Pai - 23rd - 24th of January

I left from Chiang Mai early yesterday morning and arrived at 10 AM to Pai. Travellers have said to me that Pai is the favorite place in whole Thailand, like small Chiang Mai. Since I wasn’t that impressed of Chiang Mai, I didn’t have big expectations for Pai either. But actually, this is quite charming small town. Not that many people, you can walk to anywhere in the town since the distance from one end of the town to another is only about 1,5 km. 

However I haven’t got the pleasure to enjoy Pai that much since yesterday morning I got a high fewer and immediately when I arrived to Pai and found my hotel I basically slept the whole shivering. In the evening I had to go out since I needed to have water but even the less than 100 m to the closest 7/11 was too much for me and once I got back to my room fall asleep again. 

This morning I already felt better and after walking around the city and couple of hour of cycling outside the city I decided that I need to continue my trip (biggest reason for me to get to Laos is that my Visa expires in couple of days and I don’t want to do just a visa run since I am anyway heading to Laos also) so I booked a ticket to Luang Prabang which would departure this evening 8 PM. It is a one night of driving to the boarder of Laos, and then two days in a slow boat along the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. 

Here are my couple of shots of Pai and my boat trip to Luang Prabang.

                                                              Pai centrum

                                                 View from the river boat

Chiang mai - Elephant Trekking and waterfalls

Chiang Mai, the pearl of Northern Thailand. Every single traveler I have met has recommended the place for me and now I am finally here and going to stay here for the next 4 days. Since I arrived here late on Friday evening around 11 PM there wasn’t that much for me to do except to visit the nearest 7/11 for a water and crabbing some chicken curry from the street on my way back to hotel and to sleep. Hotel is actually quite nice compared to other 5€/night places. Okay I am bit outside of town, around 1 km but it takes only 10 minutes to walk into town, or pay 50 cents for a taxi to there. And I have my own room, air con AND A HOT WATER!?!? Hot water is actually something I have started to value after so many places with only cold or warn water.

During the train travel there was one quite peculiar happening, our train was in fire. All of a sudden the train staff ordered everyone to gather our staff and leave the train. Immediately when we were outside of the train we saw the flames coming from one of the wagons.

Anyway my first full day, Saturday, in Chiang Mai went mostly wandering around the city and looking what it has to offer. Also visited one temple but I already have the feeling that when you have seen one you have seen all. Not that huge differences really. And also made an action plan for the next full days I have left. On Saturday evening I visited the Chiang Mai Saturday market with three south-Korean students who are here to learn Thai language. These are really messy markets. Tonns of stuff everywhere, even more people and when you want to buy something the first price is never the last price. It was like a game and after couple of shots I learned the rules. After the Saturday evening market we also visited the Chiang Mai night Bazaar but at least I was a bit disappointed for these.

Sunday I decided to go to the Chiang Mai zoo. Again close to my hotel but it would have been at least 40 min walk along highway or nice taxi with 50 cents again. I took the taxi. Or the taxi is actually a wrong word to use, Songstherm is I guess quite close how these are called. It is something more like a openback minibus. You just waive your hand on the road and the vehicle stops, if the driver is going to your direction then you jump in from the back which might include already 12 other people (“comfortable” for only about 8 person) and then you shout when you want to get out. If you want to go along with larger streets and are ready to walk to the closest big street you have (like mine was in around 2 min walk) you can travel all around Chiang Mai with really low prices. However if you want your “taxi” to take you all the way in front of your hotel or pick you up from there then you need to pay according to the meter fares which can easily be three of four times higher instead of these “public” taxis which have loosely some kind of travel plan also. The owner of my hotel wrote my note with my details in Thai so I could just show it to driver and they would let me out in front of this shopping mall which was next to my hotel.

