The Tattoo, the Hangover, and the Layover

I knew I wanted to do second tattoo as soon as the needle stopped buzzing from the first one.  The artist that did the drawing that became my Manta also did a nice one of a shark, and after a few minor modifications, I had what I wanted.

My brother had told me that Eak, the tattoo artist that did the manta was still around - but that was in the fall, and by the time I got to Chiang Mai, he was gone.  Looking for alternatives, I found Naga Tattoo, a shop run by a guy named Ugly who seemed to have a lot of good reviews from people online.  I talked the design through with Ugly's partner, Nicky, and set up a time for the next day.

Getting tattooed hurts, but is mostly tolerable.  Getting this one on my lower leg was more tolerable than getting it on my upper arm 2 years ago, and Nicky powered through the job in just under 3 hours.  There was a lot of fine detail work, so more time and more pokes with a smaller needle.  In the end, it came out just as I had hoped.

Of course, no tattoo is complete without a celebratory night out on the town.  Ours started at Ginny Place Cafe with a lot of good food and drinks, then proceeded over to the Boxing Stadium for some Muay Thai fights, 100 baht bets ($3), local beer.  A couple of Ian and Tee's friends who teach English as their day jobs are Muay Thai fighters at night. They weren't fighting that night, but they helped us get up close and personal with the boxers.

After the fights, we wandered up the street the a very sketchy looking row of pool table bars.  Turns out that these are the "katoey" - or ladyboy bars where Thai males put on their little black dresses and spend most of their time primping and posing.  We shot several rounds of pool and had a few more Tiger beers.  by 1am, I was done, but Max was just getting started. This is why I booked us separate accommodations throughout the trip :)

This morning, I woke up to an email from United Airlines that said exactly this:  "United flight UA838 from Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) to Tokyo, Japan (NRT - Narita) on February 15 is canceled."  That's it - no we're sorry, no alternatives, and only directions to contact a United representative at the airport.  Of course, here in Chiang Mai, there is no United presence.  I tried to call United, but due to the winter storm on the US east coast, it was impossible to speak to anyone.  I tried the Bangkok office, but it's a Buddhist holiday today, and the office was closed...

Fortunately, Tee came to the rescue, dialing office after office until she got through to someone who could get into the system and make changes.  We ended up getting a Thai Air flight tonight - about ten hours earlier than our original flight - that will connect well with our flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, but will end up giving us a 12 hour layover in Tokyo/Narita.  Max has a friend in Tokyo who's offered to show us around for a few hours, so we may get the full Anthony Bourdain experience.  I'll keep you posted.

Postscript:  Max and I arrived in Tokyo after a pleasant and fairly short (5 hours) flight from Bangkok on an Airbus A380 (big plane!), only to find Narita Airport being drenched with pouring rain and blowing winds - not the most conducive to a quick outing to the city.  We decided to stay put, but were looking for some minor compensation from United Airlines for canceling our original flight plans and giving us this wonderful 12 hour layover.  All we wanted was access to the United Lounge - but no - "it is not possible" the kind Japanese woman at the counter told us ("no soup for you!).  

Knowing we had a long day ahead and that free food and drinks and comfy chairs were just on the other side of the glass, I ponied up $50 each to get us inside - but gave Max the firm direction - we will extract $50 worth of food and drink out of this place before our flight leaves.  This should be interesting....

Frogger on a scooter, Mon Cham, and the Rice Paddy becomes a Home

Max and I got to Chiang Mai on Sunday afternoon, but due to some unfortunate food choices at the Phuket airport, we really didn't get beyond our rooms until Monday (for me) and Tuesday (for Max).  Feeling better, we rented scooters for the day (200 baht ~ $6) and rode with Ian and Tee out to Mae Rim and points beyond.  Traffic in and around Chiang Mai is chaotic at best, and had the feeling of a bad video game (since you only get one life, and no chance to start over).

We had to make a stop at Tiger Kingdom, which I think is mandatory for all newcomers to Chaing Mai and Mae Rim.  They had three white tigers this time that I didn't see my last time through.  The biggest tiger that we got to play with was 200kg (~450lb) at only 19 months old - the same age as my puppy, Ryder.  Wonderful creatures!

From Tiger Kingdom, it's only a 5 minute ride to the Taylor/Phiphawee homestead in Mae Rim.  Two years ago, it was a semi-dried out rice paddy.  With 700 dump trucks of fill, a few baht passed under that table to local officials to obtain permits, and many many man-hours of labor, the garage, restaurant, home, and first bungalow are all coming together.  Note that 11 y/o Audi from two years ago has grown into a tall caucasion man, but Ian still hasn't changed his shirt.

We made a quick stop at Tee's family home, and got to say hello to her mother and to her dog, DukDik.  Neither had moved or changed in two years.

From Mae Rim, we scooted up to the top of a nearby "mountain" (I called it a hill, but was told that it is a mountain - all relative) to a place called Mon Cham which has become a favorite place for Ian and Tee to go.  At ~4,500 feet elevation, it is about on par with Paradise on Mt. Rainier, so it is up there and the scooters worked hard with constantly climbing switchbacks.

Mon Cham is inhabited by Hmong tribespeople, and overlooks beautiful terraced hills where all sorts of produce is grown.  We had a wonderful meal up there, and actually started to get chilly once the sun moved behind the restaurant and put us in the shade.

