Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Oh Koh Tao....
I’ve been on Koh Tao now for nearly a month. It’s been an interesting month to say the least. Koh Tao is a very small island, with few paved roads and an abundance of motorbikes. Dennis and I moved into a studio-house in a town called Sairee, and together we purchased a red Mio motorbike, who has no name. Dennis was giving me driving lessons, since i have no idea how to ride one, but I crashed it about a week ago, and have gross scrapes on my left elbow, knee, and foot, so i’m giving the bike driving thing a break for the moment.
I’ve been working as a freelance dive instructor/ dive master, where i get paid to dive and to teach people to dive. The pay is great for living on koh tao, but nowhere outside of thailand. For leading already-certified divers on a dive, i make about 600 baht a day. That’s the equivalent of about $17 for the day. But here on Koh Tao that will house me and feed me quite nicely. Teaching pays about 4x better, but still peanuts when converted to real world dollars.
Unfortunately, diving has finally taken its toll on me, and i have some sort of ear infection, and can barely hear out of my right ear (BAH! why couldnt it have been my BAD ear!?). Sometimes it’s painful, so i’ve been swallowing pain killers, and last night i went to a 2nd doctor, and got a shit-ton of new medicines to try.
A few days ago we went on our first visa-run. Our visas to thailand were about to expire, so we had to leave the country and re-enter it on a new visa. We spent a day traveling from Koh Tao to Chumpon to Ranong and finally, to Myanmar, Burma! We got off of a boat, had someone take our temperature, stamp our passport, and try to sell us drugs, including viagra, and then jumped back on the boat to head home. It was an interesting, yet exhausting day.
The food in thailand is, needless to say, amazing. For 60 Baht you can get a massive plate full of food- noodles, chicken, vegetables, the works! And it’s soooo good.
More to come....
I’ve been working as a freelance dive instructor/ dive master, where i get paid to dive and to teach people to dive. The pay is great for living on koh tao, but nowhere outside of thailand. For leading already-certified divers on a dive, i make about 600 baht a day. That’s the equivalent of about $17 for the day. But here on Koh Tao that will house me and feed me quite nicely. Teaching pays about 4x better, but still peanuts when converted to real world dollars.
Unfortunately, diving has finally taken its toll on me, and i have some sort of ear infection, and can barely hear out of my right ear (BAH! why couldnt it have been my BAD ear!?). Sometimes it’s painful, so i’ve been swallowing pain killers, and last night i went to a 2nd doctor, and got a shit-ton of new medicines to try.
A few days ago we went on our first visa-run. Our visas to thailand were about to expire, so we had to leave the country and re-enter it on a new visa. We spent a day traveling from Koh Tao to Chumpon to Ranong and finally, to Myanmar, Burma! We got off of a boat, had someone take our temperature, stamp our passport, and try to sell us drugs, including viagra, and then jumped back on the boat to head home. It was an interesting, yet exhausting day.
The food in thailand is, needless to say, amazing. For 60 Baht you can get a massive plate full of food- noodles, chicken, vegetables, the works! And it’s soooo good.
More to come....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