So the day in the zoo. I arrived to the zoo around 10 AM and left back to hotel around 6 PM. And honestly had only one actual break during the whole day of walking when I had a quick lunch. This was a bit different than Helsinki zoo. Quick calculation based on the map says I walked 18 km during the day. And I didn’t even see everything! Anyway there were all the animals you can think and as we know, we stay staring each animal quite a time, especially if it is a hippo or rhino or panda etc. which are quite sights. Here are few pictures from my day.

After the Zoo I was super excited and went shopping for 7/11 for some snacks and water for the next two days because the next two days would the whole reason why I wanted to come to Chiang Mai; Two Days Elephant Safari. And not only elephants but bamboo rafting, orchid farm, visiting a tribe village, having a home stay for the night at the village, trekking, swimming at waterfalls and of course riding with the elephants.

Here are quite many pictures from the Safari:

                                                  Tamarinds straight from the tamarind-tree

I can only say that the Safari exceeded all my expectations. The program was most likely this. The first day there was a pick up from the hotels at 9 AM and I was driven to the office of the travel company. There I met the others who will join our safari and filled out the insurance forms (falling off from elephant and hurting myself would not be covered, I ask ;) but my own travel insurance would cover it, checked that also during previous evening). And at 10 AM there were 2 pick-ups to drive us up to the mountins. First stop of the day was at the butterfly and orchid farm. Didn’t see that much of butterflies but orchids were stunning, so colourfulls, grands and vivid. 

We spent one hour in the farm wandering around and then it was time to move on. All in all our ride to mountains took 1 hour from the orchid farm so almost 2 h from Chiang Mai in total. At the mountains we had a lunch reserved ready. After the lunch it was time to start the adventure which was trekking. First day was quite easy on trekking, we had around 2 hour trekking to reach an elephant camp. The moment we had so looked for, riding with elephants. Since there were 9 of us in the group, our guide asked from me if I would like to ride in an elephant as a mahout instead of riding it in the backbox. I was super excited about this and of course answered yes. So I was learned with basic commands on elephant and also how to use the elephant hook.

                                                   Doctor Livingstone I presume?

                                                  Mahout in training

Since there were also local Mahouts (=Elephant drivers) walking around I wanted to try this out even though I knew there was no possibility to control the elephant in anyway if it would have started to act otherwise than told. Well, the truth came out quite fast, after first two meters, that I am certainly no mahout. It was incredibly hard just to stay ON the elephant. Nothing like riding a horse. The whole elephant was waving from one side to another and I had my full concentration on just how not to fall down from 3 meters. Luckily the elephant didn’t do anything that it wasn’t supposed to, expect staying eating every once in a while, so I didn’t need to try how to jump off from it. The elephant ride last around 2 hours in the first day and after I got out of the elephant both of my legs cramped after being so long in difficult position. Basically we had to have a 20 min break before we could continue our trip. Of course since I was the only one who was riding with an elephant (I mean sitting on the elephant’s neck bouncing around and not in the box placed on the top of the elephant) others had no problems to continue the trekking. After the break my legs also started to feel like I could move forward so off we went. Now it was only one hour trekking anymore left before we arrived to the local tribe village.

I absolutely can’t remember the name of the tribe even though I asked for it several times but since I didn’t have anything to write it down there’s no way I could even pronounce it. Anyway the tribe consisted originally refugees from Myanmar 200 years ago. Now the village was still living it’s own life, altought they had a bit of electricity which they got from the solar panels donated by the government one year earlier. However at least I didn’t see anything that would use electricity in the whole village. Maybe these items were hidden from the tourists ;) Anyway the village consisted only about 7 actual houses and then couple of bamboo huts (in which we of course stayed the night) while there were in total about 30 people living (5 families). The villages cooked some food for us for the dinner but since they couldn’t speak any of our languages they didn’t really speak with us that much. The guide told us about their lives in the village and told that his family came also from similar kind of village from the east Thailand and he had gone to study with the stipends government provides for these tribes. The dinner included true close-distance food since for example the tamarinds we ate were collected from the three less than 10 meters from us and  we could see where the bananas and other fruits come. This was indeed enlightening visit from the modern world to see there are actually still those who manage without even electricity. 

