New Year

New Year parties were plentiful, but they were all a little impersonal. Claus and Goy were luckily hosting a New Years party, saving our butts once again.
There would be dinner at the A1 restaurant until 9pm, then we would continue the party at some of Claus's friend's place. They own an apartment very high up in the most posh place by the beach, Patong Tower. Well, New Years party requires something else than shorts and a pair of flip flops.
We went shopping among the 100s of Indian people who controlled the suit sewing business in Patong, if not Thailand. I got measured everywhere and everything was good - until I told the guy he had to be done by tomorrow afternoon. Somehow he managed anyway and we were ready.
Henri, an old buddy from Nokia had been traveling the Philippines a little bit and had announced his arrival on New Years day in Phuket. Also another Nokia guy, Marko, was flying in from San Diego to join the fun.
Henri had met another Finn in the Philippines who would be joining as well, so I signed all of them up for the dinner party.
I had hooked them up with the guesthouse where I had been staying for a while. They were so happy that I was sending guests their way, haha
Claus had been talking about these Australian steaks for so long, he was going to have them for New Years. I guess he was right, because they were actually quite good, but once it was gone, there was not more. It was just enough to start the taste for a steak, haha
I wasn't allowed by Claus and Goy to by any snaps, so it was a little difficult to get the party kickstarted. But never the less we got a few drinks before leaving for the Tower Party.
I had seen the tower from far away so many times, standing in front of it now and it was pretty impressive. We went in and split in a few groups in the elevators up to 24th floor.
We entered and immediately went to the balcony overlooking the beach and the ocean, stunning view. On the beach that evening a huge party was going on, now we didn't have to go anywhere, but could see everything from up there. Quite a breathtaking view of the entire city, wow.
The guys owning the place had gone crazy I think, there were so many bottles of alcohol of every kind, at least this Claus could not tell me to leave alone, haha.
Everyone had a good time, a lot of drinks were put away this evening, I can guarantee that because I was pouring most of them. Kind of felt at home in the kitchen where all the drinks were located and mixed, haha.
At midnight there was Kransekager and Champagne while the rockets were exploding either below or in front of the apartment window.
Never thought I should see something like that, pretty cool. There was of course also the mandatory New Years cigar, on the balcony overlooking the fireworks of Patong beach... That felt just about right, haha
After the fireworks, we all ventured out into the wild night and continued our party, at least some of us. Others got a little tired and had to take a nap in the bars.
We went to some of our regular bars and they were very surprised to say the least to see us in suits, normally we would come there in flip flops and a t-shirt.
This was a New Years to remember for sure, it marks the start of a very special year, this one!

Happy New Years

Late December Dive Master stuff

As fast as Christmas came, just as fast it was gone again. We were back at the dive shop and back to the studies, swim tests and helping on the boat. Both Vlad and I had begun to doubt a little bit whether or not we should do the instructor course as neither of us really believed in making this a new career. After all, it was quite a lot of money we had to pay for the course and everything.
I had originally requested to do the dive master for 2 months, but since we were a team according to the dive shop, Vlad, Elias and I, they thought we should all go to the IDC together. This started in the beginning of January, so this was when we supposed to be done with the dive master course.
We did the final tests of the DM course just after Christmas and were basically ready to be signed off, but we were not. Instead there were daily exercises aimed towards the IDC & IE which kind of irritated both Vlad and I as we were not sure if we were going to join.
We had a few clashes with our instructor and there was a lot of tension in the air. It probably topped when our instructor went on a dive trip for 4 days, all 3 of us were planning to go on the boat to do some diving or if not needed, just do some fun diving.
We asked to be put on the boat in the office, but later our instructor said we were not going on the boat, but had to stay at home and study. Both Vlad and I were in our late 30s, Elias in his middle 20s, we were not 12 years old. There were plenty of these situations where we were treated like small kids.
A couple of times we kind of reminded her that we were actually customers ourselves, but I think the entire dive industry has a messed up view on Dive Master Trainees.  I was on the boat one day and some small instructor was making some "funny" comments about me being a dive bitch and asked me to do all the work while he just stood there with a grin on his face.
That went on for a couple of hours that day and at some point I went up to him and looked him in the eyes and told him to "shut the fuck up" - that worked! What an ass.
Part of our dive training was to make a map of a dive site, measuring parts of the divesite and make a detailed map of stuff on the site, rocks, corals, boats, whatever was there. We had a long 30 meter line and was swimming using the compass to get some square areas to use for the map. Vlad had the most advanced dive computer in Thailand, an electronic monster with a 4 inch display.

