“To hell with luck, I will bring luck with me” -Ernest Hemingway,  The Old Man and the Sea

Four days in the “Backpackers’ Ghetto” of Bangkok, Khoa San Road, was plenty for us! We did a little more sight seeing, including the Grand Palace, Chinatown, and enjoying a beautifully lit pagoda next to the river at night. We also focused on eating healthier to recover from our diet of grease, caffeine, and sugar while in Myanmar (but it was oh so good)!

Fast forward through a minibus and ferry ride to the beautiful island of Koh Chang, near the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Of the many beaches to choose from, we chose to plant ourselves at Lonely Beach because, well, it was mostly void of resorts. We also expected to find rooms in the $10-15 range. To our surprise, Lonely Beach was so lonely this time of year that we found a private bungalow not far from the water for, wait for it… THREE DOLLARS per night. (No unwanted surprises in the middle of the night either!)

The beach was a short walk from where we were and we went there most mornings, but just at the end of our road was a large wooden deck where we could sit over the rocky coast listening to waves crash and dreamily watch the sunset everyday. We spent a lot of time here, which was actually a restaurant that was closed for the season. One day we stocked up on beer, wine coolers, and snacks and spent most of the day there writing in our journals, reading, and watching all the local dogs who seemed to enjoy the scenery just as much as we did. We didn’t leave until the sun had set. That was a good day!

The Lonely Beach area had a really laid back vibe. There was almost nobody around during the day. As Bryan said, you know it’s slow when the shop owners are all playing BINGO! But at night barefoot hippies came out of nowhere and live music would be playing at one or more restaurants. We spent a day on motorbike exploring the island, including a refreshing waterfall and some fantastic views looking down on beaches. The entire East side of the island is quite “lonely” and undeveloped.

We were really anticipating SCUBA diving at our next stop, the island of Koh Tao which is also in the Gulf of Thailand and Southwest of Koh Chang. And dive we did! Getting there was…fun. 27 hours of jumping from one mode of transportation to the next, back to Bangkok and then South. We should have just swam!

All the dive companies seemed to be pretty comparable in price, so we chose Big Blue because they gave us the cheapest hotel rate. I can’t describe how happy we were with this company! First of all, they were very environmentally conscious, which was a relief after what we experienced and saw in Vietnam while diving. Our dive masters all took the time before each dive to go over a picture book of species they expected we might see in each area, and after each dive went through the book again to review what we did see. Because of this I learned more than ever about the marine life. Some of the interesting species we saw were box fish, shrimp, large groupers, eels, stingrays, angel fish, needle fish, and barracudas. On two of our dives we explored artificially sunk, small Naval ships.

On our first dive we were incredibly lucky to see a Whale Shark! It was casually roaming through a big crowd of divers, curiously attracted to the bubbles. I had a good view of another diver swimming alongside it and estimated it at 9-11 feet in length. Not huge but not small. It was so beautiful. Whale sharks are not man-eating, so I found it humorous when it kept following one guy’s leg with it’s mouth open just inches from him! At one point it came within 6 feet of me, I’m so lucky!

(photo credit big blue diving)

We had planned our very first night dive for our third day in Koh Tao, but I was sick so Bryan went without me. That jerk had to come back all giddy and tell me how awesome it was! He said it felt really cool to be in total pitch black with only a small beam of light from a flashlight. It was easy to feel lost and confused, and he could see how many people would freak out. It was just his dive master and him so he was able to really enjoy every moment. The highlight was that he had his very first sea turtle sighting! He estimated 4 foot long or so.

The next day I was determined not to miss a full day diving trip we had signed up for to a far off location that none of the other diving companies go to. It was an incredibly interesting day!

There were just four of us in our little group, including our dive master, but several fellow groups were nearby. Right off the bat we saw a small sea turtle on our first dive. My first sea turtle sighting, check! That Bryan saw two in two days was pretty small odds. We followed it for awhile as it explored but eventually lost it. As we were totally engrossed in our immediate surroundings we turned a corner and BAM! Right in front of us was a boat wreck. Completely unexpected! As we’re exploring the debris scattered about (a fan, broken wood, computer parts, mattress, rice cookers) I couldn’t help but notice there was absolutely no algae growth and few fish swimming through it. It looked pretty recent. It was a big, wooden fishing boat and the mast was just barely under the top of the water. The hull was smashed near the front and the entire boat rocked back and forth as the waves crashed into the rock pinnacle nearby. It was scary seeing someone’s personal belongings scattered about knowing that person’s livelihood was probably ruined. I glanced through the cabin a little but hesitated when I thought of opening the windows to look in more. I was a little worried I might find a body, so I swam on. We pointed out the boat to our fellow divers. Once back on our boat everyone was shocked and laughing in total surprise that we just discovered a new wreck. It was a first for everyone, including all the professionals! We soon found out a couple of the guys had looked farther into the cabin, and they found what I had feared. Judging by the body and the wreck, it probably happened within a few days or so of us finding it. We can only speculate on what exactly happened.

We almost can’t believe it ourselves, but at the end of our second dive we saw our second Whale Shark! The chances of seeing one within the four days we dove are pretty small, the chances of seeing two are really slim! This one looked to be larger than the first, but it wasn’t interested in us and didn’t hang around to be sure. Just us four saw it that day, so the others were jealous and we got a lot of crap! Our last dive of the day wasn’t too exciting, but Bryan spotted another first for us – Bigfin Reef Squid – it looked like a UFO hovering over the sand. We followed it for awhile before it turned around and sped off like a bolt of lightning.

 

Unfortunately we don’t yet have a camera that we can dive with so we sadly don’t have photos of these incredible memories to add to the album, but we’re keeping an eye out for other divers’ photos from the same trips.