 Next morning we got a nice fruit breakfast and then it was time to hit the road again. Now we had around 3hours of trekking and then reaching the elephant camp. This time I didn’t need to ride on the elephant but I could actually enjoy from the box. I have to say I felt a bit like Doctor Livingstone while wandering across the country. Again after two hours of riding we had our final trekking part with only one hour route. The reached a waterfall in the jungle and where we also had our lunch eaten (Cold chicken and rice + fruits). The water of the waterfall was cold since it came from the mountain (not exactly +30 degrees with I had get used already in Koh Tao diving) but it was really refreshing and it was nice to wash off the dust and dirt from the last two days. We spent nice couple of hours in the waterfall and I did some free jumping after our guide from the cliffs (Have to say I said my prayers first because didn’t feel totally safe).

After the waterfalls we had a bamboo rafting for 3 hours along the river which was super relaxing. It was also so cute to see baby elephants from elephant camp bathing in the river while we passed them in one meter. After the river rafting everyone seemed quite tired and the trip back to town in pick-ups was quite silent for all of us. Also after I reached my hotel I fall asleep immediately, just got my eyes open to put on alarm since I planned to continue my trip to Pai next early on following morning. All in all the safari was extremely well organized, no additional waiting times anywhere and everything ready for our arrival, so we could just concentrate to enjoy the trip, which we did certainly. 

All in all Chiang Mai wasn’t itself as great as I had expected but the trekking and safari were such adventures that I’ll give my full points on there and am happy I visited the place. Next stop: Pai.

17th January - Two weeks in Koh Tao behind

Now time to get a reality check after two weeks of sun and sea. So last time I wrote about going to SSI’s Open Water Diver course. Well, a lot has happened after that. First of all, the OWD course was just pure awesomeness. The course lasted three and a half days (first evening’s couple of hours paperwork and some videos).

At the first “real” diving day we went through some theories and gears during the morning and on the afternoon it was already time for our first dives. The next two days were pure diving with small exercises, like how to clean your mask underwater or what to do if you are running out of air. I also got a LOT of pics from our last dive in the OWD course, but since those burned on DVD and I don’t have a station in my computer at all, I’ll have to wait a while before I get those pics. However here are some pics that  Alex took from our fun dives with Nitrox in my last day's diving from Green rock and Japanese Garden.

                                                          Qualified diver - Me :)
                    

 

So what happened after the OWD course? Well of course the advanced course. I got so addicted into diving that I continued my diving career into a next course, and a next, and a next, and still one more… So now, I am certified Specialty Diver of SSI with more than 22 logged dives, specialities in deep diving, nitrox diving and wreck diving. Next steps for me? At least one more special course, then Stress&Rescue (this one is what I am looking for most right now) and at least 50 logged dives by the end of this year, all of this combining the level of “Master Diver” which brings me a lot new opportunities in the future. Also already decided I want to train myself into Dive Master and possibly SSI’s instructor in the future. Let’s see where the road takes me ;)

 And along with courses I also did fun dives every day. What is the differences between fun dives and course dives? On course dives you need  to focus on learning certain skills while on fun dives you can just focus on watching fishes, which at least for me is the main point. So during my two weeks of diving we spotted so so many things. I had two absolutely GREAT moments which will stay in my head forever. One of these is spotting a Bryde’s whale. And actual whale. We were approaching our day’s diving site while we saw something huge in the nearby and while we got closer even all the dive masters and instructors were staring with us and then recognizing that it was an actual whale. Quickly opening all the fish books they had with they found it was Bryde’s whale but for me the specie wasn’t that important. But IT WAS AN ACTUAL WHALE!?!?!?! about 8 meters long and sprinkled the water into air. Of course we had both of our dives in that same site to spot the whale also in the water but by we got into water it was already gone. The second huge moment was when I did my deep dive into 40 meters 2 of my diving buddies. While we were descending down to 40 m, there became a whale shark hovering around us. I, or my dive buddies, didn’t even notice it first because we were so concentrating into our first deep dive, so our instructor had to take us from the hands to show the whale shark which was making circles around us in about 5 meters distance (normally instructor would tap on her tank with metal stick but she didn’t want to scare it off). This was a magnificent  (and a bit scary) moment to watch a whale shark flowing around you. The whale shark was about 3 meters long and looked super sympathic. We managed to finish our deep dive also although it took quite a much more air than we had expected (at least my air consumption MIGHT have had some effects from the encounter of a shark).