He had been strugling a little when doing some compass exercises earlier and I guess he still had problems, because according to measurements taken a boat of around 20 meters long ended up being 60 meters!
We had to do it over again and this time we saw what had happened. He was starting out correctly, but slowly made a right turn, which meant that on a stretch of 30 meters in one direction, he had made a 15 meters to the side too. Turned out his very cool dive computer had been playing him a trick and was pulling the compass needle to the side, causing him to sway off his course, haha
Most days we spent in the coldest pool on the entire island of Phuket. It was covered and so never received any sunshine. Throwing in a few icecubes and they never melted, that's how cold it was. On top of that the cleaning system of the pool must have been broken and the pool boy had been fired, because it was so dirty at some point that I got some eye infection. That got fixed by a quick visit to the pharmacy though, they seem to know quite a lot there and have the right medicine for treating anything.
Just a few more weeks and we will be done

Christmas in Thailand

Christmas was closing in fast, in fact just a few days away. I didn't exactly have any plans for any Christmas party, big surprise.
The A1 was hosting a Danish Christmas party, which meant there would be plenty of delicious Danish Christmas food, in fact everything that you can think of that would normally be on a table in Denmark. Claus even promised that there would be a stock of snaps that could not be emptied, haha. Ok, I was convinced and signed up for the party with Elias.
However Christmas day our instructor had ordered me on the boat to assist with 3 French people who were doing their open water certification. On old man around 70, a woman in her 50's and a small boy I thought, who wouldn't listen to any of the instructions we had been giving. Turned out to be 18 year old! They were a handful and our instructor needed a hand and since customers rule the world, there was no getting around the subject.
After finishing the day on the boat, they all needed to go back and practice some exercises that didn't go so well initially. That meant I was going to be pretty late back home. I made it back 10min before the dinner started, so there was no rush. Just a tiny bit...
The entire place had been closed for a private party and was full of happy people when we came. Now there were two more, that was for sure. All the girls were dressed in Christmas costumes, which were to be found in excess everywhere, every street, every corner, every shop.
We were seated and had food, it was really good. Claus popped the cap of the first bottle of snaps, and when that was empty, I bought another one.
There was a nice vibe, Danish Xmas music in the background, had to remind myself that we were sitting in 30 degrees in Thailand having a typical Christmas celebration.
I was sitting across Goy who was happily toasting when we had the first bottle going, but she slowed down a little bit after a while. On bottle 2 she said no thanks and took away her glass. That we fixed by serving her in the snaps cap, hehe.

Right in the festivities Elias got an SMS from our instructor, he was going to be on the boat tomorrow, which meant he had to be ready the next morning at 7am. That ticked me off a little bit and when I cooled down a little bit, I wrote a text back to her, where I reminded her that it was Christmas and some people actually celebrate that. She responded back that Elias didn't have to go on the boat next morning - and the party could continue. 

I am not exactly sure how many bottles I bought, but everyone was getting a little tipsy. (I was told the next day that I would never again be allowed to buy snaps at their restaurant hahaha)

I was the last one to call it quits on the food, as I was trying to keep the steady flow of Nordic life juice a little bit at distance with some healthy amount of food. Seemed to work as I remember everything going on that evening, which can't be said about so many other people.
When the food was over, we continued in the bar for a little while before people slowly made it back to their rooms or continued out in the night to party.
We of course chose the later, but as the camera didn't have enough juice, there are not so many memories about the remainder of the evening.
It was a great evening and even though it Christmas doesn't matter too much to me, it was quite nice to celebrate the evening with very good friends, good and fun memories, haha. 

