Underwater dreaming

Every little girl from my generation had her favorite Disney princess. Not every girl from my generation can still, twenty-odd years later, sing the entire score from their princess’s movie, but that’s beside the point.  For me, this princess was none other than  ginger fish-girl, Ariel.  I remember singing “Part of Your World” alone in the dark basement of the house I grew up in, fantasizing that the shelving unit my toys were stacked on was actually the levels upon levels of “gadgets and gizmos aplenty” that I stowed in my underwater cavern of treasures.  I was a a bit of a dreamer.

This past weekend was a four-day-er, thanks to the Buddhist lent.  Buddhist holidays are to me now what Jewish holidays were to me in grade school– religious rite for you, day-off for me.  So, I observed the sacred days by catching an overnight bus down Thailand’s southern peninsula last Wednesday, and by Thursday morning I was walking the gloriously sunny, white-sand Sairee beach of Ko Tao; where my first order of business was to find a dive school.

The beauty of the Thai islands (you know, aside from the glorious sunshine and white-sand beaches) is that there is truly something for everyone. You’ve got your party islands, your chillaxin-in-a-hammock islands, your fishermen islands, your rock-climbing islands, your scenic vista islands, your almost-like-Tom Hanks-in-Castaway islands. You name it, Thailand’s got an island custom-made to fit your own little idea of “paradise.”  Yeah, it’s a really rough life here. And Ko Tao? Ko Tao is the diver’s paradise. Crystal clear turquoise waters, living coral reefs, Flounder, Sebastian and the hot crustacean band, and best of all, unbeatable prices.  This little cashew-shaped island off the western coast of the Gulf of Siam is crawling with divers, both experienced and aspiring, as the costs are said to be some of the cheapest in the world. Still, with just under 3 days on the island and limited funds in light of my upcoming travel adventures, I opted for a one-day non-certifying “Discover SCUBA Dive,” with the enthusiastic and laid-back folk at SCUBA Junction.

The first hour of my dive-day was a quickie dry-land lesson on theory (I guess just strapping an oxygen tank to my back and dumping me off the boat is irresponsible?).  Alex, my instructor, explained to me and my fellow try-diver all the ways we could go about rupturing an inner-ear membrane, squeezing a lung, or getting attacked by a triggerfish, and taught us the strategies and sign language we could use underwater to avoid said complications.  Then, it was time for action!  SCUBA Junction doesn’t have a pool, so we started off by practicing the essential skills in some shallow water off the coast of Ao Leuk beach. I stood on my tippy-fins as Alex reviewed each skill from our  crash-course, then we we let some air out of our vests so that we slowly sank down to the ocean floor, where we sat on our knees for pop quiz time.  Somehow, being deprived of oxygen while I had to retrieve a lost regulator (the thing you breathe into) was no issue for me, but I had a small panic attack when my goggles filled up with water and I couldn’t properly drain them.  Alex calmed me down and had me try a few more times, but somehow this skill and I just weren’t jiving.  Finally, he said to forget about it, and that in the unlikely event that it became a problem he’d bring me to the surface.

THEN came the moment I’d been waiting for.  My mermaid moment.  I found my zen-place and we swam off into deeper water to explore Ko Tao’s lesser-known world. Within minutes, a baby stingray floated by us like a tiny flying carpet (…wait just a second here! Which Disney film is this???!). In that moment I was officially hooked (no pun intended).  I snorkeled for the first time back in 2010 in the Galapagos and saw some incredible creatures– a giant mama stingray nuzzled into the sand on the ocean floor, some playful sea lions and torpedo-esque penguins zipping through the blue, a white-tipped reef shark just kind of… chillin’.  The aquatic life, to be sure, was in much more variety in the Galapagos, but the serenity of the experience was rudely interrupted every couple of minutes when I’d break through the surface, spitting out salt water and gasping for air as I shook my mask clean. This new sensation of being… suspended… and enveloped in a thick, warm air- entirely weightless, was completely surreal.  Also, I had mermaid hair.

From what I recall, my first SCUBA experience looked a little something like this.

My try-dive friend and I followed Alex around like little swimming puppies (dog-fish?), marveling as he became an underwater magician.  Waving his hand in front of some coral, tiny little Christmas trees in vibrant yellow, red, and blue blossomed and retracted before our eyes, and some giant, curvy-mouthed shell opened its  jaws, sensing his approach. We saw butterflyfish, moorish idol fish, parrot fish, Nemo fish (sh#t! Wrong movie again!), and another, larger stingray with glowing neon blue spots.  At one point, a school of tropical fish nose-dived down to the ocean floor from atop a big coral cliff– a waterfall of grey and gold.

