Hardeep Wreck Dive

Last Friday, after finishing up a rather drawn-out closing ceremony for English enrichment camp, I took off for Pattaya yet again, this time to complete my Advanced Open Water certification.

The main dive site was the Hardeep, a sunken World World II cargo ship sitting about 100 feet below the surface. Hardeep was the deepest dive I’d ever done, and Steve demonstrated how color dissipated as light decreased. At about 30 meters he pulled out a color chart; at that depth many of the colors appeared faded, red in particular, until he shined a light on the chart and each color returned to its normal vibrance.


Another diver, Andy (actually a distant cousin by marriage—who knew I had so many cousins in Thailand?), had an underwater camera but it jammed before we got to the wreck. It's too bad, the wreck was pretty cool looking. A lot of coral and plants clung to the old ship, and fish were swarming around it. I was tempted to swim inside the wreck, but Steve (appropriately) stopped me considering I didn’t know the layout of the wreck and I wasn’t prepared to retrace my steps with a line.


Although I would previously have been hesitant to acknowledge a “local” side to Pattaya, the third time was the charm in terms of seeing a small human side to Pattaya. The captain of our boat was a friendly Thai guy, and we took off from a small, empty dock surrounded by local families. I didn’t go out to the bars this time, but while looking through some t-shirts on a street stand, the Thai women who owned it were so excited that I spoke to them in Thai that they invited me to sit down on a plastic chair and have a drink with them.

I’ve now clocked 13 dives, and have completed my Advanced Open Water reviews. The only thing preventing me from diving more frequently is the price. On the other hand, diving in Thailand has been more affordable than it would be otherwise, not to mention the really cool people I’ve met through diving and the niiiice warmth of the Thai ocean.

Chiang Mai for a Bit

Due to a sudden emergence of Monday morning English Camp duties, my stay in Chiang Mai was the shortest of all, and this brevity was by far the most regretful. Chiang Mai quickly proved to be my favorite city in Thailand thus far, and I doubt I will encounter any worthy rivals for first place.


Accommodation was plentiful and cheap, and every room was within walking distance from places to eat. The food was also definitely the best I've had so far, in terms of variety and affordability. At the "Cafe de Siam" I had an amazing roast chicken sandwich with spinach, grilled vegetables and real cheese on Rosemary Focacia for about 2 dollars US, which was pretty much a conglomoration of all the farang foods I missed—cheese, good bread, and leafy greens—rolled into one satisfying bite. I also went to a surprisingly incredible Mediterranean restaurant called "Jerusalem Falafel" before I left. The icing on the cake was a little place called "Chocolate Fact," which was dedicated solely to chocolate cakes, ice cream, pastries, drinks and my own selection... fondue.


I spent most of my time in Chiang Mai wandering, visiting temples, buying local crafts, and just enjoying the beauty and ease of this colorful city. I stumbled on a "monk chat," where a monk answered tourist inquiries regarding his religion, and I bought some handmade wooden earrings for about 30 cents. The people were all downright friendly. While tourism had a strong presence, it hadn't sucked the soul from Chiang Mai the way it often does other cities.

On Saturday night I finally took a Thai cooking class, where I learned to make all the dishes I know oh-so-well. Our instructor was a beautiful young Thai woman with a playful but sweet disposition I'll now fondly associate with notherners. I mastered some of my Thai favorites: Pad See Ew, Panang Chicken Curry, Coconut Soup and Chicken with Cashew Nuts. I was surprised to see that many dishes were not only similar, their base ingredients were literally the same. The main differences were choice of vegetables, size of noodles, and consistency of dish. Otherwise, all you need is plenty of fish and oyster sauce. Love that sodium!


Over the past few days I've been working at English camp, which is a summer enrichment program that involves less children and more work. After my long trip, however, it's nice to be back in Amata. I wouldn't go so far as to call this school my new "home," but it's the closest I have when it comes to stable places and familiar faces. The kids are little devils sometimes, but keeping things fun has kept us both sane. Here's a few snapshots of the end of semester (don't be deceived, they're only happy because I'm giving them free time), and a clip of their favorite game: BINGOOOOO!!!

Ziplining in Laos

Our stay in Laos was dedicated almost exclusively to the Gibbon Experience, a tour of sorts organized by a non-profit we’d heard about upon arrival in Thailand. The profits from this treehouse-ziplining adventure go to preserving the Bokeo Nature Reserve and the wildlife (including the Gibbon monkeys) that reside there.

The escapade began with a two-hour truck ride on a rough “road,” road being a loose term. In spite of my pot-hole induced nausea, I enjoyed watching Laotian children waving as we passed, with vigor exceeding that of even Thai children. On the journey we met two sweet Dutch girls named Naomi and Dare, who would soon become our treehouse-mates. We arrived at the border of the nature reserve in the afternoon, and began our uphill hike to our new home for the next few days: Treehouse Mak Hai. How did we enter our treehouse sweet treehouse? Ziplining, of course!


