Even when I'm not underwater, I'm under water...

Here's a quick video of our daily 3pm thunderstorm (though this one is especially intense, I don't usually have a river running outside my bungalow...):

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. - Langston Hughes

Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. - Roger Miller

---

And because these quotes made me smile:

If you think it's going to rain, it will. - Clint Eastwood

We gonna stay together baby through the monsoon and no matter the weather honey me and you will bloom yeah. - WillIAm 

Getting Acquainted

The dive season starts on Monday, so we've had a very busy few days preparing to assist with Open Water Courses and Divemastering.  It's great having a bungalow to call home base, and I have space to hang my things outside so they dry (mostly, since there's a thunderstorm of truly epic proportions at 3pm sharp every day). 

I live in the right half of the bungalow with a queen bed, porch, bathroom, sink, fridge, and FAN. It's very nice!

The pool is quite small but there are only 4 of us taking the class, so we have plenty of space to practice our skills.  Right now we're learning how to demonstrate, which is SO much harder than just being able to do them in cases of emergency. I truly believe that teaching is the best way to learn and I think my diving has hugely improved in the last 2 days of pool sessions.  ~4 hours each day in chlorine is exhausting though. John and I are both working on the SSI skills (I'll do PADI as well) so we are trained by Anna, an amazing and fiesty woman from Barcelona. She and her husband have been instructors for years and have made a living traveling from exotic location to exotic location - awesome role models, and great to work with!

Me and my dive trainer Anna.

Of course, all work and no play wouldn't be any fun. I think diving is the best way to combine work and play, but there is also a vibrant dive community in addition to learning skills and taking tourists on dive boats.  Tuk and Ploy, two of the staff at Wicked Diving, are native Thai who know the area and took us around to some of the best bars and restaurants. It's awesome having their experience because otherwise we would have no idea where to go! 

Eating at our favorite street food stand, Orchids. AMAZING food!! 

Fruity drinks at the Monkey Bar, a local hot spot for divers

Thai funk band at the Happy Snapper, which has live music daily. The band & singers played songs ranging from "Price Tag" by Jessie J to  Sublime and Bob Marley. They are so talented!

We also had a big welcome dinner for all the staff at Wicked Diving - here's the photo :) there are 8 instructors and 4 of us taking the Divemaster Training class, plus Aldo (standing up) who coordinates the shop and Ploy who helps with international bookings. It's a very fun, welcoming, and exciting group of people with INCREDIBLE life stories. For example, Danny is the other Barcelonean dive instructor and he used to be a business formal, professional lawyer. Now he's living the dream! The instructors are all experienced and come from all over, so it's going to be an AMAZING experience learning from them. I can't believe it's already been a week!

The Wicked Diving team

Field trip to the Decompression Chamber

Don't worry, I didn't have to USE the decompression chamber. We had a tour of the center and learned about the process of removing excess nitrogen from the bloodstream to avoid tissue damage, which was very interesting since I've only read about the facilities. The decompression chamber in Phuket has a large submarine-like interior so you can be comfortable (ish) while undergoing treatment. Hopefully I'll never have to experience it first hand, especially since it costs 753 Euro per treatment hour (minimum 5 hours, up to 9 hours), but that's what dive insurance is for! Tomorrow we start with pool sessions, and we begin assistant-teaching Open Water Diver certification classes in 2 days. I'm so excited!!

Located adjacent to the Phuket International Hospital

This is what I'll look like if I ever need to be recompressed

The control panel for O2, normal air, etc...

Regulator Servicing station in Phuket

Random photo of the day: Donut Pizza?? BUT WHY??

Adventure 1: Ze Epic Walk

Self study days = reading, mini-quizzes, and time to have an adventure. 

Adventure 1. Ze Epic Walk

~1.5 miles of walking along a road filled with trucks, cars, and motos with jungle on the other side. Here's what we saw at the next town along the road:

A police boat that was tossed ~2 km upland from the beach during the 2004 tsunami. Crazyyy

Small shrine with a potbellied guardian 

Deep-fried grasshopper? FOR DINNER? (it tasted buggy...)

