The instillation of normalcy, in relative terms, is beginning to take place at Chez Chris and in my daily routine. Routine is rote and I suppose routine may be the wrong noun to utilize in this context because everyday has the ability to be completely different on Koh Tao. So, perhaps a better description would be to say that life is settling into more recognizable patterns. Good. Now that the grammar lesson is complete, you may all take out your English Literature texts, also known as the remainder of the blog.
You watch, some smart Alec will now come along and completely attempt to correct me on some nuance of the above paragraph. Heather, you know you’re itching to do it, so fire away. Besides, that was a lot of thinking on my part for 8am, so fuck off. In a nice way of course. And if you insist on being anal (and not in a good way) I will enrol you in the Canadian Underwater Navigational Technicians course upon my return.
Now I have confused a bunch of people (which is a common occurrence in my blogs methinks), avaunt and let us continue…..
Normalcy, that’s where we were. Ahhhh, the trick worked….a hot hot shower this morning. Enough to scold the little hairs on my bummy bum bum. And moments later irritate the shit out of my 1,000,000 mosquito bites that are now so crowded around my ankles they are in fact cankles. It was ridiculously mozzie land last night at Easy Bar, where the drinks are flowing and the girls are glowing….well not so much, it was mostly a sausage-fest of DMTs and bums, but it’s cool, it is mere steps from my dive resort/office and so it was easy for Natalie (my instructor extraordinaire) and myself to grab a couple of quick Singhas.
A few moments of fun and reflection upon Easy Bar:
1) It seems to me that all pharang here (including the ones who have gone native) partake in a minimum of two beers a day. Aside from the cost factor, my biggest concern is that I will not only have to dive four times + each day, but I will also have to run and possibly go for a swim while lifting weights if I want to prevent the inevitable lifebelt from growing around my mid-section.
2) Easy Bar teaches me life with the Thais is not “easy”. Last night there was a switch in bartenders. We’d had a few beers and I was paying for mine as we went along. As we get up to leave, the bartender starts getting shirty saying I owe for beers. Nat steps in and gets him to chill out. He seems decidedly hostile to me (and from the tattoos up and down his body and the odd scar here and there, he looks like he only recently gave up his former pastime of Dread Pirate Roberts – [name the movie, movie buffs, there’s a Singha in it if you get your butts down here]), but Natalie tells me that he has communicated to her that he is not angry at me. We leave and Natalie tells me that Thais will often get angry at someone when there is positively no reason for it, because they are in fact angry at something else. Turns out the bartender and the one he switched shifts with got into a big fight weeks ago. Another common Thai trait is apparently holding Prometheanesque grudges.
3) We get my cell phone working!! Yay. Well, yay and grumble grumble. Not my cell phone. Natalie has given me her old cell. A very very nice gesture and I am hugely grateful. There is, however, a reason, why she gave me her old cell. She has a new one. And why would someone get a new cell……because the old one doesn’t work very well. So, we’ll have to see how it goes. But it does completely piss me off that some jerk in Toronto is sitting in his booth in Dufferin Mall smiling and holding my fiddy in his grubby hands for the little chip he sold me that would apparently unlock my bberry. I’m bringing a lady-boy back to tear him a new arsehole. Hopefully he won’t enjoy it too much.
4) The sun finally made its first appearance since I have arrived on Koh Tao. There was a massive celebration at the bar to welcome it….almost like something tribal….I could see Lord of the Flies taking place so fast if things went south in Thailand…talking of which, apparently a bunch of protesters stormed the airport in Bangkok. If any of you know what is going on, please let me know. The news here is somewhat “unreliable”, as in they show a picture of the King on the telly and pipe in some soothing music. So if there is in fact a coup or anything, I would be grateful if someone can let me know.
5) I discovered a new game…..even if it will be a somewhat short-lived game. One of the other DMTs (let’s call her Carroll) has an Italian boyfriend. Apparently he is the jealous type. So my new game is to see how much I can wind up the Italian Stallion before he leaves. He’s a good bloke, so I won’t take it too far, but man, it is certainly reaping mirthful rewards so far. She isn’t helping him any by announcing to the entire dive crew at Sunshine how she just bought a new bikini that is padded and, to quote her vernacular, “makes my boobs look brilliant”
On to today. Did my first three exams this morning and aced them. Theoretically, I am doing just fine. My bigger tests personally will be my buoyancy skills and the swim tests. So not looking forward to them. I will have to swim 400m in under 10 minutes, I have to snorkel 800m as fast as possible, tread water for 15 minutes, the last two of which have to have my hands in the air and then tow a tired diver 100m. That may not sound a lot on paper, but it is seriously daunting to me.
