Our diving adventure consisted of a pool day and 2 days on the open water off of the island of Koh Tao. This adventure made me change my perspective on Thailand completely. Its crazy how quickly our opinions can change. Our diving instructor was Dominic, a german guy who has been living iin Thailand for 8 years now. The overnight trip on the boat out in Koh Tao and Dominic are what helped me change my mind about this place. As I mentioned earlier, the food here is phenomenal, and the scenery is just pristine beauty. Koh Tao is no exception. The dive sites we were at were great and the coastline is just magical. We did 3 dives the first day—diving is a different world. A bit scary knowing you need a device to breath, and it feels so different suspended in water. One thing I really like about it that I know will benefit me is that diving forces you to RELAX. Using too much energy, kicking too hard, breathing too fast, this is all counterproductive in diving. It really showed me how to calm down, focus on my breathing, and just hang in the water- neutrally buoyant. We spent the night on the boat and it was magical too. We got to know our instructor a lot better and he gave me a completely different view of Thailand. He told me to ignore what I see in Koh Samui and what I will see in Krabi & ko phi phi. He moved here from Germany 8 years ago and has never looked back. He said the real Thailand (which is nowadays hard to find) is paradise. The people, the food, the scenery, the way of life and the mentality are like nowhere else on earth. It is a true place to R&R, live in harmony with nature, and learn about yourself. He is Buddhist and encouraged us to take up meditation. The way he described it was beautiful: you do nothing. You don’t focus on your breathing, you don’t sit a certain way, you don’t think about meditating. You do nothing! You sit in one spot however you want and you just sit there. Your head floods with a million thoughts and stresses of the day but you just sit there. Eventually, you learn to just ignore all of those thoughts and you get to a state where you are doing nothing and you body is relaxed. He relaxed me by just talking about this. Before, when people would describe meditation, it would just stress me out because it seemed like hard work!
We became good friends with Dominic while sharing a meal on the boat (obviously delicious !). He encouraged us to check out parts of the country off the beaten track and invited us back to stay with him & his wife on their farm just outside of Bangkok. He said he would show us the true Thai lifestyle and the true beauty of this incredible place. He always told us he would bring us to a few monasteries to meet some of his monk mentors and to eat some delicious food—apparently the BEST and FREE food you can eat in Thailand is at monasteries where it is their duty and pleasure to serve you a meal if you enter. Dominic’s ideas and views blew us away. He is someone who came from a world like ours, only to find a different world that fit him perfectly. It is inspiring to see how happy he is and the life in Europe he does not miss….
We even talked about our upbringing and how our parents feel about our travels and ideas about life. The world is really a small place, filled with amazing people that I am just waiting to become friends with. Dominic is one of them. I think we will come back to the REAL Thailand after all….
The second day of our diving course took a toll on me. I had sea sickness most of the day, probably because the weather was less than perfect—raining all day and the boat was really rocky. Funny enough, the only thing I was able to keep down was the spicy thai lunch we had after the 1st dive. The 2nd and last dive of the day was really tiring for me but I managed it after all. The other not so fun part of the day involved the journey back. We caught a ferry back to Koh Samui from Koh Tao which was fine, but they were supposed to drop us off at our hostel afterwards and they unfortunately dropped us off at the wrong hostel (similar name)! We had to cab it to our actual hostel after we finally figured out where it was and then everything was fine. The couple that ran the hostel were great and booked all of our stuff for the trip to Krabi the next day (bus/boat/bus) so at least that stress was off our backs..
Happy to say we are now certified Open Water Recreational Scuba Divers and we hope to dive other sites around the globe as the travelling continues….This was Tom’s Christmas present for me—learning a sport and filling out exams for certification while I’m on vacation! What a boyfriend !:P
We are now off to Krabi on the west coast to check it out briefly and definitely to check out Ko phi phi island to see the famous Maya beach. I have been told it is tourist tainted too but still incredibly beautiful. I hope our nice camera can do it some justice….
