Thailand 2018

Three nights and three days on the boat passed quickly, following the same formula. Wakeup at sunrise around 06:30, briefing and the first dive of the day. Breakfast, some two hours of rest and the next dive briefing and dive. Lunch, rest, dive.. The boat itself was well equipped with comfortable facilities, and the excellent crew cooked us tasty food multiple times a day. As a funny fact the boat was well equipped with Finns too, myself including I think we had at least five Finnish divers on board, out of some 14.

Diving waters at the island belong to the best of the world, so all the diving was really enjoyable. Clear water provided long visibility, and we saw millions of different kinds of fish and other marine life. Only two turtles unfortunately though, and only two sharks. The cheap chinese diving box for the camera performed well and kept the camera dry, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about the red filter included with the box. It was completely useless turning all pictures totally red, so now they are missing colors and blue. Underwater red light is the first one to disappear, so it has to be compensated with a red filter on the camera. Well, have to obtain a proper filter for the next trip.

In addition to diving the boat also stopped to Surin Islands national park on the second day for some hours. Not a bad place to spend a vacation, as you can see in the pictures.. A small paradise island in middle of nowhere, with coral reefs all around the island. On the second evening there was also an barbeque and cocktail party on the top deck, which was great fun in the beautiful moonlight. Not that we stayed up long though, the diving days made everyone ready to sleep well before nine every evening.

I had some bad luck with the boat trip though. On the departure evening I started to notice symptoms of flu and mild fever, which kept annoyinbg me for the rest of the trip. Ibuprofein kept the fever low and feeling good enough to dive though, but on the last day the infection started to aggressively affect my stomach too and the fever rise higher. Had to skip the last dive due to not feeling good enough, and when we returned to Khao Lak I visited a local clinic. After taking blood tests the doctor diagnosed an unspecified virus infection which affected both lungs and stomach, for stomach stimulated by ibuprofein.

Well, now on the next day I'm already feeling mostly fine and the fever is gone, so that was not a very long lasting problem. Yesterday went entirely sleeping though, and so did this morning. Sleeping until midday destroyed our plan to reach the island of Koh Tao today, but the hotel there was kind enough to postpone our reservation a day. After getting myself back on my feet and being able to even eat something we spent the day by renting a scooter to visit a nearby beach and took the evening bus for five hour journey towards Chumphon where the ferry to Koh Tao will depart tomorrow morning at 07:00. Getting on the bus was not the easiest task by the way, as absolutely nobody here knows the schedules of the busses. They just appear at random times, and you stand on the roadside and wave one to stop. Took an hour this time.

As the diving boat was rescheduled to depart already in the evening today our time in Khao Lak became shorter than planned for. We just rented a scooter from the hotel and drove around a bit, spent some time at beach and did some preparations for the dive trip with the Swedish-run diving company.

Now in the evening we are on the way to the boat by a minibus, departing towards Surin island by the boat at around 10pm. First dives will be already at seven in the morning. Most likely there will be no mobile connection available at sea, so probably won't be back online before Friday.

Just arrived to Khao Lak after a short flight to Phuket from Bangkok, hungry. And there are no restaurants open anywhere nearby.. Ah well, eating a bit less sometimes isn't that bad for my belly.

Jetlag-induced sleeping until midday destroyed most of my plans for Bangkok, including ordering a tailored shirt and shopping, but we still managed to walk around the city a bit. Bangkok has never been one of my favourite cities, and it still ain't... It's relatively dirty, very crowded and very hot.

When we were on the way to airport from the city the dive company emailed us. The boat we were supposed to be taking was broken, and they offered a day longer trip on a better boat for the same price. Just the boat would already depart tomorrow, so our stay in Khao Lak became a bit shorter. Naturally we accepted the offer, so it's off to the sea tomorrow. :)

The second flight didn't exactly begin well. The aircraft was completely full, so there wasn't much hope of having decent space on the seat, and I immediately found out that my seat was surrounded all around by noisy, grumpy and seat-shaking kids. But, sometimes you get lucky. Just when I was falling in despair the saviour came.

Some Korean-looking guy obviously wanted to sit next to his girlfriend, who happened to have the seat next to me. And the guy was willing to trade his upper-deck front row window seat with generous space to my cramped lower deck one. As you can guess, I didn't hesitate for long. :)

The remaining flight hours became much more easier, watching a good movie and trying out the randomly working on-board internet connection. Just when the darkness started to fade we landed to Bangkok and I passed the airport formalities, obtained a SIM card and headed towards the hotel.

Sleepless night, two heavy back bags (well, just 20kg together), +30C temperature and difficult route selection including multiple metro connections didn't make it easy, but in an hour or two I had reached the hotel and stored my bags, while waiting for the room to be available. Not so surprisingly I'm also fully confident that I'm NOT taking the same route back to the airport tomorrow, but instead just using the cheap taxis..

First six hours in aircraft are behind, and they were just as painful as always. At least I managed to sleep some two hours.. Unfortunately the aircraft was not an 787 either, but an old but decent Airbus 330. Well, Qatar service was just as good as advertised, and the next aircraft should be the real treat, an Airbus 380. First time for me. :)

Four hour layover at Doha airport now, standard Al Maha lounge was fully booked and I got transferred to better business lounge. Not complaining about that.. :)

It's early morning, I just drove to Helsinki-Vantaa airport leaving home at 05:30 and am now waiting for the first flight leg on a Qatar Airways 787 to Doha. Tired, but happy to get off work for a while.. And cannot wait for the sun and sea.