Last day in Thailand, back to Singapore and Happy Midsummer!

The last day we just spent checking out the resort, chilling out by the common pool, talking about our trip and what we wanted to do the same or differently next time. In the future we will probably book a hotel at Koh Tao 2 weeks advance (where it was also possible to stay at the dive center if you were OK with just a simple room with shared facilities). We would then fly from Singapore directly to Koh Samui and take a catamaran boat to Koh Tao and rent an ATV (don't take taxis in general, since over priced and slow as well most drivers we had were utterly mad). We would them warmly recommend to book dives with Crystal Divers which are both professional and practical; they for instance serve breakfast in their restaurant from 06.00, so that you can safely make it with the morning tour at 07.00. Regarding packing we both agreed on always taking with us our own fins. snorkels (if you are going snorkeling, since you really don't need it for diving) and masks for convenience. In addition, J&J's baby shampoo was truly outstanding preventing fogging in the actual masks and worked much better than spitting in them. For me it was ideal to bring an extra long sleeved sweater if wanting to go deep and the DEET mosquito spray was amazing. You also need a lot of sun block if you are sensitive or basically just stay in the shade at all times (like me). Adapters was a bit of a hassle, but Swedish or Japanese plugs work in Thailand; however bring both, since they alternate depending on where you are. All surfaces also become extremely hot and you do need flip flops wherever you go; if you are going diving though, most of those surfaces are also very slippery from baby shampoo and sun block. We saw several people slipping and taking rather nasty falls and most instructors had either footwear in natural materials, while I found it great to use my aqua shoes. The latter also prevents getting blisters from borrowed fins and we actually saw some divers using socks if they had borrowed whole fins.

We started the day with a breakfast in the vicinity of Singaporean High Tea.. 

..and my eyes were way too big for my belly; I was full until late afternoon

The resort was really beautiful, placed just on the tip of a quite steep cliff..

..again surrounded by that amazing turquoise water

My husband had proper support throughout the walk ;)

The private beach was OK, but there had been so many nicer ones at Koh Tao..

..while it had a small pier which you could possibly snorkel from

 

We ended up just walking on a small exploration on the reef since is was low tide, looking for things that made popping sounds. It was quite loud, but we couldn't find what it was, so we gave up after 20 minutes of searching. Well, Jonas was searching. I was on a safe distance on the pier. Turning stones around, possibly encountering slithery stuff that have crawled under there for a reason..? Will stay clear of that activity any day

Strolling from the beach up towards our little house had quite a few spectacular views with beautiful colors..

..different architecture..

..and the weather was perfect for a day outdoors with just enough (lagom!) wind to keep us cool

We then strategically placed ourselves by the infinity pool..

..again with amazing backgrounds..

..and colors

Then we had to get ready for our trip back and quickly jumped into our last clean changes of clothes..

..rushed into the restaurant to get a speed lunch; here we were also astonished about the 'Chunky', 'Mozzavella Cheese' and 'Black Olive Bell Pepper Chin' you could get as topping on the pizza. Also the 'Garic' was a favorite; however, this was at least understandable. I'm still confused regarding the bakery at Chaweng Beach selling 'Crap'. They must have meant 'Crepes' or 'Crabs'. I think

We checked out with no difficulties and got into the private hotel taxi, taking us straight to the airport

Well there, there was half an hour delay and we of course had to have one last Chang and wish each other happy midsummer. Again!

In addition, I just couldn't resist taking a pic of the couple next to us; if we at any point though Jonas' tan was bad throughout the week, the redness these two were sporting was not far off from matching my red bag in the lower right corner. Both of them just looked cooked

We did learn some new tricks in Thailand this round as well, where one of the general rules are: don't be in a hurry. Ever. We thought we had it down from Japan, but are now convinced that Thai peps have a completely unique time zone. Things also get done with varying results, but people are mostly quite friendly, compared to Singapore, where results vary a lot too, but the speed of getting food or sorting out paper work is mostly fast. However, people are often rather rude. In Japan it could be both fast or slow but almost always giving smashing results and people were constantly very polite.

Overall language level is quite bad for Thai people speaking English; they neither don't really know for instance Chinese or Japanese either, which makes it a bit hard sometimes for foreign tourists. 

Finally and a very good tip: don't forget you EP or DP if want to get back into Singapore.


Happy Midsummer all!

