New Motorbike

Well… we’ve gone from being car-free in Bellingham to owning two vehicles in Thailand. I know I’ll probably never hear the end of it! Actually, I finally have my dream of sharing a vehicle. We have bought a car with two other teachers, and we’ve been using it for five of us (4 teachers + Tré) to commute to school everyday. That’s been working out pretty well for going the ~12 miles to/from work.

For local uses (getting to the market, beaches, etc.), we have bought a motorbike just for Tré and me. I hate driving the car around if it’s just the two of us, but unfortunately, biking does not seem safe nor practical. We’re loving “fitting in” on our motorbike. Unlike the locals though, we wear our helmets. We’re getting pretty good with it – boogie boards, three passengers, etc. I grew up riding motorcycles at my grandfather’s in northern Michigan, so it’s been fun to be back on one. Tré has been learning to drive it as well. He is incredibly excited about doing laps around the neighborhood.

Speaking Thai

We are slowly learning the basics of the Thai language – hello, thank you, excuse me, how much, no thanks, yes, no, vegetable only, no MSG, how are you?, I'm fine, etc. What I’m most proud of and excited about so far is NUMBERS! The first week, I spent an hour practicing with Tré’s friend on the beach and now I can count into the thousands. This comes in very handy at the markets. Many of the vendors can speak some English, but many of them do not know numbers in English very well. They try to show you on their fingers, but it gets confusing… do they mean 6, 60, 16, 15? It’s been fun practicing numbers with the vendors at the markets, in stores, restaurants, etc.!

Rainforest Zipline

We made our second visit to the Khao Phra Thaew Rainforest Reserve today. This time, we went on a “cable jungle adventure.” The cables go through the jungle past ancient trees and through the tropical canopy. The stations are about 15m (45ft) high in the jungle canopy. We brought one of Tré’s friends with us, and had a terrific time! Beautiful rainforest!

Scuba Diving in the Phi Phi Islands

We endured a 3 ½ hour boat ride (each way) over rough seas to go scuba diving in the Phi Phi Islands this week. We wouldn’t have normally gone at this time of year, but there have been many recent sighting of whale sharks. So, we went with hopes of seeing one! We did not get that lucky though…

The first dive was horrible – one of the worst of my life. The current was very strong. It was impossible to stop to look at anything – we were just getting carried along by the current. Apparently, there was a leopard shark right by us, but Tré and I missed it while he was having some issues with his weight belt. Bummer! They are common though, so I’m sure we’ll see more in the future.

The second dive site was much better. It was a protected cove on one side of the island. Actually, it was the cove/beach where “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed – the scene where he swims to shore on this deserted, tropical beach. We saw tons of great reef fish, a green sea turtle, stingrays, etc.

We had fun hanging out the Tré’s scuba instructor and some of the dive masters again. They’re a good group of people. The biggest accomplishment was that we managed to not get seasick (with the help of some meds)!

The islands were gorgeous!!! We’ll definitely make another trip back there this winter when the conditions are better!

Scuba Diving Certification

In all my years of snorkeling and scuba diving, I had my most exciting sighting ever… my son breathing underwater! Tré completed his PADI Open Water scuba diving certification, and is now a certified scuba diver! We did four dives from a boat in the Andaman Sea near the island of Racha Yai (about an hour boat ride southeast of Phuket island). Not surprising, Tré was a natural and absolutely loved it. We saw lots of great reef fish and invertebrates – sting rays, puffer fish, coral, etc. Seeing Tré breathing underwater was definitely the most exciting though!

Now we will continue to dive and hope to see more of Thailand’s larger underwater wildlife – whale sharks, leopard/zebra sharks, tiger sharks, manta rays, sea turtles, etc. Tré is mildly obsessed with seeing sharks – fortunately there are no really dangerous/aggressive sharks in Thailand. The Jaws soundtrack still plays in my head though…

We’re becoming friends with Tré’s dive instructor (Nic) and another dive master (Brenden) with the company that Tré took his class through, so hopefully we’ll continue diving with them. We plan on continuing with more advanced certifications as well. There was one other student in Tré’s class. He was a great guy (Andrew) visiting from Hong Kong with his girlfriend (Jasmine). While Andrew and Tré were doing their certification dives with Nic, I dove with Jasmine and Brenden.

Well, if we’d been talking rather than me writing, you would have just heard me shriek as I was startled by a baby gecko jumping onto my bare leg as I’m sitting here typing! :)

Photos: Us on the dive boat by our gear, Coral Island, me with Jasmine and Brenden, Tré with Nic and Andrew. I'll add some underwater pics as soon as we get them processed!