With all those thoughts tickling my mind, I approached the Cafe lady at the counter for some vegetarian food, best thing was
she knew English as she was not from Thailand, she asked me to try a Veg Soup, I was thinking how can a soup quench my hunger? but i ordered with merely any options left, I requested the lady to make one, soup was indeed filling, i was happy to see rain ceasing, I reported back to the dive center, and Tyron(My instructor) asked me to join him to the store room where they had stored the diving gears, i was asked to try different sizes, so finally i got my gear, we were in a group size of 13 Nos(7 Instructors+4 Divers), we hopped into hilux SUV's for a drive to reach our boats waiting for us on the pier, and we reached the Pier by 1:30PM, we got into the boat along with our gears.
Tyron started briefing me about the techniques/signals to be used underwater, so I nodded for
everything and raising my questions in parallel, he asked me to change to my
dive attire.
I was all ready to dive in diving spot-Japanese
Garden, I was nervous as the cylinders on my back were pretty heavy which weighed around 22 Kgs, walking with the long fin flip flop made it more difficult, i dived into the sea after Tyron asked me to, but was struggling
to lean back with that heavy Cylinders on my back, but managed it after few minutes, Tyron thought me various techniques such as equalizing, breathing through the regulator, pushing water out of the face mask underwater was a tough job, believe me, you will fail to do one or the other thing as its your first time and you tend
to panic and your mind fails
to sync everything at one shot, finally managed to do it, and was ready for my
underwater swim, took out the air from the jacket by releasing a knob, which made me to penetrate underwater, I was learning to manage the techniques, at some point I got
comfortable, all my panic vanished and that’s the moment I started concentrating all around me, water was transparent, spotted different kinds of corals and fishes, I felt like I was in some
aquarium, one of the best feelings of ma lives, we reached depth of 8Mts, after exploring underwater for 20 Minutes, Tyron indicated that we need to hit back to the water surface, and pressed which lifted me to the water surface, i was put back into the boat, was nowhere in
mood to stop it here, so requested tyron to take me for a second dive, so the
next dive was in a spot- TWINS, so he asked me to take some biscuits and coffee, after which I was ready for my
second dive, it was much fun this time as i was totally fearless and got versed with sea habitat, and
we penetrated till 10mts depth, i must mention twins had got amazing sea life compared to Japanese gardens, we spotted a yellowish Sting Ray, tons
of Barracudas, i was having best moments of my life, and when I was completely lost in the splendid environment,
I was asked to check my cylinder pressure, it was less than 20 Bars, which is a warning, so we were forced to
go back to the water
surface, and I got into my boat rejoicing my first dive experience which cannot
be expressed in any languages
across this small world, we all were finally back on the pier and got into our vehicle for a ride back, I remember the time we
started from dive centre, one of the Instructor Named Josh was always appreciating
Indian Tea(Chai)
which has impressed him a lot while he was in India, he was always talking
about it in the entire journey, he always kept the atmosphere very live by his friendly
talks, I should thank Tyron, who
was so friendly, professional, and the best thing which I respected him was his
love, respect for sea
life, if we have such people in every organization than we won’t see nature getting extinct, later when I got back in India, I could see this dive Centre(ROCTOPUS) getting
involved in many Social Events, to be precise it involved cleaning litter around beaches, amazing isn’t it?, when
we have such people
around, the place would always remain serine, that’s what shocked
me when I entered KO
TAO, even though this island receives 100K people every month, the island is
so serene, appreciating things I was back to my hostel, my swedish
friends were lost
from the bench where I had left them in the morning, I could see few other
foreign mates have occupied the place, i can hear someone singing accompanied by a guitar,
and to my surprise It
was Lana(The Hostel Lady), I relaxed there for half an hour listening to their experiments on music, meanwhile having a conversation with one of the guy from Holland, who was
sharing his dive experience as well, I left the place and followed towards my
