Keith's first dive...Kata, Phuket

The west end of Kata Beach is a great place to take people on their first dives...in fact, it's great anyway with stacks of fish to see. Here's Keith on his first dive in the sea after several pool practice sessions.

We dropped down to just five metres and stood about for a bit just to get the 'feeling' of being on the sea bed and watch the fish coming to us.



The fish are so used to divers that they will come right up to the camera and as we are so shallow there's plenty of natural light to get a few clear photo's.

Kata has a beautiful coral reef which is encircled by soft sand. This means that a new diver can land on the sandy bottom with no fear of damaging themselves or the coral and still enjoy the mass of sea life right alongside.

Lots of little fish shoal up in the various coral windows.

There's usually a huge resident shoal of small barracuda. It's nice just to sit on the bottom and release a bit of air...the barracuda form a circle around the air bubbles rising to the surface and soon you are right in the middle of the cirling shoal that rises from the bottom all the way to the surface...it's a magical sight.

There's plenty of isolated patches of anenomes with a resident family of clown fish and often a small crab.

Lots of small lionfish all over the dive site.

And here's Keith....making his first underwater 'swim'. Even though it was his first dive, Keith still managed just over an hour
with a maximum depth of 10 metres where we were fortunate enough to see about ten small stingray to complete his memorable first entry into the world of scuba diving....excellent!!

Water temperature?? 30 degrees C. Nice, eh?

A few more diving photo's

Here we are then....just getting ready to dive in. Were close to the land on this dive but we were on a 40 metre drop off....very dramatic underwater scenery with massive granite boulders and swim throughs.

Tucked into rock crevices were some pretty big moray eels.

Batfish were all over the place....

I was looking up towards the surface watching the shoals of big barracuda and trevally. Something triggered a feeding frenzy for the trevallies....they came from 30 metres above me to within inches on me in less than a second. That was mega high speed swimming...amazing how fast they came down. That was a real eye-opener for me...just how fast they attacked right from the surface to the bottom.

There's all sorts of wierd little critters lurking about. I dived on this site two weeks ago and this male ribbon eel was in exactly the same place! And right next to it were two frogfish which had also remained on exactly the same bit of coral...looked like they'd moved a whole inch in a fortnight.

The pleasures of 'flying' in Blue Water.

We didn't see any turtles during the dive...but no problem as they came round the boat once we were all onboard.

Great trip.......I have a family of divers arriving in March....maybe time to sneak another liveaboard trip in if they're up for it?????

Similan Islands...diving

Jai and I have just got back from a fabulous four day, 14 dive trip in the Surin/Similan Islands on a dive liveaboard vessel the MV Phoenix.

I was the only European onboard with the divers coming from Singapore, Japan and Thailand. The whole crew (skipper, chef, 3 deck lads, 2 dive masters) were all Thai.....it's a real big turn around from when I started going to the Similans 10 years ago when the divers and Dive Masters were all either European or American. As my new Asian friends announced on a number of occasions 'Our Time has Come!'. And it certainly has.....the cinematic equipment and laptops that everyone carried put my miserable little camera (cutting edge 10 years ago!!) to shame! It was an absolute pleasure diving with these guys (Jai was the only lady diver, apart from Da Da one of the Thai Dive Masters)...they were extremely polite, modest and very good fun....especially when we started hitting the Thai whiskey at night!

Anyhow, here's a few photo's with Jai being featured quite a bit....she IS a pretty impressive scuba diver....and enjoys posing underwater. I dunno, whenever you point a camera at a Thai Lady, they just GOT to strike a pose!!!

Here is one of these crazy Boxer Shrimps...angry little tarts. Apparantly, if they get miffed, they have been known to smash through a diver's mask...so better not to confront them head on for a photo.

It's rare to find seahorses...but The Similan Islands offer these opportunities as it is such a brilliant place to dive...and full of marine life.

Here's a moray sticking its head out...we saw plenty of these eels...some were pretty big. I saw 6 sharks on this trip...I was the lucky one....right place, right time.

Plenty of puffer fish all over the place.

Typical of Jai to find a gurt grouper...shoot it and then bring it back for us all for several meals onboard. We were well outside the National Park (no take area) when we found this critter.....
so, all legal!!