SCUBA didn’t come naturally to me, but as we glided along I began to get the hang of controlling my depth, breathing out long and hard to feel my body sink further down and inhaling deeply to fill my lungs with air and rise closer to the surface. It was a totally new way to control my body, and I never really achieved a good balance, but enjoyed exploring this newfound power in my breath. As time ticked away I was amazed at how long I could really stay part of this world.   Fifty minutes after our descent, it was time to get back on the boat. But, thoroughly seduced and craving more, I eagerly forked over the 850 baht to go for a second dive.

So much for trying to save money by doing a try-dive. Now that I’ve had a little taste I am greedy for more.  I’m thinking about splurging on my Open Water Certification before I leave here. On one hand, it is rather pricey, but on the other hand, I probably can’t do it cheaper anywhere else, and how often are you living in South East Asia?  Things to consider…

I’ll leave you with some photos of the stunningly beautiful Ko Tao, and it’s baby sister island Ko Nang-Yuan.  Hoping to return here before I bid farewell!

Potluck Dinners and Fish Head Soup

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

“Auld lang syne,” means “times gone past.”  Did you know that?  I did not (until a recent Google search, that is).  Times gone past.  It is a song about nostalgia, and yet we sing it to welcome in the new year.  If fact, we spend our last 10 seconds of the last year, more if you’ve had your eyes glued to the TV for Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve, wasting what’s left of it– counting backwards in cheerful anticipation of what is to come, only to lament what’s gone the moment the clock strikes twelve.  Does this seem ironic to anyone else?

Ironic or not, the turn of the new year does have a natural way of inducing nostalgia.  It offers a shining opportunity to think back upon where we were this time last year and what we’ve accomplished in the meantime.  For me, this New Year’s in Thailand prompted my recollection of New Year’s 2010, and even more specifically Boxing Day 2009.

Though time and space have distanced us over the years, my high school friends always make the effort to gather together each year for a post-Christmas potluck.  I have to hand it to my friend Ben– he is one of the greatest nomads I know, and doesn’t have a computer or cell phone to his name, but he deeply values his relationships and makes an unwavering effort to reach out no matter the distance.  Thus, despite Facebook and Skype, and all the other mediums of technology that “bless” us with the capacity to stay in touch with the click of a mouse, it is my nomadic, technophobic (not really) friend that is the glue that holds us together, or at least the elastic band on the paddle ball board that keeps us bouncing back, year after year.

Post-Christmas Potluck 2008

On this particular Boxing Day potluck, we went around the table to share our resolutions for the coming new year.  A few different factors came into play as I considered my goals for 2010.  My cousin and housemate Elaine was diligently training for the Boston Marathon at the time and I had been going along for the ride (well, runs) up until then.  Elaine had been inspired by another cousin, Meg, who ended up forging the way for the lot of us by running Boston ’09.  I hadn’t really entertained the idea of running a marathon before Elaine started her training– I had never even ran in a 5 or 10k race before, nor had I gone further than 6 miles recreationally.  But running alongside my cousin, chatting about our lives and playing air guitars at intersections, I was just at the brink of believing that this could be fun, and perhaps even attainable.

On a separate note, I was at the time in a place where I was feeling stressed and disheartened at work, and had experienced a recent heartbreak to boot.  I was certainly happy with my life, but then again I am always happy with my life. I felt inert, and uninspired.  Sitting around our potluck table, listening to a couple friends share stories about their recent travels in Nepal, I felt something stir in me that I had been trying to suppress.  They say that the return from adventure brings with it an elixir that breeds new adventure.  Maybe it was the Nepalese sweet tea they shared around the table, or maybe it was their faces glowing with excitement as they recapped their past three months, but this something inside of me, at that moment, took form.

I had thought about teaching overseas after finishing my master’s, (I had previously applied to work in Thailand, in fact) though I had been too scared to make the leap.  But envy (and general discontent, for that matter) is the most worthless conceivable sentiment, I decided, and one I’d rather just delete from my emotional repository.  If there is something that you want out of your life, and you have the means of attaining it, then you have to go for it.  You can’t sit around waiting for happiness to show up on your doorstep, or watching others fulfill their dreams, patiently waiting for your turn to come along.  Be your own happiness scout! I realize that this is perhaps a naive outlook– there are of course some wishes and yearnings that, given certain unfortunate circumstances, can never be fulfilled.  But if your dreams are within your grasp, it is your responsibility to yourself, and to those who cannot, to grab them.  This is what I believe now.  Stories are meant to inspire, and instead of letting my friends’ stories wash over me, creating a lather of envy, I chose to drink the elixir. What right do I have to be jealous of someone else for having something I want if it is within my power to get it for myself?  True and supreme happiness, for most people- the lucky ones, is a choice, but once you choose it you still need to work for it, and oftentimes you need to be willing to take a risk for it.  This is what I decided in 2009.  It is one of those things that you know you always knew, that you’ve heard people tell you your whole life, but to have the realization hit you with that kind of force leaves a hefty dent- a lasting impression.  I decided, as the ball dropped on Dick Clark’s program, ushering in 2010, to channel Thoreau: Go forth boldly in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you imagine.