Other species we have met are blue sting ribbon tail-rays (rausku in finnish), sea snakes, lots of different kinds of crabs and shrimps, troupers, cobies (looks a lot like small sharks), sea snails, scorpion fish, Queen fishes, parrot fishes, barracudas of different species (yellow tale, chevron and great); had a moment of scare when in a night dive a giant barracuda started to follow the light of my flashlight. In my last dive on the day I left I also found my very first self spotted ray under a large rock. The diving sites in Koh Tao were really great. I had a change to visit quite many of those and I can only recommend the place.  

Other than diving I didn’t really do that much in Koh Tao. At evening’s I was super tired after coming back to land and mostly fall asleep latest at 9 or 10 PM. Then next morning I needed to be gathering my diving stuff already at 5.30 AM since boat left at 6 AM. After ending our advanced adventurer course we went to party. First into Maya beach club, which was nice and cozy, and then into “biggest night club” of Koh Tao;The Castle. It was a cool place, open air club with three floor. Drinks there were also okay, same Samsong Cola you get from anywhere. The music was house music and we danced almost the whole night.  However the most funniest activity here was to follow supersupersuper drunk british tourist and what they were doing; yelling, fighting, falling, pucking, shouting, fucking, hitting the DJ, hitting the bar tender, crashing tables, etc.  We counted that in some point there were more people carried out than actually walking out by their own feet. We left from the party around 6.30 AM but the party wasn’t even near to the end in that point.

Since after drinking quite some Samsong Cola there wasn’t even a question of diving, I decided to went a half-day snorkeling trip which turned out be a great decision. Some of the reefs are so in shallow waters that you don’t need to dive to see but snorkeling was enough. It wasn’t also as demanding as diving so after couple of hours of snorkeling, lots of water and fruits on the boat I felt I actually had a quite a productive day compared to my normal hangover days.

                                                           "Lähibaari"

                                                      My private beach

                                                           Fire show on the beach

In my second last evening we (me, two irish guys, one british guy and one Norwegian girl) went to see a ladyboy show which was lots of different movie songs (No photos allowed L  ). The show was actually hilarious and we laughed almost the whole time. During the show the ladyboys picked up couple guys from the audience to give lap dances. The guys weren’t that thrilled and seemed to feel quite uncomfortable... Next morning when we were having a breakfast together I heard story from the next table about one finnish guy who had ended into same hotel with a ladyboy and didn’t realize “she” was actually “he” before the following morning…

During my time here I also got not-so-nice allergic reaction from some insects and here’s the results… 

Luckily local pharmacy lady gave me the medicines immediately and for the first night sleeping pills :D :D so I don’t scratch my feet. Medicine worked out and next morning none of this was left anymore.

Anyway now I am on my way to northern Thailand already. Next destination for me is Chiang Mai, the second biggest city of Thailand and my travel from Koh Tao to Chiang Mai last approx. 30  hours. First I took a ferry from Koh Tao to Chumphon (3 hours), then waited 2 hours for a bus, now on my way to Bangkok with bus (10 hours) then waiting in Bangkok 3 hours and then taking a train to Chaing Mai (12 h).  We’ll see what will happen up in the north.

Here's my last night sunset :) Koh Tao - I'll be back!