I’m currently on a little island called Ko Tao which is
located around 300 miles south of Bangkok in the Gulf of Thailand. I’m here principally to scuba dive. I start my Rescue Diver course tomorrow and
we are going to simulate all sorts of emergency situations. The running joke in the community is that a
person is far more likely to get killed by a vending machine than by a shark or
underwater mishap … however, it is still fun to train and build skills that I’ll
hopefully never have to use :)
It was bitter sweet to leave New Zealand. Its unspoiled beauty, coupled with the wonderful
people I was able to camp and travel with, made for one of the best vacations
in my life. It was a pretty radical
transition to leave from Auckland and land in Bangkok … it is hard to believe
that both cities are on the same planet.
I picked a hotel in Bangkok next to foreign embassies since
I needed some visas processed for my ensuing travel. As it turns out, that landed me in the
dystopic cesspool area of Bangkok. It
was hard to reconcile that days before I was wearing crampons climbing a glacier
in NZ when I was in my new city tramping through oppressive heat with women
& ladyboys offering massagi’s. I
enjoyed the blade-runner feel of the place for about 2 days before I made a
break for the islands.
I plan on being in India from May 1st to May 19th,
but other than that leg of the trip, things are pretty fluid. I figure I will hang out in Thailand to dive
and maybe make a brief trip to Cambodia and/or Vietnam before trying to make it
over to Nepal then India.
The attached photos are from NZ and one from Thailand. The first was ice-climbing on a fast moving
glacier. Minutes later our group did a
sun salutation led by a yoga instructor who was in our climbing party. The camping site was near a beach in Western
NZ. It looked like a scene from the show
Lost … thankfully no smoke-monsters attacked us. The third photo was as a rest stop on the NZ
south island … words can’t describe how breathtaking it was in person. The sunset photo is from a beach at Ko Tao …
not a bad way to end a day :)
- Tony
