is essentially the PADI certification class was more expensive, got a physical manual (rather than the SSI app we used), and when doing the official certification, there’s a specific order in which you have to do the tasks. Tasks such as removing your mask, buoyancy control, removing your regulator, etc. With SSI, we still did all that and a lot more, it was just not necessarily in the same order as the PADI cats did. It was crazy, too, because in my ENTIRE life, I haven’t ever really thought of SCUBA diving as a thing I wanted to get into but a friend from college, Erin, has been in Thailand teaching SCUBA at Big Blue for a while now, and the pictures she posted always piqued my interest, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Class started at 4p, and we were to meet near the office/reception area/store/restaurant on the patio downstairs. We all kind of met everyone at the same time, and since Hy and I had already hung out, we were at a bit of an advantage. Plus, she’s super chatty and she immediately knew everyone in class. I take a few minutes to get warmed up, but I did fine. For the first day, we were just watching videos and doing paperwork and downloading the app, etc, so we had an instructor who was just temporary who started the videos and guided us through day one. That stuff lasted about two hours, not bad. We went through everything we’d be learning, and got all set up. It took me a while to get my app to download because I forgot my damn password to the apple store because I’m an old man, and then once I downloaded it, it took a while to get me set up through SSI because I used my Hotmail email address in case they decided to spam the shit out of me. Turns out Hotmail didn’t want to work properly in Thailand, so I had to figure out my password for THAT as well, and get to it via Safari on my phone, check spam, and then set up the app through there. A few more hoops than I would have hoped, but it was painless. Class finished, and we had homework to do, so Hy and I decided to not do that and go into town instead and find some more food.
This is where my days start to get kind of mixed up, but I THINK this was the evening we ended up going to the little Thai place down the road in town that had a dead duck hanging in the front “window” aka the ice cream esq. fridge at the front of the restaurant. This place was supposedly THE place to get roasted duck on Koh Tao, so who were we to not get roasted duck there. I think we ended up getting the same soup, but I ordered mine only a little spicy and Hy ordered hers moreso. The soup came, it was delicious, but there was NO spice, so I put a dollop of chili paste in there and immediately upped the spice-ante. It was quite tasty. Finished the meal, and went back to the resort. I think I ended up drinking a few beers and looking over my homework like a good little student, and then I went to bed when the bar was closing…at around 10p. I was just chillin’ down there, and all of the sudden I was the last person there and I’m like, oh, right, island time, mon.
Woke up the next morning at the butt-crack of dawn, again. Went down to the restaurant and chilled on the patio overlooking the water, again. Then got the American breakfast, again, when the restaurant opened. A couple shakes, and a couple fruit shakes to wash it all down, and I was ready to start class. I think this day we started at 8? Maybe it was 10. It wasn’t super early, we’d be saving that for the next day, but we were to spend the morning going over rules and instruction about how to properly SCUBA dive. I didn’t know ANYTHING about it, so I was trying to listen intently, and for some reason – in Thailand – I was able to hear much better than I do here. Maybe that’s more of an existential kind of realization, whereas maybe I was much more PRESENT in Thailand than I tend to be here, but it was an observation I made a few times throughout my trip, nonetheless.
When we all re-met in the morning, they divided our original big group into a couple smaller groups, and our official instructor for the class was Steve (not Steve-O, who was different), aka “Slars.” He was this bearded, moppy haired Australian who was very chill right off the bat. Big fan, and my type of dude. Former plumber, Steve had been on Koh Tao for a while as well, and he inadvertently made a very strong case for me wanting to be on Koh Tao for a job as well. I had a number of thoughts to that point throughout my trip, but even this early on in the vacation, I was like…yeah…this life could be truly awesome. We also had Nikki , a saucy Brit, as an instructor-in-training helping with the class. Nikki was a lot of fun – we seemed to have a similar humor style, and supposedly she knows her way around handcuffs. I chose to take that in a particular way, and you can too. My class was a good one, but after being able to hang out and talk with everyone, I really liked Albert, Nick, and of course Hy. Those are the three people who are NOT me in the main picture. I think I mentioned it, but Hy is Canadian, and Albert is from Spain, and Nick is a Londoner. I don’t really remember what Albert does, but Hy works in Marketing and Sales, and Nick is an Actuary for a big company. He seems to like it, though, I admittedly still don’t really understand what he does. He explained it in depth, but my stupid American brain zoned out once his British-English started being all smart.
Class started and we went over the main rule which is to always be breathing. Intuitive, but necessary to reiterate over and over. Before class, I was most worried about my ears popping (equalizing) underwater, and the whole breathing under water thing wasn’t a consideration, but yeah…that’s pretty damn important. After hours worth of “how to” when in the water, and a quick lunch, it was time to be fitted for our equipment and getting in the pool.
