Wednesday, December 8, 2004 (Khao Lak - Thailand)
History repeating itself. A list for of chores.
Replacement batteries for our dive computers. Sadly, running out of time here in
Thailand. We still need to get from Sydney to Melbourne somehow. And now,
finally, for some general lounging around.
Day 275 (85). History certainly repeated itself
this morning. I remember when we came back to dry land after the Similan Islands
live-aboard on the Mariner-1. We checked into this hotel, went to bed and
didn’t get up till noon the following day. My dive computer read eleven
forty when I finally came around this morning. We were both very much more
exhausted than either of us realised. Clearly, we missed our opportunity to
partake in some breakfast so lunch would have to be our first meal of the day
instead.
We had several chores on our
list today and so we walked into town to find a place to eat. Before doing
anything else, however, I wanted to exchange the snorkel I bought just before we
left for the Surin Islands. I tried my best to snorkel once or twice on the trip
but my new snorkel kept flooding for some reason. It seemed like the one-way
valve at the bottom was working more like a two-way valve instead. After just a
couple of breaths, there was so much water inside that I couldn’t draw any
more air and had to tilt my head out of the water gasping for air. We went back
to the dive gear shop where our friendly Dutch man was only too willing to take
a closer look at the snorkel. We tried it in a bucket of water to confirm my
theory of the leaking valve and he was happy to exchange it there and then. We
tested the new snorkel in the same bucket of water just to be on the safe
side.
We thought we’d try a
different restaurant today and tried the little café right next to the Sea
Dragon offices. This was handy as the next thing on our list of chores was to
see about a replacement battery kit for our dive computers. They still register
three out of four bars on the battery test scale but the LCD screen on mine
seems to be getting dimmer and dimmer. There is a PADI rule that states that you
may not dive for twenty-four hours following the failure of a dive computer
during a dive. This is a safety precaution but one that most PADI dive operators
will adhere to so it’s important enough for me to worry about. I certainly
wouldn’t want to miss out on a once in a lifetime dive just because the
battery in my dive computer gave out on me. Our dive computers are two and a
half years old now and with fifty or sixty dives each to our names, it’s
probably a good idea to get the batteries replaced anyway. I paid 495B
(€9,52) each for a new battery kit for both mine and Sandy’s Suunto
Mosquito dive computers. I’m quite sure I saw a figure of about $25 for
these replacement battery kits when I first bought the computers so I’m
convinced that this is money well
spent.
Sadly, we don’t have
much time left now here in Thailand and we’ve given ourselves just a
couple of days of recuperation here in Khao Lak. That means that we will need to
head over to Surat Thani tomorrow morning for an overnight train connection into
Bangkok. We’ve decided to get the local bus back to Surat Thani. The
air-conditioned minivan is four times more expensive but not that much more
comfortable. It also leaves very early in the morning and will mean that we will
have to hang around for quite some time in Surat Thani before catching our
overnight train. We are, however, still taking a bit of risk in getting a berth
on the overnight sleeper but we did this the last time without any problems so
I’m hopeful this time too. We went back to the same woman that sold us the
air-conditioned minivan tickets the last time but this time told her we wanted
to go with the local bus. Apparently we could simply buy a ticket on the bus so
there was nothing that she could really do for us. She did, however, arrange for
a taxi to swing by and pick us up tomorrow morning so that we don’t have
to climb the hill with all our bags. We’ve not had a lot of luck with
taxis coming to collect us from the hotel so we’ll see whether or not
anyone actually shows up to collect us in the
morning.
Next up on our list of
chores was to book a flight from Sydney to Melbourne. Had I known then what I
know now, I would have booked our round the world ticket straight into Melbourne
instead of Sydney. The ticket does allow routing changes but at $75 per flight
change plus a local administration fee for the privilege, it’s probably
cheaper for us to simply book a one-way flight from Sydney into Melbourne
ourselves. The two main competing flight operators are Qantas and Virgin Blue.
Their prices are quite competitive and range from AU$400 (€232) down to
less than AU$100 (€58) per person after including all the taxes and
surcharges. I booked a one-way ticket for the two of us for just AU$213
(€123). We fly from Bangkok on December the twelfth but we arrive in
Sydney the following day at around six in the morning. I’ve booked our
flight out of Melbourne for around ten in the morning so this should give us
plenty of time to make the
connection.
The Melbourne flight
booking was the last of the chores on my list so we went back towards our hotel
to partake in some general lounging around. Well, it is why we are here after
all. I spent some time at the nearby Internet café and hooked up the laptop
again. At this point, there weren’t any travel updates to be sent since I
hadn’t written any whilst on the live-aboard. I only wrote up the notes
each day and the plan was to catch-up on this whilst lounging around the pool or
whatever so this is what I did for the bulk of the remainder of the afternoon.
We spent some time at the pool and some sitting in our room and sunning
ourselves on the balcony.
I got so
far with writing up the backlogged journal entries but a surge of hunger
eventually overtook me and we ventured back into town for another huge steak
dinner. Once again, our trusty Viking restaurant was there waiting for us and
our favourite table was yet again vacant. We ate our usual fill, followed by our
usual banana split before wandering aimlessly around the market stalls trying to
see if there was one last keepsake that we might pick out. Sandy had had her eye
on a wooden mask and we found one, haggled and eventually bought it for 500B
(€9,61). With a belly full of food and her favourite souvenir now tucked
nicely under her arm, at least I would now have a peaceful evening.
Posted: Wed - December
8, 2004 at 10:50 PM