Koh Tao 1

Sorry about the drought in entries. I'll start off by telling you about my day in Bangkok. I started off by getting a train/boat ticket for Koh Tao at the enormous Hualumphong Train Station. After that, Somchai dropped me off at Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace, a huge temple/palaace complex near the Chao Praya river. In a nutshell, I wandered around that temple, walked around on the street, got some snacks, walked some more, got lunch, went back to Hualumphong to get some more tickets that I had forgotten about the first time, went to Wat Pho temple (home of a giant gold reclining Buddha and some hilarious spirit guaardian statues that look exactly like Biggie Smalls), got more food, crossed the river to Wat Arun (my favorite temple, essentially just a really big, ornate stone tower), ate a small meal, took a tuk-tuk (3-wheel motorcycle cab) to Khao San Road (the backpacker center), was disgusted by the excess, returned to near Wat Pho, caught a river taxi and skytrain to a shopping center where I met Somchai for dinner, was driven to Hualumphong to catch my train, and slept on the floor until my train actually was ready to leave. Phew! Bangkok was beautiful/squalid and smelly, and I took tons of great pictures that describe it much more thoroughly than I care to. After an overnight train ride and a bumpy catameran ride, I arrived at Koh Tao, a tiny, scuba-oriented island in the Gulf of Thailand. I'm staying at Big Blue dive resort, and am currently finishing off my Open Water certification. I've got an awesome, if really funky, bungalow by the beach, and am having a pretty great time. My instructor's name is Beccy; I'm in a group with a British couple, another British fellow, and a Chilean girl. I've met some great people outside of the group: highlights include two Portuguese women; another divemaster named, I believe, Med, who has a regular gig at a bar and is letting me play some songs; and an Ozzie dad-and-lad duo met last night in the bar. These last deserve some special mention: last night, the father, Martin, came and introduced himself to Ben, another Ozzie, and me, and started chatting with Ben, leaving me to talk with his son, Peter. He asked me what nationality I was; when I told him I was American, he shook his head disappointedly, and began to pontificate on how Americans talk to much. He went on to rail against the limitation of alcohol sales during the Thai local election (bear in mind that this kid is nine), stereotype the Thai and British, and, when we told him that talking like this when he was older would probably get his ass kicked, explained how nobody would be able to kick his ass because he would be taller than his dad. I just had to laugh. The diving's going pretty well, although today, probably due to some funky Pad Thai, I was violently ill upon surfacing from both of our dives. Ah well...hopefully everything will be better tomorrow. Love you all.