The next day I woke up bright and early and was at the dive shop over twenty minutes early. There I meet for the first time my Advanced Open Water instructor, Johannes from Sweden. After two cups of coffee and a loose discussion of the three dives we will do day, every starts to load up the truck. An hour later we are on M/v Petchmanee headed on a two hour cruise for our first dive site, the wreck of the ferry Kingcruiser, where we will accomplish my first PADI Adventure Course, the wreck dive. Cool.
We suit up and jump in the water with the other dozen or so divers. After descending to some 18m we encounter the 1997 wreck we begin to circumnavigate the 85m long ferry clockwise. It is starting to collapse but a few brave divers pop inside for a quick peak. That kind activity is way out of the scope of our dive so we continue on checking out the wreck. Besides the aquatic life, like eels and scorpion fish, we came across the caved in roof of the ferry’s latrine with porcelain toilets very much intact in comparison to the remainder of the vessel. Our dive took us as went as deep as 24m which limited our time and we had to surface after 37 minutes.
After surfacing, unsuiting, drinking some orange Gatorade-like drink and some 75 minutes later Johannes and I were back in the water at Anemone Reef. There he took me on Underwater Naturalist Adventure Dive, along with a big, blonde Ozzie who was also working on his Advanced Open Water certification. His situation was sorta funny because he was actually in Krabi on his honeymoon, but his wife was up in Bangkok visiting relatives and shopping. (Her parents are Thai.) Some honeymoon! Anyway, our big goal for the dive is to circumnavigate a reef (clockwise again) and take notes on five different aquatic life forms. I really grooved on this and took detailed notes on seven different things with an effort to be diverse: coral, plants and fish. It turns out what I thought were plants, some sea fans, are actual a form of coral. Learn something new every day. After 43 minutes at depths up to 22m we surface again, unsuit and it’s lunch time.
While eating lunch, along with the other few diving boats from the local area, a shout from the Phi Phi Scuba vessel asked if we had any cigarettes, even offering to pay for them. Two minutes later a beautiful blonde women was swimming over to our boat declaring, and this is a direct quote, “I am not desperate, just drunk�. We all had a good laugh out of it and she made off with a few fags to hold her over. Junkies, the lot of them.
After an hour and forty some minutes we arrive, get our gear on again and dive onto Shark Point for the PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy Adventure Course. We had to do silly things like hold our fins and levitate like a Jedi Master, swim around and then over another diver, approach them from the back, float over then and then come down head first until we were looking at their crotch.
A seemingly more important exercise consisted of an instructor handing up a 0.8kg dive belt weight and we had to hold our current depth without using our BCD. I’m pleased to say that I did fairly well at most of these assignments. My fellow Ozzie diver had much more difficulty but we discussed it top side and we he seemed to be overcompensating on both downwards and upwards movements and depending on his BDC too much. After 45 minutes underwater we surfaced for the last time, debriefed, ate some fresh watermelon and pineapple, and headed back in for the two hour journey to Ao Nang.
Knowing now to behave myself, once we reached shore I had a quick dinner with Terje again, did some internet junky stuff, and hit the sake early—tomorrows dive was starting an hour early and we needed to be at the dive center at 6:45am. Ouch!
Once we finished our now routine dive center-to-dive boat transfer we were off an and extra long three hour voyage to Koh Haa Yai. There we had two pairs of Advanced Course: Deep Diver students, the Ozzie and myself. Before the dive we had two complete two silly exercises. The first was to spell our name backwards and the second to pick out numbers from a 4x4 grid with the squares numbered from 1 to 16. Our instructor timed our results so that we could compare with our times down deep when we would should be under the increasing (as the deeper you get) effects of nitrogen narcosis. We kept separate for the initial exercises, which turned out to very interesting: I was faster at the exercises at 29m than I was shipside. When Johannes wrote the results on his slate a laughed through my regulator so hard is was audible to everyone around us. Too funny.
After that the Ozzy’s instructor had some eggs with him which he broke open and we played with the yolk. It was interesting because it the pressure condensed it so much that you could push on it and your finger indentation would stay in it until manipulated later. The fish were also interested and we had to keep ushering them away. Afterwards we slowly ascended until we were ready to surface
Now that I think about it, before we descended to depth we also went through some caves at Koh Haa Yai. One could look up and see the surface of the water, but it was not exposed to the open atmosphere, which was really cool. At one point it got a little narrow and my fins kicked the sides, but other than that all was cool.