dorm,
needed a refreshing
bath, when I entered my room, I could see my Swedish friends relaxing on bed
and then I got introduced
to one of the lady from UK, she was Kerry, Kerry just
Completed her 1 week Open water training, and she was complaining about the
invisibility under water,
she told I was lucky to find water transparent, as she dint find clear water for the whole
week, I thanked my luck, we all
chose to relax sipping a
Beer at the reception as it was still 5:30PM, We were having regular conversation, Kerry came up with the idea of playing Poker, and we all got excited, few more girls joined in, they were from
Germany, we all got introduced,
I was bit worried of being all alone in a different country, but now i have made enough friends,
everyone were different which gave me different learning's, it was around
8:00PM then I forced my friends to move our asses out and explore island's nightlife, Kerry
always told me not to be so much
excited as she is seeing the nightlife from past few weeks and nothing was
really interesting, but still I
pushed them and finally we headed to explore the nightlife, there were only few
pubs around, Kerry took us there, We went to Choppers First, The music was high and
people were going crazy, we settled down there for some time and decide to check THE BAR NEXT TO YOU which was few Meters away, and this was indeed happening beach Side Pub in Koh Tao, the atmosphere
looked much better in here, I took some pictures
and spent 2-3 hours in
their, then we got
out and chose to relax on the beach, It was 3:00AM, so we chose to leave the
place as I had to catch my
ferry at 10:30 AM next morning, but All my other friends chose to hang out
there for some more time
and they chose to walk with me till the Choppers where we could locate some Pan cakes, Chef was so good and fast
preparing em, we ordered different varieties and i ordered Chocolate, now it was time to say goodbye, I never wanted this to happen so early, but its part life, I finally
started walking towards my hostel, slept for the night, and I forgot to mention
one thing, my mobile was down
with battery all the time, as the sockets were different when compared to here in India, so I slept thinking
that I will wake up well within my ferry departure, bingo, i wasnt aware of what time it could be when i woke up, I had to wake Anton to peep into his watch, ha ha
it was 10:00AM, I
lost hopes catching my ferry which would depart in less than half an hour, I din
care to brush my teeth,
washed my face and quickly packed my stuffs and without even waking up my
friends(who asked me to wake
them up before I leave on the other night) I ran towards Lana to settle my
bill, and told her I will miss my
ferry for sure, Lana asked one of the locals to drop me on his bike
as I was late, we reached
the Pier by 10:30AM, and I thanked the guy, My fate was just hanging on ropes,
I ran to the pier and
people stopped me from entering without check in, I told I have tickets, please
stop the ferry, the ropes were
off and the ferry had almost left the pier, they asked to show tickets and after
seeing it, they told to step in,
one of the employee brought my travel badge, I
settled down on the upper
deck, I was laughing recalling my early morning adventure, I took some pictures again,
and finally water started
splashing so I choose to
get into the cabin, brought some biscuits and
Mineral water, I was taking back the best memories which can’t be erased from my
life ever, I reached
Chumphon Pier finally by around 12:00PM and our bus was scheduled to depart by
1:00PM, luckily had
some restaurants around and my language problem started again, I struggled to
explain them that I need
a veg food, and asusual they dint understand me, finally I ordered Fried
Rice(Remember Thai’s friend rice contains egg, so please do not forget to mention fried rice without Egg if you are Vegetarian), ordered some fruit juice as well, I was relieved of not struggling for food till night :D,
got into the bus, I luckily
got an VIP seat which was far better than the seats we got in the upper Deck,
good leg space, I chose to
take a nap for a while as I decided to explore the nightlife of Bangkok same
night, But couldn't
sleep as the
pictures of those two fantastic days were in front of my eyes , specially Koh Tao, it was my first time in Thailand, I was happy to chose koh toa for my dive, reached
Bangkok around
10:30PM.........to be continued...........
Cheers
Shravan
backpacking is the best way to see the world.
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