Chiang Mai, Mae Rim, ThaiGers & Manta Rays

Chiang Mai is a place that I would like to get to know better. This is my third time here, but on each trip it’s been the last leg of a multi-part journey, and has been both rushed and relaxed - but never long enough to settle in and fully explore and appreciate the city and the surroundings.

Road in front of Ginny Place - Ian and Tee's guesthouse and cafe

To me, Chiang Mai is one of the most seemingly livable cities that I’ve visited. As a whole, it feels prosperous, yet still very inexpensive. And even though tourism is a huge part of the economy and activity here in the old town center of the city, it doesn’t have the same overwhelmingly invasive feel that it has in other tourist destinations like Phuket. There are plenty of western and modern conveniences that can keep an expat as close to an “at home” experience as they choose, but the local people, food, culture, and way of life are all attractive to the point that making a few changes to adapt to the local ways would be easy to do. This would be a nice place to spend an increasing amount of time down the road…

Wat Umongmahatherachan (say three times fast) near Ginny Place

I got to Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon – just in time for Ian and Tee’s wedding celebration dinner. They got married the previous Monday, January 30th, marking 8 years together. Many of their friends came, including a few that I had met before on previous trips. The food and drinks were plentiful, and it was a great wind down for me after my two weeks of diving and travels.

newlyweds

The next morning, Tee dug up a scooter for me, and Ian, Tee, Tee’s 11 y/o son Audi, and I all rode out to Mae Rim, and village just outside of Chiang Mai where Tee’s family has lived for many decades. I got to meet Tee’s parents, bother, and 96 y/o grandmother.

Ian, Tee, and Grandma

Duk Dik - the family dog. His name means 'jittery'

Tee’s family is the center of their community and there were many cousins and other extended family working in the shop and in the garden. The ice cream guy came by for some needed relief to the heat.



600 meters up the road is Ian and Tee’s new homestead. They bought a parcel of 1.6 rai (~2/3 acre) that has been a rice patty, and plan to bring in enough dirt to bring it above water level and eventually build on it. I love the picture below. Someday, it will have significant historical value.

Happy landowners in their rice field -

The whole Mae Rim area is full of “experiential tourism” activities – bungee jumping, quad racing, zip lining, etc. You can also find places to get up and close with animals ranging from elephants to monkeys to tigers. We took the bikes and went over to Tiger Kingdom – a place where you can not only see tigers ranging from little kittens to 400lb adults, but you can also climb in the cages and snuggle with them.

teenage tiger & the farang bros.

With flashbacks to Siegfried and Roy, the question comes up – how safe is this kind of thing? I was relieved to know that a portion of my ticket price included personal insurance – so no problem there. The other question that comes up is – do they drug these cats? How can they possibly tolerate being petted by an endless line of farangs day after day?

nice kitty!

The answer seems to be that 1) they are raised and live in these conditions their whole lives, so know no other way, and 2) the trainers “correct” bad behaviors as they happen – leaving the adults who have been there and done that very mellow/broken, while the cubs push their limits and get bonked on the nose with a stick every so often.

Audi & the littlest tiger

Exploitation and breaking wild spirit in the name of adding to my photo journal and in some ways helping to preserve and promote the species…I’ll withhold judgment and just say that I did enjoy getting close to these guys.



With most of my trip behind me, my plan for the last few days was to just kick back and relax a bit. The whole trip has been go go go since the start, and some time to just sit in the café, relax, have some food and a beer sounded like a great way to wrap things up. But I had one more thing I had to do…

My tribal manta ray drawing that I posted at the start of this blog has been with me for a while. Beyond being a cool drawing, to me it’s been symbolic of past travels and adventures, and living life in a big way – even if that only happens from time to time.



For my milestone birthday, I committed to making it a bit more of a permanent reminder to keep going and to keep adventuring. Here’s the finished result of that. Note the change in the center where my former Polynesian Tiki has turned into an Asian/Buddhist/Hindu Ohm symbol, which I thought was much more appropriate for both the place and meaning.

tattoo by Eak of Chiang Mai

Plan next - find a way to do this every year...

last dinner of the trip with Ian, Tee, Oy, and Ying from Singapore

Mr & Mrs Tee - I pitty the fool that don't eat at Ginny Cafe

Dive, Eat, Sleep, repeat...

The Similan Islands are named after one of the local Sea Gypsy tribe's words for “nine” in that there are nine islands in the chain running from Similan 1 in the south, to Similan 9 in the north. These Islands are made up of granite boulders and white sand beaches that come from the hard corals that surround the islands. 15 KM north of the Similans are Koh Bon and Koh Tachai, small sandstone islands that lie in the Surin Island National Park. North of Koh Bon is Richelieu Rock – considered the best dive site in Thailand.

The White Manta

I was picked up from my hotel right on time and two hours later, we arrived in Koh Lak where our boat, the White Manta was docked. The White Manta is a beautiful, new boat – custom built in Thailand for scuba diving. We had a total of 33 divers on board, including 28 guests and 5 dive masters. I was grouped with Chris – a British dive master who has been diving the Similans for 5 years, and who was the overall leader of the trip. Also in our group were a British couple in their 60s living in Australia, and a 50 y/o Dutch man and his Japanese wife - all of which were very experienced and well-traveled divers. With the two pairs buddied up, that left Chris to be my dive buddy. Needless to say, I felt that I was in good hands.

Dive Master Chris giving a dive briefing

Diving the Similans on a liveaboard is nothing like the diving in Koh Tao. Beyond the fact that the water is clearer,deeper, and faster than it is in the Gulf, the dive masters are top notch, and the clientele are older and more experienced divers. Over the next 4 days, we made 14 dives, and not once did we have a problem.