Q Signature Samui Beach Resort, Moet and dreadlocks

Then it was time to check in the last night at Q Signature Samui Beach Resort at Moo Bo Phut Surat Thani on Koh Samui. And that's an outstanding address ;) Overall, Q Signature Samui Beach Resort was amazing regarding all possible facilities under the sun like gym, SPA and pool tables along with a private beach, huge rooms equipped with absolutely everything you can possibly need staying for weeks and several bars and restaurants. However, the expression 'alternating current' had a slightly different meaning here, since there was in fact no electricity for about 3 minutes, then full blast for another three, back to none again throughout the day. Hence the whole 'alternating' business. There were also highly interesting temperatures regarding the shower water (either it was imported directly from the north pole or almost boiling), the reception staff which had a very weird attitude and the amounts of broken sun umbrellas were quite impressive. None of the latter really mattered to us, but it was not what we expected at a luxury resort and we were quite happy we hadn't payed full price. 

Coming straight from a diving trip, we probably didn't fit the description of their everyday clientele when we arrived

We were still showed to our suite, which was more like a little house with a very classy decorated living room..

..and the whole setting was built in a terrain manner..

..with the bedroom half a stair down from the top area..

.. which again had very tasteful decoration and lovely colors

The bedroom opened up and out to a private back yard with a sun deck..

..another little lounge deck with really cute rocking chairs, in front of one of the ponds..

..on both sides of the deck

 Our pool had little elephant statues spraying water (rather ridiculous) and a jacuzzi part.. 

..which of course it had to be tried out..

..followed by a nice relaxing stay in the sun. For five minutes ;)

All in all, we were quite pleased with our new stay and the hits just kept on coming..

..as we checked out the rest of the house and the sun set over Koh Samui

The bathroom was enormous..

..including a walk-in shower, leading out to..

..the outdoor shower..

..and the jacuzzi

Considering this was the current natural-dreadlock-hair-situation I had to face, refusing to use shampoo if I'm on an island hopping vacation, and we were planning on a restaurant visit..

..the products in the bathroom came in very handy

Along with a very nice bottle of champagne it really did the trick bringing us back to civilization!

The staff in the restaurant were really great and the live performer absolutely fantastic, along with amazing starters such as cheese baked mussels..

..and tiger shrimps in garlic, sweet basil and cream

Chumphon Pinnacle, Twin Peaks, Red and White Rock.. and Koh Samui again

And finally it was time for us to go diving again! This time it would be several new sites and in the end I did 3 out of 5 exercises in total towards the advanced certificate. In general, I'm so happy about now fully mastering the equalizing problems I've had, which really makes diving a completely different experience. In addition, I found out just how much good visibility meant, since the only time I really get anxious is when I can't see what's in front of me. Therefore, swimming in caves or wrecks alternatively in northern European waters or doing night dives will probably not be my thing in the future. I also thought I'd be a bit scared of big animals in general, but I'm actually not, since the bigger things are under water the calmer they seem to move = if you just stay calm yourself and keep a distance it'll be fine. I further had a fantastic lesson in buoyancy and learned exactly how important it is with the breathing; I even started using noticeably less air during the last dives because of this. I was further very proud to hear that I developed a lot during these last dives regarding how I moved in the water, since I was really taking care to be as streamlined as possible and especially keeping my arms to myself, only using fins and breathing to move. All in all, this was a fantastic experience and I can't wait to be under water again!   

I did not want Jonas to drive the entire time, but was still slightly weary about the steep hills; however, in the villages it was fine, since traffic was a bit slower than on Koh Samui 

 

We did have to stop by a pharmacy to get some baby shampoo for our masks; the name of the actual place was just too good to ignore 

After carrying our equipment across a beach, onto a pier, jumping over 3 boats until we reached ours and in that heat, I was quite exhausted. However, it gives you a good lesson on how much stuff you should bring on the boat and what foot wear to use (aqua shoes, aqua shoes, oh the lovely aqua shoes)

Never mind that though, it was just to climb straight up to the top deck and start getting briefed

Fortunately all the diving instructors showed up..

..and we could set off towards Chumphon Pinnacle and later Red Rock

The boat was much less fancy as pointed out before, but was still perfectly sufficient and nicely spaceos; I even thought putting the gear together was quite easy this time around..