Tonight, we're heading to the boxing stadium for some Muay Thai fights.  Should have some "colorful" pictures to post tomorrow...

White Manta, no mantas, but a whale shark!

This is my third time diving the Similan Islands over the past 13 years, and my second time on the boat White Manta.  Great that two years since my last time, the head dive master, most of the boat crew, and the cook were all the same people. I think it speaks highly of the success of the boat when the crew sticks around for several years.

We were fortunate to be traveling and diving on a new moon, which meant that the tides were not excessive, and the currents were none to just moderate. Weather was clear, winds were low, and seas were calm.  All of that made for some very easy conditions, which made doing 4 dives a day for several days much easier.  Water was a balmy 81 degrees, and though Max and I were in 3mm wetsuits, several divers chose to go commando.

I'm not going to go blow by blow and sight by sight - just hit the highlights here - although the highlight we had at Koh Tachai made everything else into a b-movie.  I will say that the start of the trip was a challenge.  Max had some head congestion, and was having a hard time equalizing his ears.  After two dives on the first "check-out" site, Anita's Reef, it was questionable as to whether Max was going to get to dive this trip. I asked him to sit out the last two dives of the first day, and fair to say, Max was not a happy diver.

The next day, we moved to Koh Bon which is not a shallow or particularly easy dive.  We had two dives here, and the first one Max spent snorkeling while the rest of us were down at 100 ft exploring the site and looking for mantas which are sometimes found here (some saw mantas, but not me :().  On the 2nd dive, I told Max that I'd just stay on the surface with him, and we'd go down just as little or as much as he could and just snorkel if need be.  To my surprise (and his too I'm sure), he dropped down to the bottom with no issues.  Back in the game!

Whether you believe in divine intervention or not, the next dive on Koh Tachai proved to be the Dive of My Life, and having Max down in the deep blue with me after his issues was nothing short of a miracle.

Before every dive, we have a briefing from Chris, the British lead dive master who tells us about the site, what to do and what to look out for, and details the dive profile including depths, currents, and how to get down safely and without getting swept out to sea.  On Koh Tachai (north of the Similans in the Surin Islands), the currents were "moderate" and we were to follow a mooring line down to the dive site.

As we got into the Zodiacs and made our way to the start of the dive, there were several other boats around us.  Someone was shouting repeatedly, and I asked out dive master what they were saying.  "Whale Shark!!!!!"  With that, all plans were abandoned, and we went over the side into the deep blue.

I have never ever ever had such and experience.  We dove into the open ocean, surrounded by huge schools of barracuda and jacks.  Even the dive master who had dived this site hundreds of times said he had never seen so many jack schooling.  I swam close to the schooling barracuda to take some photos, then headed down to a ridge where several people were parked looking at something. Hoping to see the whale shark that someone seemed to have spotted, everyone was transfixed on a ~ 6 foot barracuda (a different species I'm told than the schooling ones) with big long teeth and a mean disposition.

Breaking off from that sight, we moved back into the blue.  When all sorts of scuba noise makers (horns, rattles, tank bangers) started going off, I looked down, and saw a whale shark - 15-20 foot long (so a juvenile) swim through an enormous school of jacks straight underneath me.  I knew that my GoPro that I had been using religiously on all of my dives was not set right due to our hasty departure from the Zodiac, so I had my hand-held camera in video mode. After he passed below me, I quickly switched to photo mode and handed the camera to Max who caught a most iconic shot.

Nothing before or nothing since can even compare to the experience of that dive. Having Max recovered from his ear issues and having him down there to experience all of that was just amazing.  In our subsequent dives, we had a wonderful and amazing time, but nothing can even come close from a pure out of this world experience.  Many other pictures to follow:

Racha Yai, sardines, BIG moray eels, & Seahawks!

Our first dives of the trip and Max's first dives in eight years were from an overpacked boat where the dive gear and the people were packed in like sardines, with most of the people on the boat doing the "discover scuba" thing, which his a way to do some shallow diving without being certified. Max and I had a few gear issues to sort out - which was half the purpose of doing this day trip before the 5 day liveaboard - but we pulled it together and had a couple of good dives. Dive number 1 was at Racha Yai cove 1, and was mostly uneventful except for a very strong current - both down deep and up on the surface. Dive #2 was at Racha Yai cove 3, and was much more interesting with lionfish, scorpion fish, triggers, one ugly stone fish, and 4 of the biggest moray eels that I've ever seen. Max did great, and all the new gear checked out, so ready for the Similans.

Patong beach in Phuket just keeps becoming less interesting to me as a city/town - but the reasons for coming (beach & diving) stay the same. Over the past two days, most of the bars have been closed due to the national elections, which have been the source of considerable unrest and the current state of emergency as declared by the government. Didn't stop people from finding sources of cheap beer, but it did quiet down the nightlife scene a bit. It also meant that a lot of people were wide awake in time for the 6:30 am Superbowl kickoff, though Americans or any one else who cares about American football are few and far between down here.  Max and I were both up at 5, and he did find us a good place to watch the game - The Summer Breeze Hotel - a very nice, small American owned hotel just 3 or 4 blocks from our hotel. After skipping dinner and crashing early after the dives, it was good to have a big American breakfast and settle in for the game. 22 to 0 at halftime with the Hawks in the lead? Seattle is in uncharted territory...

 

Post-script:  43 to 8 thrashing of Denver and the first Superbowl win ever for Seattle!  Memorable time!