The past few weeks has been all about less travel and more R&R. We’ve spent 5 days in Chiang Mai and 7 days in Ko Samui just chilling out really but there has been some excitement worth mentioning.
As you may have seen from the previously posted photos, we spent a day in an Elephant training camp learning the skills of the Mahout. The training camp was some 50k’s outside Chaing Mai towards the Burmese border. The opinion of whether or not this is a cruel way for elephants to live is divided as these elephant’s jobs used to be to trek to Burma by road and spend days in jungles working. They were originally trained to use their trunks to pull wood out of the jungles and then carry large loads back to Thailand. Nowadays they carry tourists around, get fed 250 tons of bananas a day and get bathed in the river. Doesn’t sound too bad to me but I guess to not interfere with their natural habit in the first place would be ideal. I’ll sit on the fence on this one 
After Chiang Mai, we made our way south to Ko Samui. Weather forecasts were sketchy but thankfully wrong so we spent our first 4 days just chilling on the beach with a bit of trekking a waterfall hunting mixed in. Then we decided we’d like to try diving!
17000 baht later we were booked on a 2 day dive course. The course was essentially the first half of the PADI Open Water course. It involved 1 morning of theory in the classroom, 3 confined water dives (swimming pool) and 2 open water dives of Ko Tho. Wow…what an experience.
I think diving is a strange one to sum up. It’s not really a love it or hate it thing but more like if there’s nothing stopping you (such as major fear, physical disability, medical condition, etc) and you go to the trouble of learning the theory and getting past all the boring stuff, once you first experience that weightless, quiet, colourful environment while breathing 12 metres beneath the sea you will never feel the same. From that point it draws you in and you just want more and more.
After our first two open water dives we can’t wait to get back in the water and finish our full Open Water certification which will then allow us to dive practically anywhere in the world without an instructor.
I can sense the future travel plans brewing in my mind already.
It’s now Friday morning and we’re about to head home. A 34 hour journey ahead involving several buses, ferries and no less than four flights.
A minor miracle if it all runs to plan.
Diving photos coming soon.
R.