Spare time in Patong

Having moved to the new apartment also meant that there was a change in restaurants and bars. I went with Elias to this Danish/Swedish owned restaurant close to our apartments, it had been a long time since I had been having some Danish food. Not knowing what to expect, I was happily surprised to meet the owners of the guesthouse, called A1 Guesthouse. It was run by the couple Claus and Goy, he was Danish and she was Thai, but had lived in Sweden most of her life.
They were really nice people, so were the people working in the restaurant, they were really outgoing and friendly. This became our daily watering hole, I guess the days we were not there, everyone worried that we were ok.
I got to talk to Claus after a few days and he was very proud of his place, which he didn't run like most other people in Patong, that's for sure. Maybe we were spending most of our time in the bar, but the place was actually more a restaurant with a small bar. At the same time, it was not a bar serving lady drinks.
I discovered that one evening when I offered the girls in the bar a drink, they all politely said no thanks. That was very surprising, but it was one of the decisions Claus had made when he setup this place. The girls should not encourage the guests to buy them drinks because they would make money of it as it happens in most other places. This suddenly saved me a lot of money, compared to the other bar I used to sit in as I would give a few drinks now and then to the girls being there.
His wife Goy, who was originally from Thailand, but had been in Sweden since a small kid, spoke Thai, Danish, Swedish, German, French, English and what other languages you can come up with. A very nice couple and now I understood why my Swedish neighbor Elias, had been spending so much time here in this Swedish/Danish/Thai restaurant/bar.
The chef in the kitchen pretty quickly discovered that I liked spicy food, so she would load up every dish I ordered, Danish or Thai, with chili. In the beginning it was just a few, on the side, but as time went by, they would be plenty and could probably kill most people from Scandinavia. At this point I can honestly say that Tabasco is like ketchup nowadays
We would often take the girls from the restaurant our for dinner, out to party, play pool where I would normally lose or to the beach, as they were nice and showed us a lot of stuff around town. There are so many places and things you wouldn't know about if someone would not tell you. Don's BBQ for example, BBQ buffet for almost no money. Thai BBQ, very good buffet style too... Could keep on going, but am getting to hungry thinking about it.
Things also get a lot cheaper when you are accompanied by local people and it is also easier to get the food tasting right when there are locals to certify that my taste buds need the spiciest the restaurant can make it.
Now and then though there was a little extra time for some drinks, just a few. When there was too many drinks, Elias would have a tattoo to celebrate it. He got a few, haha
Now enrolled in the dive master training, my idea was that there would be plenty of time every day to do some serious exercise on the side. I realized soon that the reason why most Thai people don't exercise is that it is just too damn hot here to do any outdoor sports.
Not an excuse, just a little bit too warm to make sense, leaning up against a heart attack if exercising vigorously here. For the same reason the indoor gyms exist, where air condition keep the temperature to a bearable level.
The problem was just that we didn't end up getting much free time, and what we got ended up being used for tests or reading books. Most of the time we were not home until 6pm, tired of swimming most of the day or spending most of the day in the cold pool. At least the beginning, will see in a few weeks

Finding a place to stay in Patong

I was still staying at the guesthouse where I had been a couple of times, but it was going to be too expensive for a long period. I talked to the owner if we could talk about a price if I stayed a little longer. He had to think for a while and did come up with a discounted price, but it was still going go ruin me fast. So I had to go around and check other hotels, guesthouses and apartments. The problem is that there are so many places around, how can that be a problem you say? Well, to get a good price I would have to talk to a lot of  places, it would be very exhausting.
I was at the hairdresser one day who told me the average prices to live around Patong. It went from about 4000 for a small place up on the hill with out AC, around 10-15000 for a nice room with AC in the middle of Patong to what ever you wanted to pay, getting more expensive the closer the place was to the beach.
I mentioned this to Elias,one of the dive master trainees, he said he would talk to a Danish guy close to his apartment as he had been talking to him when he needed a place himself. I thought it was a little weird that the Swedish guy spent most of his time in a Danish Swedish restaurant, why not get out and see the rest of Patong and Thailand?
One afternoon I went there myself to meet with this guy called Claus. Had a beer and said hi to the owners, but they just said there were no apartment available anymore, so didn't speak too much to them.
We had a couple of beers though and ended up in the bar Thomas and I frequently had visited when he was here, called Bar 8. Apparently it is hard to come up with names for restaurants and bars, so a lot just use numbers, which means that there are a couple of the same numbered restaurants in the city.
Talked to the girls in the bar about options for a place to live, they started to ask around for possible free rooms. The problem was that this was the beginning of the high season, so rooms would already be occupied or very expensive. I talked to some of the guys sitting at the bar, they said it would be a lot easier to buy an apartment, rent it out when I wouldn't be there. Yes, I believe most people living a long time here, have some kind of financial surplus which doesn't exactly describe my situation.
The dive shop had some connections too for a place to stay, I went to see the place and indeed it was quite nice, but too far away from everything. Then I would have to rent a motorbike every month anyway to stay in contact with the world, so I thanked no, without any other options on hand.
I had promised the guesthouse owner to give him an answer whether I would stay or not, so I had to tell him it was too expensive and I was going to find something else. But didn't know when I could move out.
Two days later in the dive shop, Elias came and told me that his neighbors had been evicted and the apartment was empty. He had been asked by the landlady if he knew anyone interested in a place to live with a very short notice.

I went to check out the place, it was definitely not in a touristic area, that was for sure. A lot of people would never find the place if they didn't know about it. Let's just say I didn't fall in love with it looking in from the street, at first I thought it was the wooden house in the front, haha
The room was living room, bedroom, bathroom and balcony for 12000 baht per month, since I couldn't make more than a 3 months deal. I took it without hesitating, just had to start moving my belongings as soon as possible. Now at least I could relax a bit.

