As we all know, the diving lifestyle isn't just about the fishies and their friends. It's also living and travelling to amazing locations, living life on white sand beaches and meeting people from all over the world. Divers are known for their adventurous spirit, their laid back outlook on life and their general friendliness but let's not forget the other thing divers can do pretty well...party.
It's pretty difficult to wash up on white sandy shores and not indulge in a little bit of island style "R&R". For many of us who are travelling divers it's often a difficult balance between those 6am wakeup calls on dive days and those 6am bedtimes after a night out at a beach hut bar under the palms. My recent flood induced escape to Koh Tao was one such balancing act. Fortunately...or is that unfortunately?... the surprise "get the hell outta Bangkok because the deluge is coming" nature of this particular vacation meant that finances were a bit low and I couldn't afford to dive much...which left extra time for every diver's other favorite past time...viva la beverage! viva la dancing! and while in Thailand: viva la bucket, viva la fire dancing, viva la vida !
 Fellow evacuee Carrie seems to be able to resist the temptation for long enough to smile for the camera. Me on the other hand, has apparently been glamoured by the irresistable powers of a bucket of strawberry margaritas. |
Koh Tao is a pretty small place and the area where most of the dive shops, hotels and restaurants are is pretty condensed and centralized along a strip of beach called Haad Sairee. A night out on a beach in Thailand tends to be pretty much the same whereever you happen wash up. Music, pillows on the beach and boys spinning fire. It also contains all of the following:
1) drinks of questionable alcoholic quality served in plastic sandcastle pails2) drunk young European/Austrailan tourists skinny dipping
3) drunk young European tourists trying to pick up other drunk young European/Australian tourists
4) enterprising Thai bar boys trying to pick up drunk European/Australian tourists
5) drunk European/Australian tourists who think they are invinsible running through flamming skipping ropes while the Burmese fire boys laugh their asses off as the singed eyebrows and leg hair piles up.
6) some sweet ass dancing by all of the people mentioned above plus a few Thais tossed in for good measure
7) DMs, instructors, and DMTs all dipping in to the above activities to varying degrees
As you can imagine nothing, I repeat NOTHING beats people watching on a night out on Haad Sairee.
I boogied, I drank, I watched in awe... it was worth every sip of my bucket of...sex on the beach. I shudder to think that I was drinking that sludge by the bucketful but hey, they get tastier the more you drink.
Sometimes a picture says a thousand words...I'll just leave it up to you to fill in the blanks.
Fellow evacuees, my brother and neice, recovering from a night out on the buckets.
| When you look at this man and say "Hey I could do that...no problem!!" You've clearly had too many buckets. As too many drunken tourists have found out the hard way... NO, you CANNOT do that!!! Unless you plan on burning off most of your body hair! Oh liquid courage! It doesn't just affect one's confidence in the game of love!!! |
Who says that dogs can't enjoy a night out on Haad Sairee too? I found this lovely young lady excellent company and she didn't try to steal my drink while I wasn't looking!
.Epic Jenga...'nuff said
And after a long night out it sure doesn't hurt to wake up to this...
I'm gonna miss you Koh Tao!
Cheers from the evacuation zone
J
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