Wheels spinning in the sky

Pastry-covered hot dogs on a stick

Rhys unimpressed with grasshopper and mealworm

Mealworms om nom (they tasted like chips...)

George and chicken (it wasn't was spicy as it looks, thank goodness)

 And a carnival celebrating the 9-day vegetarian Buddhist holiday going on right now:

Meet the Gang

Thailand is what I expected and not at all what I expected. This is hard for me to explain, since I'm not sure what I expected, but I do know that I like it here a lot.  I'm located in Khao Lak, the small city that acts as a gateway to some of the best diving in Thailand. It becomes a crazy whirlwind of tourism and diving when the Similian National Park opens on November 1st, but right now it feels like a calm beachfront town. Every day I see more tourist stands, restaurants, and tailoring shops open up in anticipation of the tourist season. The growing energy is almost palpable (never thought I'd use that word in a sentence...) and I'm so excited for things to get rolling!

The first portion of the course is primarily classroom learning. We have to be able to lead group dives, instruct Open Water courses, and work the dive shop, so we'll be honing those skills before we start teaching on the liveaboard trips. I do wish we could get in the water NOW, but I suppose it's important to make sure we have the soft skills before they toss us in the ocean with a group of tourists.

Who is this "we," you ask? Let's do some brief introductions to my fellow Divemasters-in-training:

John, the intrepid mid-30s Australian who left his banking job for a 15-month sabbatical traveling to 17 countries, starting with Thailand. He's a hoot and a half - very sharp and funny. He worked on cruise ships in the Caribbean and Alaska so he's had first-hand experience with the crazy things Americans do. Luckily, he is giving me lots of credit for being from the Bay Area. Yes he's holding a monkey in the photo.

Rhys (left), the youthful Canadian who has taken a break from his electrician studies to do his Divemaster and become more confident in diving without a guide. He's 19 and has gotten 4 tattoos since arriving, since bamboo tattoos heal almost instantly and can still go in the water... one is a tattoo of a mustache on his pointer finger. Actually.

George (right), the techie Canadian who left his IT job and is now traveling to dive and possibly transition to divemastering. He's the most experienced diver of our group and has been diving in Montreal rivers most recently, as well as in the Caribbean. He bought a bag of cornflakes that would make Costco patrons jealous, since we have little fridges for milk and fruit in our rooms.

The food has been tasty, spicy, and cheap, which is as expected. I don't think I'm going to get sick of Thai food anytime soon - I'm having a hard time picking which dish I want because they all sound so good. I'm glad I trained myself to eat curry and spicy food though, because they don't mess around with the chili powders and sauces.  Time to study the methods for teaching dive techniques!

The Wandering Bandicoot travels to Thailand

About this blog: I'm on an adventure in Thailand. I packed my SCUBA gear, two changes of clothes, and some contact lenses. I've already lost my Thai phrasebook, made friends with a cleaning lady, and tried to board the wrong plane. This is going to be awesome :)

The plan: Become a Divemaster. Tame the wild tropical seas, take some beautiful photos, learn a new language, make friends. 

The execution: Well, let's break this down.

1. Flight fro SFO to Seoul to Singapore.

Every flight is measured by its movies and the volume of babies' cries. Luckily there were no wailing toddlers, so here's my movie summary:

• Moonrise Kingdom: 5/5. This movie is delightful, and I say that as a lukewarm fan of another Wes Anderson classic "The Life Aquatic." Dad, you have to watch this - I'm curious how you react to the portrayal of boy scouts. And rural Canada-esque island life.
• Beasts of the Southern Wild - 4/5. Well, I cried for the last 1/4 of the movie but that's not saying much, given how Olympic ads = waterworks. It definitely gets points for emotional pull. I respect it for being beautifully made and incredibly acted, but it's still not my type of movie.
• Rock of Ages - ???/5. Why does this movie exist? I love musicals but even the plane flight wasn't enough to keep me engaged. Maybe there were drugs in my plane food (or hater-ade in my tea), but I am still confused  about how they got funding, great talent, and any audience to watch this movie.