After ascending and boarding the dive boat we spend nearly two hours moving onto the next dive site, Koh Hoa Lagoon. There we were to complete my most dreaded Advanced Course, the underwater navigation dive. This stems from my follies in Marbella, Spain where I completed my initial Open Water certification and really disliked the underwater navigation exercise. Anyway, things went OK. There was this one area where we started out every maneuver where locally known porcupine fish hangs out. I forget his name, but it is something like "Perky". He is like a cat that demand attention and wants people to rub his underside…so much so that he gets in the way of what we are trying to accomplish.
Anyway, we complete the four navigation tasks and then head off to check out some rare aquatic life that Johannes is really excited about. They were interesting, but I can’t exactly put to words what they looked like.
We surface, board, head back for Ao Nang on the three hour trip and everyone relaxes…eating fruit, sleeping on the foredeck of the boat, a beer or two, and chatting. Very relaxing. Once we get to shore we all head back for the dive center where Johannes and I filled out the log book and paperwork for my official PADI Advanced Open Water certification. Oh, yea, I also had to drop over 13,000 Baht on the old UBS MasterCard.
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Last week my final package from Thailand arrived here in Zürich. The most exciting item was my new pair of slippers from the Luang Pabang (Laos) night market. Second on the excitement list was my $3 refugee blanket that kept me warm during my first week in Laos. The rest of the parcel contained books I’ve read along the way, my malfunctioning iPod (confirmed dead), the unused underwater camera case for my stolen Sony DSC-T1 (grrrr), and the carry bag for my new Canon 350D with manuals. The week before, a tube with handmade paper from Laos and a painting arrived. Sadly, the tube was dented resulting in damage to the painting. The handmade paper is fine and I plan to use it for little projects and wrapping gifts.]]>
So, I have been back nearly three weeks now and my PADI Advanced Open Water card showed up today, which is very cool. It is not clear when my next diving opportunity will present itself, but I look forward to it. In hind sight, more of my times should have been dedicated to diving because it is so much fun and healthy.
Once arriving at the airport with plenty of time to spare for my Swiss International Airlines 00:05AM flight LX139, I headed for the business class check-in desk. On presenting my upgraded economy ticket, the check-in clerk informs me that my ticket is for yesterday’s flight. Because I had changed the flight after buying the tickets, they put a little sticker on the ticket and did not issue a new ticket. So the ticket was a little bit ambiguous and I misread it. Stunned, I asked her what was going to happen next. First she said I had to pay a rebooking fee and then “Well, the flight is pretty full so we probably you probably will have an economy seat.� I took my glasses off, stared at my passport and sunk into a deep depression. This is costing me money, I’ve lost the business class upgrade, and might not even be able to reclaim the miles spent on it. I put my Travel Club Gold card down on the check in desk and asked her to do her best. She went over to the manager and told me that I was on the flight and on priority standby for a business class seat. I thanked her and headed for immigration and the terminal.
Thirty minutes later when boarding began, the attendant put my boarding pass into one of those little ticket machines, but it spit my ticket back out and she gave me a new boarding pass—seat 4k. Business class, baby! I nearly did an American football touchdown dance on the spot. 
After my exhilarating chopper ride, my last three days in Asia degraded into one folly after another. On top of that, my tolerance for travel was minimal. The HeliExpress port was at Sheung Wan station which required an MTR ride with a switch to get to TST where I walked to my room at the New World Renaissance Hotel on the northern shoreline of Kowloon. The ten minute walk was bearable with my pack and all. The NWR is in the New World Center where they had several early automobile displays, including this 1920s vintage Chevy Capital.
So, I called the guest services number on extension 10 to complain, explaining that I had just checked in, there was no reason for housekeeping to be popping in, especially without using the door bell, and that I just wanted to relax in my bath. The lady on the other end said she would look into the problem and rectify it. Quickly, because I’m getting the chills standing there naked in my room talking on the phone, I jump back into my nice, hot bath.
After only ten minutes in the departure lounge about six of us are ushered out in order to the waiting aircraft which is already running. A short taxi to the landing spot, about 25m, and we are off! Lucky me, my seat was just behind the copilot and my view was pretty good. We flew over bridges, ferries in transit and lots of little islands. Check out the 
After only fifteen minutes we approach Hong Kong Island and land near Sheung Wan station. We disembark the still running helicopter, are guided down the stairs and some guy carries my 16 kilo pack down for me. We cleared immigration and customs in record time…it must have been three minutes maximum for the entire thing. Quick, easy, exhilarating and a complete blast. But, damn, that was expensive.