We set up gear, had a briefing and some dinner, then settled into our cabins for the first night and the trip up to the first dive site. I shared a stateroom with a Japanese guy from Tokyo named Hyue. He spoke a very little English (though much more than my zero Japanese), but mostly we just made exaggerated gestures at each other, and he laughed a nervous, over exaggerated laugh that to me was my mental Japanese stereotype. Overall, we got along well despite the communication difficulties, and since he occasionally snored and made other body noises in his sleep, I figured I could relax and not worry about doing the same. Still - not used to dormatory style sleeping, and had some restless nights.

Robert & Atsuko from Amsterdam

Onboard, we had a very diverse group made up of British/Australian, Dutch, two French couples, a Spanish couple, an Italian couple, a group from Singapore, a group of four from China, and my Japanese roommate. Other than a couple of the neuvo-rich from China, I really enjoyed everyone. A couple of the Chinese folks just couldn’t figure out things like waiting their turn in line for meals, or not grabbing corals and critters on the dive sites – which is verboten. The Similan Islands are in a national park, and you are not supposed to touch or disturb anything.

I won’t go in to dive by dive detail. I have it all in my log book, and about 1,000 photos and videos to back it all up. Here’s a list of the dives we made:

Day 1:

Anita’s Reef / Similan 5 (followed by a beach excursion and hike up to the top of the island)

West of Eden / Similan 7

3 Trees / Similan 7

Donald Duck Cove / Similan 9 (night dive)

viewpoint overlooking Anita's Reef

Day 2:

North Point / Similan 9

Koh Bon reef

Koh Bon ridge

Koh Tachao

nice turtle

Day 3:

4 dives on Richelieu Rock (including my 100th dive of my adult life)

yellowtail barracuda at Richelieu Rock

Day 4:

Koh Bon pinnacle

Boonsung wreck dive / south of Similan 1

Big school of fish @ Boonsung wreck

My dive log still has a record of the dives that I made from The Junk in the Similan Islands back in 2001 (which I saw again on this trip). Though the trip as a whole was an amazing experience, some of the dive sites that we did were not up to the same standards as others.

The Junk - my Similan liveaboard in 2001

On this trip, nothing disappointed. I think the experience of our trip leader, Chris, and the way that he chose each dive site based not just on the topography and sea life, but also on the time of day, the tides and currents, and how to order the dives for the best results really made this an exceptional trip.

Manta rays were at the top of my list in terms of the sea life that I wanted to see, and at Koh Bon, we finally got to see one briefly swoop in from the blue and then take a sharp right turn and disappear as quickly as it came. Mantas are so impressive with their 12 foot+ span and the way they fly underwater.

Other top critters included:

several octopi, putting on color and texture changing shows to either camouflage or intimidate as needed



cuttlefish



sea turtles who don’t seem to even notice or care in the least about all of the underwater paparazzi

moray eels – big, small, many colors





Sea snakes - very poisonous

Seahorses and pipefish



Puffers and box fish



Angelfish, batfish, clownfish, parrotfish,
sweetlips, triggerfish, lionfish, scorpionfish, frogfish, etc.









Hard corals, soft corals and seafans



The hard corals in the Similans took a bad hit in 2010 when the sea temperature increased by several degrees for a several month period of time. This caused “bleaching” of the corals which led to the death and destruction of most of the hard corals down to about 50 feet. The explanation for this temperature change is not really understood, but periodic local extinction of the corals has happened before in history, so it is not unprecedented. Unfortunately, I’m told it can take several thousand years to recover. Bleaching did not impact the soft corals and the marine life seems to be thriving, so I can’t say that it really lessened the experience of diving there.



My 5/4MM wetsuit was way overkill for Thailand. I bought it when I was planning on going to Hawaii where the waters are not as warm as they are here. More wetsuit means more lead weight is needed to counter the buoyancy which all combine to increase air consumption and lower the amount of time you can stay down. My breathing, however, has gotten better to the point that I was routinely doing dives of 90-100 feet max depth and still getting 50-60 minutes out of an 80 cubic foot aluminum tank.

Way too much to say about this trip, and though part of this blog is for my own historical record, the dive-by-dive record is in my log book, so I’ll leave this post with some parting observations, raves, and no real rants…

In school they teach that the #1 rule of scuba is to never hold your breath. In fact, the only way to get a good long dive is to hold your breath (more accurately, pause) all the time – except when you’re ascending.

Best thing about the White Manta – distributed tank filling meaning that you can leave all your gear set up and they refill the tanks in place. Plus – they modestly overfill to about 3200 psi (I was getting 2800 in Koh Tao) meaning dive times were
extended.

Worst thing about the White Manta – no fruit juice available. If I had known, I would have brought my own.

Interesting fact you thought you'd never need to know: Jacques Cousteau discovered the dive site at Richelieu Rock and named it after Cardinal Richilieu - a Cardinal from the 16th century, and main antagonist in the novel, The Three Musketeers. Apparently, the great soft corals of the pinnacle reminded Cousteau of the Cardinals flowing red robes.

Dive that most exceeded expectations – the Boonsung wreck. It was a playground of structures and sandy bottom. No too deep so long dive times, and so many critters at every turn. The fish schools were amazing! I could have stayed down there all day. Great way to end the trip.

Boonsung wreck - Chris looking for the hard to find

Grand total for this epic dive trip through Thailand: 24 dives, almost 19 hours underwater, 1 manta, I’m sure well over a million fish and other marine critters, and 1,000 photos and videos to pour through when I get home.



Now off to Chiang Mai to visit my brother and his long time girlfriend and as of a few days ago, his wife, Tee.