2. Singapore: The Epic 14 Hour Layover Marathon

I arrived at 1am, bought a SIM card, and headed downtown for a few hours of sleep at a cute little hotel. I then headed to the Gardens by the Bay, where there's a fantastic display of human ingenuity and unnecessary engineering. It was like Avatar, but real and x10. IT WAS AWESOME! Also hot. And humid.

When I got back to my hotel, I ran into the sweetest woman cleaning rooms. We got to talking and the next thing I know, she's wishing me safe travels and hoping that there will be attractive people in my dive class. THE BEST.

I met up with James and Yeong Hui, two friends that I met during my week-long program in Taiwan (Spring break 2008).  I also met with them in 2009 on my way to New Zealand, and we couldn't believe it's already been 3 years... how time flies. We walked around the Esplanade, Marine Bay Sands Hotel and Casino (which apparently has annual earnings on par with all of Las Vegas or Macau... rich Asian people are really, well, rich), and crossed the helix bridge. We also drank lots of iced teas and coffees. Did I mention it was hot and humid?

After an airport sendoff from Nim, another friend from the Taiwan Program, I confidently walked to the wrong gate and had to sprint across the airport. Run, silly girl on gap yah, run! I made it with time to spare and the flight to Phuket was uneventful. I sat next to a funny Australian couple on their 40th anniversary trip; they had just come from India. They should start a comedy routine with the way they interrupt, correct, and make faces at each other when the other isn't looking.

3. Made it to Thailand. I'll put up some photos soon. My bungalow is not on the beach, sadly, but it does come with an adorable dog-in-residence. I'm not sure if he has fleas but I'll probably learn the hard way, since he lies down and begs to be pet whenever I walk by. I have a comfy bed, fan, and porch that overlooks a small side street. Beware: roosters and chickens roam freely. The food is great! Welcome to paradise :)

Hola Baja!

Hola familia y amigos,

No yo he practicado mi español por muchos años. Por eso, voy a escribir este jornal en inglés, porque no tengo tiempo para practicar y aprender todas las palabras que necesitaré para describir la experiencia de estudiando en Baja.

Besos,
Liz

-----

This is mostly going to be a photo journal, since we don't have much time for actual blogging. And since I don't remember enough Spanish to do this justice, I'll just do it English for the folks back home! (And sorry if my intro butchers grammar, spelling, and convention. It's been awhile since I took Spanish).

LA PAZ:

We arrived in La Paz Monday afternoon and went immediately to Hotel Yeneka, which Gilly described as "a funky place with a stuffed monkey driving a car." It was AMAZING! I think the decorations were entirely collected in junkyards, alleys, and gutters, but it's really great. Here are some photos to get an idea of the decor:

Yes, it's actually a real stuffed monkey driving a real car. Bizarrrrreeee!
The courtyard was open so we got a great breeze, and this table had a few rays of morning sunshine. SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PLACE!

We sat under this canopy drinking beers and eating tamales for a midnight snack on the first night. A street vendor sold the best tamales I've ever had, hand's down. Ridiculous.
SO MANY KEYS!

We spent the night in La Paz before driving to Loreto about 4 hours up the coast.

--------------------

Loreto:

This is another beautiful beachfront town and we were about 1 block from the ocean. We walked along the coast drinking mango smoothies and it was gorgeous. So wonderful!

We drove to Mission San Javier, about 1.5 hours inland from Loreto. The landscape is so barren and desert-like that we were shocked to find an oasis spilling onto the road. Gilly surprised us, since he knew it was there, and we walked around it for over an hour just enjoying the refreshing feel of water on our feet and watching the little river creatures.


If you look at the sides of the hill, you can see the huge cactus just outside the range of the water. The land is so parched that it's amazing a river can exist. It must have something to do wit the composition of the rock.
Becca, Lauren L, y yo!

Mission San Javier:

The mission is small but beautiful. It's set against an epic backdrop of desert mountains. Daaaang!!

This tree was pretty awesome and comfortable to sit on!
My adopted adorable puppy. Awwwww =)
A view from the front of the mission.

----------------

Santa Rosalia:

We just arrived here and will be spending 2 nights. We've been driving A LOT to see things along the coast so it will be nice to stay for a few days. I will update more later!