Once I arrived in Macau and speed through immigrations and customs it was off in a taxi to The Emperor Hotel, another four star establishment. More and more I’m realizing that I’m at the end of my rope with hostels, keeping track of every little thing, and crappy showers. I want to be clean, secure and alone for a while. So, The Emperor Hotel it is. After a nap and cleaning myself up I head out to explore town. Macau is bigger than I realized and my lodging is pretty much in the center of the business, hotel, casino and ‘spa’ area of town. After walking around a few blocks I give up trying to navigate anywhere interesting and enter one of the famed gambling venues of Macau, the Pharaoh Casino. They require a membership card to enter, which is free but they scan your passport. (How many of you can say you have a year’s membership at a casino in Macau, eh???)
The next day I woke up, grabbed a map from the hotel and set out with my camera. The first areas on interest were some of the local parks, like the Comendador Ho Yin Garden…which is now a hotel construction site. Fact is, Macau is just booming with construction. It is crazy. So next I head for the shoreline to the south where I check out Alameda Dr. Carlos D’Assumpçao park which was still intact. At the part there were these funny little animal things here and there that was just plain…well…Chinese in nature. The park lead me to the sea and the Status of the Kum Lam and Ecumenical Center. Nothing to exciting, so I head east towards the art museum which was very deserted. 
Near the art museum there was a horse racing track done manufactured to look like ancient Greece with volcanoes and all. It was a real Vegas like thing to see. The Sands is located there also along with the ferry and helicopter terminals. Currently, The Sands is undergoing an expansion which eats away a little bit more park space. So far, I’m not impressed and was thinking Macau was a mistake. I’ve got this thing for cemeteries and pictures of tombstones so I trek my way to the St. Micheal cemetery on Est. do Cementerio. It was really interesting and I can’t wait to add the pictures to my tombstone gallery. The tombstones varied more than any other cemetery I’ve been to and was an odd mix of Christian and Buddhist traditions and in three different languages: Chinese, Portuguese, and English. Some of the graves were as old as the early 1800s. 
This put me in the area of Monte Fort which was packed with tourists. Regardless, I made my way up top where the fortress has an amazing view of the city. A few photographs later I head down to the adjacent Ruins of Saint Paul’s cathedral which is just basically the front façade—very popular with the picture taking tourists. This lead me down towards the ritzy shopping area and city hall, known locally as The Institute of Civic and Municipal Affairs.
These last few kilometers of walking have definitely shown me the more attractive, architecturally interesting parts of Macau. But the Chinese zest for the new glass and steel future is very evident. My feet are still hurting from my walking about in Kuala Lumpur with knackered flip flops so I head back for the hotel for a nap, some television and photo processing. That evening I head back into the Pharoah Casino and proceed to blow through 700 Macau Patacas within an hour and so give up and end the evening at the hotel trying to finish off No Logo.
This is my third time in Kuala Lumpur and I am staying, semi-luxuriously, at the New World Renaissance Hotel in downtown near the Petronas Towers. It is also beside the Pakistani embassy, which is really pretty. A taxi takes me there for 10 Malaysian Ringgit, about US$3.75, for a five minute ride which I now realize is a total rip off. Once I arrive at 5am I discover that they won’t let me check in until late-morning. I am so beat from the journey that I agree to a full nights charge just to get some more sleep. It was worth the extra 245 Ringgit (US$65) and a mistake to take a bus that was arriving that early.
Waking up at 10am was good, rather than sleeping all day. My time in KL was limited to just 30-some hours, so I quickly set upon a walkabout of town. First stop was Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) where the 
There I roamed around inside the shopping mall, had lunch (Caesar salad and veggie pizza) and took some photos. Apparently you are not 
supposed to take photos as I discovered after lunch. When taking this picture of the ‘no pictures’ sign a Malaysian woman approached me and we spoke for a while. Very friendly—offered to take me out to dinner with her sister (who was going to university in Zurich) and grandmother. 
Later I walked down to the Indian district for some photographs, then Medeka Square which in the heart of the old Colonial District. There was even this old establishment placed called the Royal Selangor Club where the British used to toss back gin and tonics, run their empire and other old school stuff. I snuck up and took a picture…half expecting to be intercepted and arrested. There were lots of interesting bits of architecture around that are up in the photo gallery now.