PADI Dive Master Trainee

After having had a few days of sunshine and relaxing on the beach, I realized that I couldn't spend my time like this. It had been nice with a few days off relaxing, but that was not the purpose of this trip I had to remind myself. Either I would find something to do or start traveling again to new unexplored places. I had been wanting to dive a little more, at was speculating about doing the dive master course here in Thailand. There were places offering the course as part of Similan liveaboards, others more modest with small dive shops utilizing shore diving. The price of course reflected this, so I decided to walk around and check out the local places in Patong. Actually diving was not the first thing I would associate Patong with, so I was a little surprised to find that many options available.

After having talked to a few shops, I kind of narrowed down the possible places to those fewer ones that also offered instructor development course. One never knows what is going to happen, so sometimes it is better to keep the possible options open and make it a little easier on oneself.
Met with a guy called Christophe Pace, who seemed to be a known and pretty well respected in the area. Good reviews on the Internet too in different forums. The dive shop he was working with was one of the most eye catching shops in Patong, having a pool very close to where people were partying at night. It was very exposed and people often stopped by to see what was going on in the pool and seemed very interested.  I decided this would be the place and went inside to talk to him again and sign the papers for me to begin the course. I was then introduced to a French woman, Vanessa, who was going to be my dive master instructor. She had me sign a lot of papers and then took me to the accounting department - this was going to cost me money and of course like everything else, more than expected. Well, not the game was on!

I expressed my interest in photography and said I had time enough and was thinking of doing a dive master internship of 2 months, giving me time enough to get plenty of dives in the area. Christophe had told me to forget about the photography specialty and instead go on the boat with the local photographer that was working for A4D. Sounded pretty sweet, as the course is more for people who might never had been holding a camera in their hands underwater before.
Next morning I arrived in the office at 9 o'clock for the first DM theory classes. I was introduced to Vlad, a Czech living in London my age, who was also here to do the DM course. There was a third DM trainee that came 15 minutes too late, Elias from Sweden, who had been doing his Advanced and Rescue course with A4D the few previous weeks. Young skinny dude with the baseball cap on a little bit sideways, "Oh man" I thought, what a character, this is going to be interesting.

The DM course is all about theory, tests and being able to teach, assist and be a good diver. Of course the diving was being saved for later and so we started with a week of watching PADI videos, reading books and making tests. In between there were skill practices in the pool which in fact turned out to be the coldest pool in all of Phuket. We would spent 7-8 hours in the pool, practicing how to do the different open water skills, then how to teach these skills to students learning to dive. Most of the time though we would spent watching instructors teaching skills to students, so just sitting there in the pool doing nothing.

Finally one day we were told to pack our bags, we were going on the boat. Nice! Next morning we met at the dive shop, helped load the pickup with all the customer's equipment and then got onto the minibuses that would take us to the boat. On the way to the boat the driver would pickup customers, so it took close to 45min to get there.
Once on the pier, small pink minibuses would take people out onto the end of the pier which was around 600 meters from shore. With everyone aboard, a briefing for the guests would be given and assigned dive masters. Breakfast would then be served and the boat would start the journey of 2-3 hours to the dive site for the day.
The instructors and DMs would go and prepare their own and customers equipment and then just hang out until the boat made it to the dive site. A lot of different nationalities on the boat, so it is a mix of many different languages being spoken, German, Swedish, Russian  French, Thai. Underwater all that doesn't matter, there it is communication with the hands - and fingers if needed, haha
We have our first open water student, an older guy from Corsica in France. He is not exactly like a dolphin in the water, we noticed that already during the pool sessions, but never the less he managed to fulfill the requirements for becoming an open water diver.
He was very happy and proud when having finished. Clearly he will need to do a lot more diving to become safe, but I guess a lot of people who get certified are still learning on the next few dives. But that is also the good thing about diving, there are so many people on different skill levels that there will always be someone you can dive with. No need to be an professional to enjoy the sport of diving.
Diving here is not exactly impressive like The Philippines or Mabul/Sipadan where I have been a few weeks earlier, but it is necessary to think differently and enjoy the diving here for what it is. Compared to many other places, this is great and I am not complaining at all.
The islands and the environment is super pretty and impressive. From a distance it just looks like some rock in the water with some green stuff on top. Coming up from a dive though and the rock wall just rises up 100 meters just in front of you, that is pretty cool.
On top of that we get the most beautiful sunsets around on the way back to Chalong. Really peaceful just sitting watching the setting sun, the only sound is the Thai flag in the wind - and then the boat's 2 big engines of course, haha
Yup, life here is not too bad, I think I am going to stick around for a while.