..even though this was the first time I was wearing a dive computer, where I was responsible for reading the depth as we would close in on 30 meters for the deep dive. It was also a really good idea to have an extra sweater on, since even though the temperature difference is small, I'm still sensitive and actually think it got quite cold down there. Everything went really well and my prediction regarding doing all the mistakes in Malaysia actually came true! We went down on a line and there was absolutely no troubles at all equalizing my personal, slightly different way (by getting over pressure in the mask and then swallow). I also did it almost every meter this time, which really helped. Since we used quite a lot of air on 30 meters compared to on 15, it became a shorter dive than normal, but I got my stamp and was then one step closer to becoming an advanced diver! Then we went to Red Rock and did probably the most unpleasant dive of them all: a narrow cave passage at 18 meters. I was scared s***less even before going in. However, I"m no chicken so of course I ended up doing it, but it was really claustrophobic and very dark. And colder, so I was again happy about my sweater. Even though it was quite a short passage it felt like we were in there for 20 minutes and considering it was so narrow we could only go one person at the time and had to stay very close to the bottom to avoid scraping the tanks against the tunnel roof, it was neither possible to turn and go back nor panic if you'd accidentally got too close to for instance sea urchins or so. I couldn't wait for the people to get out of my way as we approached the end and swam out like a torpedo. I don't think I'll be doing wreck diving any time soon

The next day it was time for lesson number two and three on the advanced course: buoyancy and navigation. At first I had to practice on the beach with the compass.. 

..then I got the computer on, to log the depths I would be navigating from (and the map I had to draw myself in 2 minutes on the boat as it was running full speed to the reef; marvelous)..

..and finally our dive instructor Kiwi Mike gave me the details about the buoyancy test. I understand why he didn't tell me in advance, since he must have done so in the past and lost his students. According to him I only needed to 'lie flat as a board horizontally, hovering about a meter above the bottom, but you need to avoid the urchins sweat heart, because they really sting if you bump into one'. I could do that, no biggie. But then 'just flip completely upside down with your feet towards the surface and your head about a meter from the bottom. Now you need to take care on this one sweet heart, since your reg ain't built for being upside down really, so you might have to get your spare instead'. I must have looked like a deer caught in headlights because when I said: 'Let me get this straight: you think it's a good idea to hover head down in sea urchins with a regulator that may or may not work at 14 meters below the surface? Because to me that sounds just smashing or that you are simply stoned. AYFKM??' he laughed until he almost cried. It went really good though, even when I had to swim into what looked like a human cage, control the buoyancy one meter up or down only by breathing and do a maze which included swimming belly up through hoops. Just saying. Then I lead the group back to the boat as a starting exercise on the navigation and it went great. Btw, there were no sea urchins in sight where we did the buoyancy test, so I guess he was just mentally preparing me ;)

Then it was time to gear up with my compass again after a short feedback on the last dive. I was now to swim back and forth, navigate in squares and finally lead the way around the reef with three control spots; it was hard to control my position in the water so that it was horizontally straight enough for the compass to make sense. Hence we ended up taking a few detours, amongst others swimming off a cliff with a steep drop and a huge trigger fish hiding just by it; we had gone through the whole 'no worries sweet heart, just swim backwards with your fins towards the trigger fish and if it attacks it'll only bite them', so I felt completely safe. Because swinging belly up, backwards with a giant fish wanting to bite your feet and at the same time trying not bumping into anything with your head seems like a natural way to go. At 18 meters. If you ever spot a diver wearing an ice hockey helmet and slalom boots it might be me having had it with trigger fish. anyways, it was quite cool leading a group on my own and if just get a bit more experience navigating or dive a site a few times, I feel fully confident I could start planning a dive on my own. I mean seriously, as Kiwi Mike put it: 'If you do get lost sweat heart and start thinking 'where the f*** am I?', just go up calmly with your safety stop at 5 meters for 3 minutes, and don't bloody forget that darling, check for boats so you don't get slashed in any turbines and have a look-see on the surface. If you still don't know, just stay f***ing calm darling and signal that you need help. You'll never be royally f***ed here, like ever'. I just took his word for it  

I passed both test though, so now I only have another two to go in total and I'll be an advanced diver!

We then went and gave back our dear ATV..

..and set sights on the main pier..

..along with a bunch of other tourists..

..to board a catamaran to avoid too much sea sickness..

..and it was a great ride back to Koh Samui! Really, if you have a slight tendency for motion sickness, don't take a speed boat. Even if the sea is calm, they drive like maniacs and it's just not worth getting there 45 minutes earlier, if you have been throwing up more or less the entire time. If you still have to, take a motion sickness pill before you set foot on the boat. The catamaran ferry was perfect, with a quiet lounge, comfy seats, AC and we almost slept the whole way

Bye, bye Koh Tao for now and hope to see you soon again ;)