In Thailand gingen wir Unterwasseratemgerättauchen

So after flexing our muscles rock climbing at Railay Beach, we made our way to Thailand's East coast. A brisk morning walk down to the ocean, a water taxi, a red truck, then a four hour bus ride left us in the busy port town of Surat Thani. Most people opt to go first to Ko Samui, but we were most excited about the prospect of some more world-class scuba diving and opted to go further North to Ko Tao, which necessitated a night's stay in Surat Thani. Not much noteworthy there: a tuk tuk driver pulled the old "Your hotel full, I know better one" routine, we discovered some blazing fast internet connection speeds (hence the multitude of climbing pics we posted) and - possibly responsible for the fast internet - we stumbled upon a performance by an Asian rock group described to us as "Superstar Kas!!!!". They were performing at an outdoor festival to thousands of screaming Thais. Somehow we were able to contain ourselves.

The boatride to Ko Tao was unanimously voted the #1 Scariest Trip Incident. The first few hours were fine, but gradually the waves started to get bigger and bigger until the ferry we were on seemed to just maintain contact with the water at its stern, before crashing violently back down every few seconds. This went on for over an hour as the captain alternately sped up and slowed down, trying to find some rhythm that would ride the waves more gently. Generally, he settled on speeding up. Luckily we were often distracted from our own fear by the alternating sounds of sea sickness and sobbing that punctuated the particularly giant crashes. And then Ko Tao appeared and the water calmed and we wobbled off the boat.

Scuba diving was fun. Lots of "nemos", a sting ray, a turtle and a Swiss dive master with a bristly orange mustache who accidentally broke into German instruction right before leading us underwater. This was one of those unsettling moments where you think you may actually be going crazy. You're testing the air in your respirator - a few deep pulls - bobbing in the water and then you hear this "...and we will try to keep within the roped area, which should not be difficult because der Strom ist nicht hier sehr stark". That's when you take the respirator out of your mouth and stare at him, right in the eyes as intently as you know how. "What?" you ask, in a slightly panicked voice. "Okay? Gehen, lassen Sie uns du Follow-me". Now you've given up on him and you turn to Laura and ask if she understood him. But she wasn't listening, so you stare at him harder - this time adding a side-to-side head shake. And you're wondering if the air coming out of the respirator did indeed have a slightly tinny smell, something subtle but definitely metallic and possibly capable of inducing insanity. Then the orange mustache starts to flap up and down - the man is laughing. "Oh! I say in German! Other man on boat is German!". Deep breath.

You may have seen the pictures of the lager that flowed from our bathtub tap in Ko Tao. I won't describe it - find the pic on Flickr. Only a one-time thing, it was fairly clean-ish the rest of the time. The boat back to Ko Samui was fine. We skipped Ko Phan Ngan and the Full Moon Party. This may or may not have been a mistake. We just got too tight on time (especially because of the one-week stay many places were requiring. You can do this when 10,000 people show up to party) and didn't want to pay four times the normal hotel cost just for the opportunity to increase our chance of being pick-pocketed by a similar factor. But this could have been a mistake. Instead we went right to Samui and saw the vacation crowd out in full force. Nice island - great beach at Chaweng. We ate Baskin Robins ice cream and walked by 7-11, McDonalds and Starbucks and stocked up on impulse purchases at Boots. Couldn't find the Dairy Queen, which upset one of our party greatly. We flew to Malaysia from the airport on Ko Samui. It was made of wood. Pretty sure we didn't need to actually pay for tickets to board the plane.