Fantastic clarity allows for some real nice photo shots. Here is Jai dropping down against the sunlight...me taking photo from beneath her.

See...Jai is always mucking about and posing.

Quite a few of our guests are now getting into the diving....courteousy of my pre-dive PADI course....and some have gone on to take the PADI Open Water Course. If you can do your course (much cheaper to do it here in Phuket than UK) then you too could experience one of these fabulous dive liveaboard trips......you'd be mad not to!!

Still Here!!

Don't fret, folks! Contrary to popular rumour, I have not run off with this pretty young fashionable Thai-ess.... we are still here and as hectic as ever!! But here's a couple of photo's before Jai and I jump into a mini bus to take us off on a 5 day diving trip in the Similan Islands.


Gary and Mandy have left us now and we curently have 6 new guests. Gary is a builder by trade and kindly added on an extension to the house for me while he was here. This will be the new V.I.P. room and, I am assured, is the sort of quality build one can expect. (Yes, Bert??)

While Gary was busy building my extension, Mandy thought she'd make the most of her spare time and get a better looking man to show her the sights.

Gary also got a part time job as a Rick Shaw driver. He was paid higher than most drivers because of his engine size and power to weight ration. You wanna see them Thai drivers scatter when Gary steps on the gas. Yo Ho!

Our new 'Sala' is now complete and we have been enjoying midnight soirees in it. Looks good with the new moon rising above it, eh??

OK.....much more drivel when I return......

Mandy Scuba diving.

The PADI Open Water video talks about the feeling of weightlessness akin to flying when you are scuba diving....and here's our Mandy on her second dive of her holiday...flying along underwater at the start of our favourite inshore dive mark at Kata Beach.



Because the bottom is very fine sand and Kata is used for diving practice/first dives etc there's plenty of 'diver traffic' some days. There was today and it doesn't take long for the sand to get kicked up into the sea and make the viz rather cloudy. But, it's still very nice and there plenty of interesting things to see especially when you move off the usual 'diver lane'.

Moving a bit away from the main coral reef, there's isolated rock outcrops and the chance to get some better photographs as the viz clears. Here's one of those famous puffer fish skulking about.

There's also isolated clumps of anenomes with a few resident clown fish...always good for a few minutes of close up viewing. Often there's a colourful shrimp hiding in there...if you look close you can see one in this photo. We were about 10 metres down.

Here's a couple of lionfish hiding amongst the rocks.....when the viz clears the photo's turn out nicely.

And here we are at the end of the dive. Each dive lasts at least an hour because we are in shallow water. Our max depth today was only 11 metres but there's plenty to see all the way throughout the dive. We found an old abandoned fish trap. It wasn't 'fishing' anymore and thousands of fish were swarming all over it as they would with a wreck. There were some big lionfish hiding on it.

Mandy completed this dive of an hour with 25% of her tank still full...excellent...and The Jai was also with us. Today is Tuesday. We have booked a local longtail boat for Thursday and will be taking our six scuba tanks with us so that Mandy, Jai and I can have two nice dives around offshore deserted islands. Our whole day with boat hire, lunch, tanks of air will cost us about £50 between us for a full days. Gary will be with us for snorkling and doing a bit of fishing with our Thai Captain while we are mucking about down below......

This is just all too good to miss. The house is fully booked now until next January 2013 when I have 2 rooms free.....so, what are you waiting for!!!! Book a room...enjoy a great couple of weeks and try some diving with me!!!!

Sukhothai Historical Park

Sukhothai ruins....one of Thailand's mst impressive World Heritage Sites. 21 historical sites are contained within the Old City walls and a further 70 sites outside all within a km radius. It's such a big area that you need to hire at least a bike to get round some of it...or a bike...or, in our case, a air conditioned car with a driver and a case of chilled beer.



The Sukhothai Kingsom flourished from mid 13th to late 14th Century and is the period likened to our 'Rennaisance' period when art and culture reached thier peak and still exert a massive influence on today's Thai art and religion.

During its time as Thailand's 'Capital', Sukhothai amazed travelling European merchants with its level of sophistication and population which was well in excess of 14th Century London, Lisbon and Paris combined. I include Lisbon because this was the time when the Portuguese were heavily involved in this part of the world. Much of old Phuket Town contains plenty of Portuguese architecture.