Long story short (come on- you wouldn’t be reading my blog right now if you couldn’t appreciate a lengthy story), I shared two resolutions with my post-Christmas dinner companions.  In 2010, I would:

1) Run a marathon.

2) Travel. And not just travel, but travel to inspire more travel.

True to my promise, two-thousand ten saw my, Elaine, and Meg’s successful completion of our 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Copley Square, followed by a 6-week adventure in Ecuador from which I returned with my own batch of elixir.  And here I am now, 2012, and living in Thailand!

My resolution for this year is to become conversational in Thai.  Yes, I’ve already begun pursuing this one, but between living and working in a developing country and learning a foreign language and script, I feel quite content with the number of goals I have to focus on at the moment.  And, as with the marathon and the urge to make travel a significant part of my life, while I at one time did not believe I could do it, I am now confident I will succeed in this goal.  I can read a bit of Thai now (mostly menus), and can pick out some familiar words and phrases when spoken to.  I showed the new year the welcome it deserved by treating myself to a week and a half-long holiday down south, during which I put my Thai to work in fishermen villages on the underdeveloped island paradises Ko Muk and Ko Bulone.

On my last night in Ko Bulone I had what could almost be described as a “conversation” with one woman from the village.  I approached her as she sat pounding her itch-ily fragrant chili peppers and garlic with a mortar and pestal to ask why the village– so lively and bustling two days before, had been empty the past two days.  I couldn’t catch everything she said, heck, I couldn’t catch most of what she said, but I did manage to gather that the rest of the village had gone to the mainland to trade in the marketplace, and that she had four children– Lewie, Chewie, Sophia, and another daughter who for some reason or another was living on Ko Lipe at the time.  She bagged up a fish head– the unwanted remains from the dinner she was cooking up for her family, and gave it to me, calling it bplaa mong (mong fish), and instructing me to cook it in a tom yum soup. Before I left, she also invited me to eat a meal with her the next day, though I had to regretfully decline as I was scheduled to leave the island the following morning.

fish head

Man, what a high!  Granted, our conversation was extremely basic, and some of what I gathered was merely intuitive, but to be able to use my Thai to talk to this woman and to ask her about her family and community, as she pounded up chili and garlic in her seaside home… to be able to understand something of what she was saying to me was just incredible, and I walked away happily swinging my bag o’ fish-head by my side.

My friend and I brought the fish head to a nearby restaurant and asked if they’d make us a tom yum.  When dinner arrived, sure enough there was my fish head, hacked up and floating in the soup.  They didn’t even bother to try and get the bones or eyeballs out… probably because there was next to no meat in there anyways.  I thought maybe they’d supplement my fish head with some more fish– perhaps some fish mid-drift or tail, but they basically just quartered the head and boiled it right up in the broth.  I’m sure the waiter and chef had a good laugh about the farangs showing up with a bagged reject-fish head and asking them to turn it into soup.   But this fish head was my badge of honor- a small token of friendship from this woman who I had “conversed” with in Thai, and I was determined to see that that fish head made it to my dinner plate.  Bones, and scales, and eyeballs and all, it was the most satisfying meal I’ve tasted in Thailand.

I began writing this post on New Year’s Day, but I had to leave it to catch my ride to paradise.  Well, I suppose it was still New Year’s Eve for all of you in the States.  Then again, it is still only 2012 for you all back home, whereas I am writing to you from the year 2555– year “zero” on the Thai’s calendar marking the death of Buddha. So, how does it feel to be reading a blog entry from the future?  I guess this post would be more relevant had I actually finished it and posted it on New Years… at the very least sooner than 14 January 2555, but then again, living in Thailand right now means setting aside the nostalgia and the anticipation and living for the moment, and at the moment, the islands were calling my name 🙂

Indeed, no Auld Lang Syne was sung this year– I’ll leave you with the song and dance I used to welcome in 2555 at the Sa-Nguan Ying School faculty New Year’s party.  Please keep your judgement to a minimum… we were informed the day before the party that we were expected to perform a dance, and we were taught the choreography in twenty minutes on the day of the big show.  Happy New Year and enjoy!

(also, please take note of the small and fearless fairy princess running to and fro and around the stage)