Chang Mai

Sunday Walking Street Market

Caitlin making some egg-rolls.

Cashew chicken.

Muah Tai fight.

Baby Elephant at the Chaing Mai Zoo.

Mmmm...Banana Chocolate pankake.

Similan Islands, Koh Bon, Richelieu Rock (4day, 14dive, Liveaboard)

We arrived late in the afternoon in Khao Lak after coming all the way from Koh Phangan. We decided to come back to khao lak again, since we heard that the Similan islands were the best place to dive in all of thailand/southeast asia. We talked to a bunch of dive shops and managed to get an awesome deal on a last minute spot on a dive boat headed up from Phuket that had two bunks left. So we decided to go for it, a 4 day 14 dive livaboard with a company called "WestCoast Divers" (...how appropriate), that hit the Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock, and Koh Bon, Koh Tanchai (all the best sites in thailand). I had no idea what to expect since most of the diving in Egypt was done from the beach, so doing all the dives from the boat was very different.

Our boat the "West Coast Explorer IX"

Our spacious room was maybe 7ft by 5ft wide on the boat. 4 people were supposed to sleep in this room but we gave up and slept on the sundeck after 1 night. This was mainly due to the fact that I slept on the top right bunk and my feet would stick in front of the door so every time someone had to go to the restroom my feet would either get hit by the door or shoved out of the way. (with 3 other girls in the small room this happened all too frequently...)

Main deck on the west coast explorer

The boat held about 20 divers+crew and all of our dive gear. The trip departed Khao Lak at about 9pm and we motored all night to the similans to start our diving early the next day.

Sunrise at "Richelieu Rock"

A standard day on the boat started with a 7am wake up followed by a 730am breifing and suit up for the first dive at 8pm. After the first dive we had breakfast then relaxed for our 1-2hour surface interval. We then did a second dive around 11-1130am getting out to a tasty thai lunch. then again we rested and snorkeled...until our third dive around 3pm, then another rest/beachtime till we did our final dive of the day either at 6pm(dusk) or 7pm(for a night dive).


Our days were very full and it was otherworldly to spend close to 4 hours a day in a fishtank swimming with thousands of fish. Over the couse of the trip we got to see; a freeswimming octopus, a couple banded sea snakes, numerous moray eels, cuddlefish, napoleon wrasse, manta rays and some of the largest schools and baitballs of fish I could imagine. The dive sites also all had 20-30meter visibility underwater, crazy being able to see the surface from 100ft underwater!!


The best dive of the trip was on Koh Bon a small island north of the Similans famous for its Manta Sightings. We had heard that the day before we did our dives there had been some manta sightings so we were very excited to get in the water and try our luck. We jumped in and withing a couple minutes of decending a lone manta about 4 meters across did a slow flyby.... then another followed it shortly after. We drifted with the current, following the mantas to an under sea ridge where we held on to some cracks in the rock and just waited. The current was very strong and there was no hope in swimming against it so we just watched and waited as the mantas did passes and circled! at one point there were three different mantas hovering around us, seemingly playing and showing off, effortlessly gliding in the current. what amazing animals...

Leaving Koh Bon and the mantas

Then next best Dives were on Richelieu Rock an undersea pinnacle even farth north up the coast. This dive had great visibility and the pinnacle was teeming with life and color.

"Richelieu Rock" dive briefing map

One of the most eventful nights on the boat, had nothing to do with diving. We were sleeping up on the sundeck after giving up on the tiny room when we awoke to a thunder and lightning storm and a strange crashing noise. We got up and looked over the side of the boat and saw that our mooring line had broken and the huge boat was smashing up against some large rock in the bay. So with lightning overhead, the tide going out, and the thai crew looking frantic checking the hold for leaks....we thought that our trip was gonna get cut a little short. A nearby dive boat luckily came an helped tow us off the rocks before we got beached or sank. We found out the next day that the boat had been only slightly damaged and the trip could continue.

Getting towed of the rocks...

Koh Phangan -> Visa Run

After leaving beautiful Railay and the fresh hairstyles we traveled to Koh Samui a large island in the Gulf of Thailand on the eastern coast. We had to make a quick trip to the islands main city to try and renew our 30 day tourist visa at the immagration office there. We had read that one could go and for 500 baht (about 15 dollars) get a 30 day extension. Boy were we wrong. We ended up having to spend 2200 baht for a 7 day extension....apparently the laws have changed.
So with our new visa we decided to head to Koh Phangan a smaller island just north of koh samui famous for its Full Moon Parties, beautiful snorkeling and cheap beachside accomidation. We rented scooters (see picture of gas station below...) and went beach hopping for the first couple days snorkeling and exploring. The reefs were all within swimming distance of the beach and were teaming with life. The water even had good visibility unlike the diving in the gulf.

Caitlin found a good price and did here PADI open water certification on the island and passed, so now I've got a certified dive buddy. In the meantime I did one dive at the so called "famous" Sail Rock, but the visibility was awful only about 1-2 meters at depth (definitely very claustrophobic...bummer) so not quite what I was expecting.

After a week enjoying the fish tank and the beaches, we got dressed up in all neon and headed to Haad Rin for the Full Moon Party, a 20,000-30,000 person party on the beach. It was pretty wild and the people watching was great. We got to see a bunch of fire dancing, fire breathing, fire jump roping...you get the idea. The jump rope was about 30 feet long and anybody could try, I considered trying it, but then realized I would probably catch my hair on fire or something and thought better of it.... Anyways quite the experience.

After the party we had to make a break for the border to get a 15 day visa extension. We heard the best way was to head to Ranong near the thai-burmese border and make a day trip to burma. The whole scene was quite strange and basically the trip consisited of getting on a boat driving half an hour to a private burmese casino on an island waiting 30 min then returning back though thai immagration....Silly, but the whole process cost much less than at the visa office and it got us a 15 day extension.

Well next up, off to Khao Lak for some diving with Caitlin in the Similan Islands!