After staying in Krabi an extra day, I start a 20 hour, 850 Baht journey to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At 1030 in the morning I board the first of three Toyota minibuses that takes me to Hat Yai. There I’m passed on from one travel agency/private bus stop to another via minibus. After three hours in town several of us board my third minibus of the day and head south for the Malaysian border at Dan Nok. This is a heavily trafficked, efficient border post and we were through Thai and Malaysian immigration and customs in less than half an hour. After we get back on the road the minibus driver takes us to Georgetown on Pulau Penang island via many stops to let people off, mostly in Butterworth.
So having missed the dive boat that third day, being a bit worse for the wear because of the booz the previous eveing, and having no interest in hanging about the not-too-pleasant Ao Nang area of Krabi, I impulsively rented a 200 Baht/day 100cc Honda Wave scooter from the Internet shop next door that was getting to know me because of my frequent visits. Now I was on the road for Phuket, a ~240km. It took about 2.5-3 hours to get there (I was hauling ass—averaging about 100kph and topping out at 120kph) mostly along route 4 which takes drivers most of they way. Because of my high speed, I had to stop for some petrol halfway there—85 Baht for about 3 litters of 91 octane juice.
I must have made it into Patong Beach, the most popular and seedy part of Phuket Island, at about 11:30am. Once I became orientated I parked my blue scooter along the beach and headed for the water to cool off. Patong Beach is so much like the south coast of Spain or France that it is frightening—packed in beach chairs, topless women of all ages, and enough trinket vendors to drive the most tolerant person mad.
It was interesting to see the damage and recovery of the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. Many hotels and beach front infrastructure were either fully fixed up or under construction. But there were a disturbing number of buildings fenced off and clearly nothing having been done to fix them up since that horrible day.
Around noon I realized that there was some sort of festival/parade going on and walked around randomly until it was clear what the route was. It turns out to be the Gay Pride Parade for Phuket and is centered on that famous seedy road and the main beach road, Thanon Thavee Wong. It was a great opportunity for people picture taking and soon I should have plenty of interesting photographs up in the gallery. This is the second Gay Pride Parade I’ve witnessed in the past six months, the other being in ReykjavÃk, Iceland last September. 
The contrasts were interesting: Patong participants were generally male and dressed up in drag, while in ReykjavÃk there were many more lesbians and less men dressed as women. In ReykjavÃk it was basically a local and family affair with lots of kids, families and a generally good feeling about it. “Gay for a dayâ€?, is how Clement of 
A funny thing was that the Katoey community seemed to be left out too, along with the lesbians. (Maybe there aren’t that many Lesbians in Thailand…I do not really know.) But a group of about seven or eight rebellious, flamboyant, seductively dressed Katoey were roaming around half disturbing the parade. The officials did not seem to happy about it. The crowd loved it as they posed for pictures with all the tourists hanging out on the street. All in all, it was very entertaining. 
My first day in Ao Nang, Krabi was just checking out the local scene and securing my diving reservations. Shortly up the road from my guesthouse, I found Ao Nang Divers where they organized two days of PADI Advanced Open Water course dives, and a day of two ‘fun’ dives. From then on I just checked out what little there is to check out in Ao Nang, spent a few hours on the crappy beach with a bit of swimming, took pictures of interesting little bits, and checking out the local knickknacks for sale. That evening it Terje, my travel buddy from Laos, and I exchanged emails and coordinated a meet up the following day after my dives.
The next morning I met the Ao Nang Diving staff at their headquarters on the premises of 
After suiting up with my dive master, Kirre from Norway, and a beautiful young Swedish woman’s name who escapes me, we spent 57 minutes at 
After about fifty minutes for lunch and the cruise to our new dive site, The Pinnade at Koh Yun, we jumped back in for our second 61 minute dive. While the visibility was not as stunning as San Salvador, both dives were incredibly amazing and lots of fun. On the two hour ride back to Ao Nang I grabbed myself a 70 Baht Chang Beer that as for sale, slipped into the rear corner of the top deck and relaxed.
Once back on shore I met Terje for the first time in Thailand. We went out for dinner, had some drinks, and played some pool with two young kids from America and two young ladies who claimed to be from Jersey…but Essex seemed more likely in my mind. Anyway, after only five beers or so I was completely pissed and went into the trademark Steve-Owens-walk-away-without-saying-a-word crash mode. Heading straight for the guesthouse, I accidentally stiffed Terje with my 700 Baht bar bill. (It was an Irish bar and the Guinness in a can was a whopping 250 Baht a pop which we discovered on the second round.)