Our guide, Jeerjen (my spelling here is questionable), gave us a brief demonstration, showed us a small ziplining loop between our treehouse and another, then disappeared. This is something I love about Asia: things are hands off enough for me to zipline alone in a jungle, to pet a tiger, to do things on my own accord and at my own risk. Granted, some things are just plain dangerous, but in America we’ve swung to the other radical end of the safety spectrum, where people can’t do anything because of an over-obsessive fear of lawsuits.


Mak Hai treehouse was pretty cozy, and came with a cat we nicknamed Mao. He elevated himself to “good kitty” status the moment he started attacking bugs, but his forces weren’t strong enough for the insects that emerged at night. We were attacked by all sorts of blood suckers, but the worst were the bees. There were four large bee hives on our tree, and at night the sheer number of bees forced us to huddle under our mosquito nets, where we spent plenty of time talking and making up games. I love the moments when I remember how easy it is to have fun with nothing but other people.



We spent two mornings searching for Gibbon monkeys at 6am. Gibbons sang a tune every morning before commencing a search for food (our goal was to catch them while they were still singing). We got close enough to hear their strangely mesmerizing incantations and even saw some tree branches rustle, but we never actually spotted a gibbon clearly. Ultimately I didn’t mind, the thrill of ziplining made up for this small failure. Here’s a video I took while zipping:


I’m hoping to return to Laos to catch several things I missed, and to enjoy another glass of Beer Laos. Next stop on our journey was the most popular city in Thailand besides Bangkok: Chiang Mai.

Chiang Rai and Phu Chi Fah

We began our northern voyage in the city of Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai’s lesser known cousin. Chiang Mai takes the cake as my favorite city, but Chiang Rai proved to be a similarly rewarding province (so it can take the cupcake).

The city of Chiang Rai was pretty accessible, and featured a blend of hippie culture and Thai tradition that I now find oddly familiar. We spent our evening in a bar called “Peacehouse” run by several jovial rasta Thais and laid back ex-pats. We sat around a fire while people played drums and guitar, many of them regulars who found a haven in this bar. One smiley Thai guy with dreadlocks and carved ear gauges let me hold his pet hedgehog, and I experienced the now frequent sensation of living in another world.

Chiang Rai also featured one of my top must-sees in Thailand: the White Temple (aka Wat Rong Kun). At this point, I’ve seen a lot of temples, and a wat is a wat: ornate columns, swirling triangular roofs, gold statues, a carpeted floor leading up to some sort of Buddha figure. As much as I’ve enjoyed visiting these sparkling staples of Thai culture, they’ve inevitably begun to blend together. The White Temple, however, was the most original temple I’ve ever seen: it’s completely white and silver, and features statues and art that bordered fantastical, with spirits and goblins lining the entrance.



Apparently the designer, Mr. Chalermchai Kositpipa, was attempting to create an imitation of heaven. The entrance represents the human world, and the earthly passions that we must shed in order to enter the realm of the gods (the mortal demons were represented by hands reaching desperately towards the sky). The inside the temple an artist was painting a modernized version of a Thai historical painting. His work was in the style of classic temple art, but with the insertion of pop culture figures like Spiderman, and political references to 9/11 and war.


That afternoon we took a tuk tuk to the local national park, and hiked to Khun Korn waterfall. The waterfall itself was huge and breath-taking, although even more amazing was the amount of drunk Thai people we passed on the walk up there. The park was clearly a local destination, families were having picnics all along the water and tons of Thai people were stumbling drunkenly down the (quite rocky) path, shouting “hello!!! You wannn thai wiskeyyy?”

The night market in Chiang Rai was probably the largest I’d ever been to. It was here that I shared some of my local culinary favorites with my visiting friend, Hannah: thai tea (10 baht), coconut ice cream (15 baht, must be served in an actual coconut shell) pad thai (15 baht, served in banana leaf).

Our next destination was Phu Chi Fah mountain, where we stayed in a cozy shack with a group of awesome Thai people who insisted we drink small shots of whiskey while they cooked us delicious food over the fire (Thai language 101: “chon gao” = cheers, “mut gao” = bottoms up… beware of these phrases). After Hannah graced us with a fire-spinning show, six tired American girls crawled into one big bed and passed out. We awoke at the ungodly hour of 5am to catch the sunrise on the top of Phu Chi Fah mountain, and it was worth the trek. The skyline was cloudy, but this added a hazy quality that gently accentuated the distant mountains in the distance.


Our next stop was the border of Laos, but I’ll save this for the next post.