They have a special pool that’s for diving, so there’s a deep deep end, and a shallow end to practice things in. I got my fancy flippers, Buoyancy Control, and shortie wetsuit along with some goggles and snorkel. We learned the ins and outs of weight belts, and how to put everything together, and after a 15 minute float and swim in the pool to make sure we could float and swim, we were officially in the pool for the rest of the day. Lots of learning happened, and it took a LOT of time – so much so, that my hands were the most wrinkly they’ve ever been. It was weird. They were almost cracking they were so pruney. But we practiced everything multiple times and though it was a lot of information, and a lot of work, it was a lot of fun. There was a moment toward the end, though, that I was concerned because my chest was definitely feeling it and I’m like, oh shit, is there something wrong…but it turns out if you’re breathing through a tube underwater for hours and hours and hours and you’ve never done that before, your chest and lungs are getting a workout that’s probably going to be felt for a while afterwards. In fact, I felt it the next morning, too…but Slars set my mind at ease by essentially reminding me that I was breathing underwater for the first time and it took some getting used to.
I was so tired after class all day that I don’t even remember what I did that night. I probably drank some beers and I know I went over some additional chapters for homework, but admittedly, I probably could have spent more time on the latter, and less on the former, but it was all good. The next morning we were going to go over everything we had learned on this day, and the previous day anyway. Plus, the next morning was open water! More later…
My trip officially started on March 9th. After a full, full day of travel on the 8th, I didn’t do much other than check Koh San Road off the list in Bangkok, and GET to Koh Tao, so I consider the 9th day one.
Big Blue Diving was officially my home for the next “x” amount of days, and I had woken up at 5a (which turned out to be a normal time for me the entire trip) and went down to the beach to just walk. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved walking the beach. I get it from my dad. He’ll walk and walk and walk – sometimes with an ice cream cone at the totally coincidental turning back point. Whenever I’m at a beach, I love just walking by the water. I even do it here every New Years Day. I find an emptyish beach and just walk. Anyway. I just walked until the resort’s restaurant opened at 6a. Sat at the edge, looking out at the live-aboard boats and other boats on the water with the small beach just peeking out of the edge of the restaurant’s patio. It was magical. Seriously, unreal. I could relive that…and I hope to one day when Bo gives me his blessing.
That first day, I was pretty starving, so I had their “American Breakfast” which was enormous and I practically licked the plate. Eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, toast, and a big fat fluffy pancake with butter and honey. I washed it down with some Nescafe coffee (which was the only coffee they offered) and a DELICIOUS shake. I had one the previous night, pineapple I believe, so this day’s shake would be coconut. I think my meal cost $3. That was something that was really true about Thailand…food was SUPER cheap there compared to the states. A big Chang beer at happy hour was 50 Thai Bhat…which translates to just over $1. Delightful. (Incidentally, a big Chang beer at NOT happy hour – like, breakfast for example, is 70 Thai Bhat…which translates to just over $2)
Something I wanted to do was an Open Water Diving certification course. Honestly, up until VERY recently, SCUBA diving wasn’t even on the radar of things I’d want to do/accomplish in life. Even as recently as JANUARY of this year, it wasn’t a thing…but my friend, Erin, from college always posted amazing pictures on her Facebook page, and once I determined that I was going to go to Thailand, my other friend Bob, reminded me that Erin lived there and I was like, huh, well, maybe I should try scuba! Holy shit am I glad I did…but more on that later. The ONLY thing I planned for my Thailand adventure was starting this class (and getting to Koh Tao to start the class), so I was pumped. Class started at 4p, and it was a couple hours worth of classroom talk and videos about what we’d be accomplishing, so I had the ENTIRE day to either sit on my butt and watch the water (a perfectly viable option) or I could explore.
While I sat and pondered what to do, a girl was trying to take the perfect picture of her drink in front of the water – which was exactly the picture I had just taken. She was trying at every which way, and I just told her that I stole the seat that had the best picture, so I moved my stuff and told her to sit there for it and she did – and thus got the greatest picture in the history of pictures in front of water thanks – singlehandedly – to me. That girl was Hy Nguyen, a saucy little Vietnamese Canadian, with whom I struck up a great conversation. We talked about the marketing world and travel and how she’s going to be a TV star and do TED Talks one day, and got to the “what are you doing today” conversation. I told her that I wanted to rent a motorbike and explore the island, and she said that’s something she wanted to do also, so I invited her on my yet-to-be-planned-out adventure. She had just arrived at the resort that morning, so she didn’t even have a place to put her stuff yet, so we chatted until the office / reception area opened at 8ish, she checked in, signed up for my same Open Water Certification course starting that evening, took her stuff to her newly appointed room (when you sign up for class, they allow you to stay for free at the resort), and we were off to an off-beat bar that was recommended to me at which to rent our motorbikes.
The bar was about a 7 minute walk from our resort. There was a dude just chilling at the end of the bar and it turns out this was the brother of the guy we were supposed to be dealing with, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t know much about motorbikes, but it was 150 Bhat per day to rent them (about $5) and they were little guys – 110cc – but they were perfect. He didn’t know how to turn them on or anything, so we had to have a local show us what to do before we were off. He did recommend we wear helmets because the local police would charge an arm and a leg if we were caught driving without one. I happily obliged because my brainparts are pretty important to me, and it’s been a minute since I’ve been on a motorbike. I think the last time was with Liz and Nick in Key West maybe? I have my motorcycle license in LA, but motorcycles these were not. Plus, there were a number of dirt roads on Koh Tao that were a BIT more treacherous than I would’ve preferred, but we made due.