After arriving at Bangkok’s aging airport, where the immigration queues seem to only get more and more disorganized with time, I cleared the authorities with no problems in about 45 minutes. Then it was a 380 Baht metered taxi ride to the Ambassador Hotel where I’ve been staying on my previous visits to Bangkok. This time I went for the cheapo room in the main wing, #408 at ~US$50 per night for three nights. This time around my impressions of the establishment went from ‘ok’ to ‘shit’. They kept forgetting to stock my room with towels, the television had intermittent reception, and the lobby lounge people now were adding 17% in taxes and service charges, unlike my previous visits. (I was spending a lot of time there blogging, processing photos and uploading photos to the website gallery which I was several weeks behind on.) They also refused to take my American Express card, which was on deposit. I called up Swisscard and they told me the expiry date they entered was incorrect and my paranoid mind thinks they did that to make an extra few bucks. (AmEx changes 3% to the vendor, while Visa and MasterCard charge 2%.) An illuminati conspiracy, clearly. My only revenge was scamming a free breakfast buffet (380 Baht.)
I did pop out onto Sumkhumvit Road to take some pictures (not too exciting) and buy four dodgy Video CDs that I might like but probably will not. Video CDs from this region are generally of poor quality, frequently subtitled in Chinese, Thai or whatever, and sometimes don’t even play all the way through. The titles include Underworld: Evolution, War of the World (the Scientologist version), Fantastic Four, and Doom all at 100 Baht each. Screw the MPAA. 
Side note: The Irish women used to live outside of Cologne, Germany which I’ve been to many times including Jon and Jen’s wedding in the spring of 2002. My good friend Dave and I went up to that festive occasion via first class train carriages. It’s a long haul and Dave got totally inebriated—to the point that he was only semi-lucid and knocked over a beer onto the two passengers in the cabin with us. They had been politely ignoring us up until then, but after my profound apology (Dave was completely unaware of the drama) one of the fellow passengers asked “So, I guess I have the right to ask: Are your Irish?� I recited this story to my new Irish travel mate and she actually thought it was funny. :D
After my relaxing Thursday I spent the evening down by the beach and enjoyed sunset at Chaimoy's Frog Shack. I was hopping to meet up with Levi but he never showed up, so I just had dinner, took some pictures and called it an early night.
Friday morning started out at the beach very early, went for a swim, had a quick breakfast at Le Rouse, said good bye to the staff, checked out of my hotel, hopped on a $1 motorbike ride to the bus station and grabbed a 11:30am decrebide TSG bus for US$4 to Phnom Penh. I had a window seat in the second to last row and two Cambodia teenagers were trying to squeeze both of them into the one seat beside me. At first I thought they’d wait until the bus got moving and then spread out to other seat or the floor, but after being crammed up against the two of them when we were moving I forcefully but politely said “one of you will have to sit on the floor�. I don’t think it was the language they understood, but my tone of voice and pointing certainly did the trick. 
Next I headed down to a restraurant on the Tonle Sap River. There I had a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich, a few lattes, a few beers, and bought the latest copies of the Economist and International Herald Tribune from the disabled teenage vendor who remembered me from the week earlier. There was a eight year old girl selling trinkets, but I don’t buy into that child labor thing and stayed away. It being somewhat of a low season she was just hopping around from table to table chatting and playing. I gave her my last week’s Economist which she subsequently sold for US$2 and even offered to split the profit with me. Her name Ling and I certainly hope her life improves.
The Cambodian owner/hostess of the bar was a bit of a cold fish, but strikingly beautiful. She let me take a picture of her but other than that wanted me to buy her or some of her waitresses drinks. Apparently the restraint is half hostess bar, although you could not tell that from the generic tourist cliental. (“Hostess� as in buy me a drink and I’ll talk to you…no motorbike driver “boom, boom� stuff here.)
At about 11pm I hit the sack, woke up just in time to meet my waiting motor bike driver downstairs and was off to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time for my to catch my Bangkok Airways PG921 flight on a well maintained Airbus A-320. They even had a little lobby lounge where I filled up on free cakes, coffee and internet. Fantastic. An eventless hour and fifteen minutes later I was back in Bangkok.