Anyhow, all that aside....Sukhothai is north of Bangkok and south of ChiangMai. If you have the energy to do a bit of site seeing while you are here in sunny Thailand...then this is another 'must' to visit (well, that's if you like temples of course).

Here is a picture with one of the many remaining Sukhothai Buddha images towering over our Jai sitting at its base. It's a very popular place for Thais to visit but as the area the 'park' covers is so vast, you can stroll around as if on your own. Excellent!! As ever, it's best to go as early as possible before the sun begins its daily assault on the fragile European body....the parl open at 0600...and that's the time to get there for 5 hours max...then scarper and maybe return in the evening.

The Golden Triangle

So, here I am right in the so called Golden Triangle at Chiang Saen on the borders of Thailand, Laos and Mayanmar. Moments after this photo, the Jai and I were on our way across the Mekong River into Laos for the day....but Laos is another country and another story and this is about Thailand.

Close to this 'monument' is an incredible 'museum' dedicated to the horrors of Opium production and addiction and, of course, Britain's massive role in promoting the Opium Trade into China in the 19th Century. The Thais are brilliant at creating museums and this has to be one to visit even if you usually detest museums.

But, for a taste of China without having to go into the country, it's worth making the scenic mountaineous drive slightly east to Mae Salong. In 1949 the 93rd Regiment of the Chinese Kuomintang fled to Myanmar from China after the 1949 Chinese Revolution. In 1961 the 'Regiment' was froced to leave Myanmar and moved across the border into Thailand. The Thai government granted them 'refugee' status and incorporated them into Thai society without much success until the 1980's. Many of the ex-Kuomintang involved themselves in the opium trade and were a hardened and disciplined force to be reckoned with. It's taken a great deal of fighting and subsequent political manouvering for the region to turn itself into a tea and coffee growing area rather than one of opium production.

Mae Salong is very much 'off the beaten track' and with its Chinese descendants it has retained its Chinese traditions with the town being like a town in Southern China's Yunnan Province.

Nestled up in the hills are a number of guest houses with stunning views. Here, The Jai, complete with a bottle of Chang Beer, heads into the undergrowth and down to our bungalow for the night which was set on a tea growing farm with stunning views across the valley.

I decided to get up at 6am to take photo's of the dawn. Temperature?? 8 degrees!! And did anyone warn me?? Nope...so armed with T-Shirt, shorts and flip flops I shivered through the dawn determined to take some sunrise shots. Pretty stupid, eh?

As dawn broke, this was the view from the bungalow balcony...it was worth the chilly start!

This year I have been attempting to learn the basics of the Thai written language. I go to 'school' twice a week with 10 other silly sods and together we mutter and mumble our way through the complexities of the Thai alphabet with its 44 consonants and 26 vowels overlaid with 5 tones. I am pleased to announce we are all equally useless but we have a good laff and our three charming Thai lady teachers quite enjoy slapping our legs....see, it's ALL different over here. Ah, yes, and we have to address our teachers as Khun Kruu suay...which means 'Honoured and beautiful teacher'. Ha Ha..imagine that 'back home'. We'd ALL be arrested...

Anyhow...I've been struggling to learn Thai but there's nothing in Thai in Mae Salong...it's all in Chinese. Bugga.....couldn't understand a darn word. This bit of Chinese writing is the Dinsum menu at the local steam shop.

Now these are proper dimsums....in fact they are called man-toh which means steamed Chinese buns. Filled with all sorts of things, depending on what you like, they are brilliant for breakfast on a chilly morning. Here's our chap making the delicious little things....we got there just before a coachload of Chinese tourists turned up and attacked everything that was left.

The Mae Salong region is all about tea growing. There are delightful tea houses all over the mountain. You can pull up, enjoy the scenery and be treated to 93,000 different types of tea to sample. And, along with the tea, you are served up with these colourful fruits and sweets. It's just great!!

Tea production is now seriously big business with a massive export market. Here's the interior of a Tea Shop with some of the produce on display. We bought all the gubbins..teas, tea pot, tea maker etc etc...excellent. And have we we used any of it?? Nope...of course not...as I only drink coffee and Jai says the packets of tea are 'too pretty' to open.

And after this entertaining insight into how a whole region has been coverted away from opium into tea, we drove back down the mountains and back into Chiang Rai.