We were off! Thankfully, it was a small island, so the two times we got lost on the way to the beach we were trying to get to didn’t really matter. We were trying to follow the maps.me app while also trying to motorbike among the locals (on the other side of the street than I’m used to driving on), so I was happy that we figured it out. Someone at the front desk of Big Blue recommended we visit the other side of the island to Tanote Bay, a beautiful little beach that wasn’t touristy at all, with a lot of beautiful sand and sun – which I happily burned to a crisp under even though I put on 50 sunscreen.
We didn’t really plan ahead, so we rented beach towels for the day, and I immediately wanted to get into the water. In my other life, I think I was a fish. Off of the coastline, a smallish swim away, was an “island” where I saw people climbing up the jagged and harrowing rock face to jump off into the ocean. Of course I needed to do that, so I hooked my GoPro up to my pointer finger (I didn’t have the right mounting pieces because I didn’t think I’d be cliff jumping on this particular day) and started swimming. About halfway to the “island” I remembered that it’s probably been more than a year since I’ve swam. Sooo, that’s good that I was already halfway there because if I had thought like an adult, I might’ve turned around. It was gorgeous, and warm, and I was in heaven. Got to the island and found out the hard way that under the beautiful blue water up to the edge of the jagged rocks I had to climb up to throw myself off, were – in fact – more jagged rocks underneath that I probably should have paid attention to so my knees and feet didn’t get beat up on the way out of the water. Oops.
I managed to hoist myself up to the “ground level” of this “island” and then scampered up the edge to the second level. This was a little more flat, so I could look back at the beach and see the tiny ant people watching ME on the rock now. At least they were facing that way. The next “level” was really about…five levels up. When I saw people from the beach on top of this rock, I was like “Oh, that looks cool” not really thinking about the whole “getting to the top of this giant rock” thing. After shuffling from my nice safe spot overlooking the water and beach, I moved to the front of the rock face where there was a thick rope dangling down. Following the rope up, it was attached to a giant chain. The giant chain was (hopefully) attached to something that could support my weight, but this contraption was the only thing I could use to get up to the top of this very vertical rock face. Heady, I thought, “well, I’ve been doing some bouldering back in the states so I should be fine” even though I didn’t have any gear, I was wet, my fingers and toes were bleeding, and I had a GoPro clamped onto my pointer finger. I began my ascent, and about halfway up, I got that rumbly feeling in my stomach of “if I fall, I’m going to die” which wasn’t pleasant, so I just took my time and continued up – because going BACKWARDS down the rock wasn’t an option in any way shape or form. The rope-to-chain transition was super weird too because the chain was a good grip, but rusty as shit, so I chose to ignore that part.
I pulled myself up onto the top of this much-bigger-than-I-thought rockboulder, and just caught my breath. The people I had seen up here were long gone, nobody was up here anymore, and I couldn’t see over the edge – but at this point, I was just happy I made it. Now, as long as I don’t die slipping on the top, or fall into a hidden rock underwater, I’d be fine. I caught my breath, and tried to find the “right” place to jump into the water. It was probably about 50 feet out of the water at what I deemed to be the “jumping point” and I’ve jumped from higher, so I wasn’t terribly worried about that part, but I just didn’t know the right place to begin. I inched my way to the edge to try and see over, but it was just too close for comfort, and my tingly-balls were on high alert. I saw a couple guys in the distance snorkeling, and I yelled to them “do I jump from around here?” and they said back in broken English “run and jump!” Super helpful guys, thanks. There would be no running and jumping because the top of this boulder wasn’t exactly flat, nor a runway.
Tingly-balls be damned, though, I found a spot I thought was appropriate, turned on my GoPro, and launched myself off into the water successfully. The video looks awesome, and once I compile all of my video, I’ll be able to show the highlights, like I did with my road trip video.
Not sure what any of my hair is doing, but this was the last photo of me on top of the rock…
Happy to be alive, I now realized I was even further out into the water than when I started on my first swimming trip back…so I flipped onto my back and just started to float-swim backwards forever until I was close enough to the beach that I could stand on the sand/jagged rocks and relax a bit.
Hy and I spent the rest of the day getting some sun, chatting it up, and playing in the water before I burned to a crisp, and we had to head back to the resort for class. It was an awesome day, and I was super psyched to have made a new friend to share it with. I was reminded constantly on this trip that I’m a pretty social person, and I enjoy hearing stories from people and getting to know people on a deeper level. I’ll write a synopsis at some point of the learnings I came across on my trip, but that was one of them. A lot of times, living in Los Angeles, people keep so much to themselves, that it’s hard to really connect. I find myself being more negative here, sometimes, and I don’t like that about me. Coming back, I’m going to be working more diligently to see things from other people’s perspectives, and I’m going to be continually working on myself to try and be the best me I can possibly be. More later…