Oh…went out on a dive with our advanced student again. John let Muscles and I head off on our own. Luckily Ted was following. We did alright letting Muscles lead for the first ten minutes. Until we hit complete soup. Then Muscles forgot his brain behind. We head deeper, but none of us can see each other. Finally, we get his attention, get him to stop and head back a bit. Except in the heading back we lose Ted in the murk. The only one who knows the dive site just went somewhere else. So what happens? We get lost. The student insists we are at position X. I ask him to indicate to me how he knows where we are (quite the feat underwater with my hand signals) and he understands and accepts that he has no clue where we are. This must have panicked him a bit as he consumes a bunch of his air in moments flat. I get to use my sausage (no not my dick you dirty buggers), a surface signalling device….and we ascend. Luckily we are only 20 minutes from the boat. We get to the boat, just as the Captain starts the engine. After stopping our student from getting sucked into the propeller, I move him away from the boat. Turns out Muscles is in fact a heavy bastard. The Captain moves the boat 400m away and we swim over again. Long fucking swim…..
If you recall, in a previous blog I discovered that my towel is in fact a blanket. You wouldn’t believe how surprised I was this afternoon to get home and find a plastic bag on my doorhandle with another towel in it!! Given the fact that Mamma didn’t see fit to provide me with a towel in the first place, I can only presume that Mamma is either: a) completely disgusted with me for being such a useless tool as to confuse a blanket cunningly disguised as a towel as an actual towel; or, b) has a mad crazy Thai lady crush (and no, for you hoping so, she is not in fact a lady-boy….at least I don’t think she is … she looks like she has boobs, but I guess anyone can fake it…..) on me. Let’s hope it’s the latter, I could use the flattering, even if she is ridiculously old.
Also found out my schedule for tomorrow. I will be assisting on an open water (i.e. the ocean as opposed to a pool) portion of an open water course with Emily. I then chose to go for two fun dives in the afternoon with Ted and Carroll to gain more experience. This has since come back to bite me in the arse. I was supposed to be on a night dive right now in fact, but the water visibility and surge is so bad that it has been postponed until tomorrow. This is seriously compounding things and I will explain why.
Oh the issues of a required social life. Now, instead of four dives (of which the two morning dives would be shallow, therefore not so threatening) tomorrow, I am doing five. Five dives in a day is quite a lot. But on top of that, we were supposed to go out tomorrow night to celebrate Carroll’s 30th birthday. Carroll’s 30th is actually tonight, but her boyfriend was to take her out for a romantic celebration and tomorrow was to be the rat-arsed portion. Turns out that Carroll’s boyfriend has some significant back pain and so he has bailed on tonight. This in turn means that there is sort of an impromptu celebration happening tonight. So now, I am sitting in Choppers in Sairee feverishly trying to finish the blog because a group of Sunshiners are heading here for 7 to get rat-arsed. Then I have to be at the resort in the morning for 6:50. Followed by two morning dives, two afternoon dives, a night dive and the second round of celebrations for Carroll’s 30th involving those unable to make tonight. Tomorrow promises to kick my butt. Oh. And I have my second skill set on Saturday. To quote my Chosen friends, “Oy vey” (ok….Carroll is reading this over my shoulder as I type this and had no clue as to who “Chosen friends” were. So for you dumb gentile fuckers out there, “The Chosen People” are God’s Children….i.e. Jews. Hang on Carroll wants a quick word………Feck off being mean to me – its my birthday – grrrrrrr ….thanks, Carroll, now fuck off my blog).
Changes of plans seem to occur about as frequently as your trips to the loo do during particularly virulent bouts of diarrhoea do. This may also mean that I am simply not have time to get a post in tomorrow, so you lucky fuckers may get two for the price of one on Saturday ….. oh my God, I know what you are thinking …. this will be a marathon session!!!).
The whole cluster-fuck of my plans also throws another brilliant idea I hatched yesterday evening totally down the shitter. Last night I had 230 baht. I planned on making absolutely sure I could last until Friday night subsisting on that amount before I hit an ATM. 240 baht is … give or take currency fluctuations…$8 CDN. I was doing well until 20 minutes ago. I had dinner last night, a couple of beers, a diet coke, breakfast, lunch and bought two bottles of water. I still had half my money left. Getting f***ed tonight completely puts the kybosh on that. I just hit the ATM and feel like a complete heel.
What was I saying about routine at the beginning of this blog…….
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