Travelman's travels in Thailand Chapter 4: Live and Let Dive on Ko Tao! (Part 2)

I followed my gut to Big Blue Diving School. But first, I had a slight diversion and delay due to fatigue from the trip to the island and the hike to Sairee Village.

I found a hostel on an alley-like road. It was across from Davy Jones Dive School. I asked how much. The guy said 350 baht. I said, "The guy across the street at the hotel said this was 300 baht." He said those rooms were taken. I didn't like it, but I liked the idea of getting a bed and a shower right away. I paid the guy behind the counter for a bed in what turned out to be a somewhat crappy hostel. I went to my dorm room, showered, locked my bag in the locker in the room, and went off to find a diving school.

A pic of the main room in the crappy overpriced hostel, but it did have air conditioning.

And the rooftop patio where I fell asleep during an early evening rain, not great, but not too bad...

I walked down side streets, passing dive schools seemingly every few feet. None of them looked appealing, many looked too small and with few resources away from the beach. I found one near the beach. A French man sat behind the desk in the open air lobby. He was thin, fit, balding, grey haired, and looked to be about sixty (strangely, he was not wearing a beret and smugly smoking a cigarette.)

I asked him about prices and accommodations, he filled me in and advised me on how to choose a dive school. One of the things he mentioned was the time of day you go to the dive site. There were so many schools and so many divers that you may end up diving with a hundred other students and not fish. He told me to look around and find the right school for me. He didn't seem concerned whether I chose his school or not, plenty of customers coming in every day.

This was the start of low season so many schools were offering discounts from the already low price. I left his school thinking I may return. I was hungry so I looked for a place to eat. A place named Su Chili was on the main road, their menu looked decently priced and they had wifi so I sat down.

I ordered green curry and pulled out my iPad. I noticed two young women at a table across and in front of me. The woman facing me wore a tank top that read "Live and Let Dive." I thought about asking her about diving schools but hesitated.

My meal arrived, it was tasty. One of the women in front of me got up to use the toilet. The one with the dive shirt remained. I took the opportunity to ask her if she'd been diving here yet. She said they'd just finished an advanced open water course at Big Blue Diving School. She said the instructors were great, very patient and personable, and the resort was so nice they'd spent the majority of their time there. She'd been to the island last year with her ex-boyfriend and gotten an open water certification at another school she liked but it was now out of business. That's what happens when there's a hundred dive schools on the island. She said she and her friend were leaving the following day and had thoroughly enjoyed their stay. She offered to walk me back to the resort and show me with whom to speak about a class. I wasn't one to turn down a word of mouth recommendation like that, so I agreed.

It was a short walk north of the Sairee Village to the resort, maybe an eighth of a mile, basically right on the edge of town. We walked past motorcycles parked outside the scuba gear shack, past quaint bungalows, chickens roamed the grounds, and at the top of the drive was Big Blue, sitting directly on the beach. We walked into the air conditioned lobby. Beyond the lobby there was a an outdoor restaurant/bar patio, beyond that- the beach. I was in.

Pics of bungalows and motor bikes on the walk up the drive...

Outside the office from various angles... (A lot of these pics may seem like overkill for a post, but I'm also posting for my family to see everything)...

SOLD!!!

I talked to Sonya, a dive instructor from the U.K. She got me started with my paper work. She said I could return the next morning at 1000 to check into my dorm or a private room (at a bit of an extra cost if that's what I wanted.) The women I met had already said goodbye in the middle of the paperwork and I never got a photo of them. I would've liked to thank them for being instrumental in helping me find such a great experience.

I walked back to the village, walked around exploring, found a supermarket and bought some water. I went back to the hostel, there was nothing doing there. Dinner time came around and that's when I found a shack of a restaurant called, Mam Pa-(...and some more letters in the name that I forget, plus I forgot to get a shot from the street.) The dishes were between fifty and ninety baht, smoothies for 60 baht, best prices on the island and super tasty. This is Mamma cooking each meal fresh. I ended up eating there about four times. I tried a dragonfruit smoothie there. It was an unexpected taste- It tasted a bit grassy instead of fruity, kind of like it was a healthy wheatgrass shake. Customers from around the world leave their compliments to the chef on cardboard squares and hang them on the walls. The place had four cheap tables and plastic chairs, it was always busy with locals coming in and out.

Dragonfruit, it comes from dragons (don't quote me on that)...

The next morning I was due to check in around 1000 at Big Blue. I had to get my Charles Schwab bank card working again first.

Travelman's USEFUL travel tip #1: Be sure to notify your bank and credit card companies of what country you will be traveling to! And if you have an unexpected layover in a different country, like I did, notify them before you use the cards or just be damn sure you don't use those cards! What a pain! Two of them got shut off because I used my cards in Heathrow airport. There's seemingly nowhere in Thailand to make the collect call to the bank as suggested on the back of the card. Apparently, in Thailand, you can't make a collect call, or there's very few places to do so. Businesses all have international calls blocked, no matter what, no matter how much I explained it. Big Blue couldn't even help me. I had to go to a travel agency where they sold international phone time for 80 cents a minute. I had to talk to the company as fast as possible and get off the phone. I still have to reactivate one of the credit cards. It'll probably only cost me five bucks, but it's just one of those things that aggravates me because of the hassle, plus I'm kicking myself for using the card when I knew better.

Here's a pic of the nice gentleman who sold me the two minutes of phone time...

I walked to Big Blue and arrived promptly at 1000. I paid for my course and decided on paying an extra 800 baht for four nights of a private room instead of the included dormitory. 200 baht a night is still a great deal and well worth it.

Here's my room and the area outside it...

I was all set and ready to go! Class was due to start at 1700. Three hours of paperwork, intros, and videos.

To be continued in part 3.

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