My Crap Holiday

Yes I was compelled to leave the country for a shoet while, despite being really busy trying to shoot this documentary. So on thursday off I went to Thailand to have a little break. The origional plan was to fly, but I had left it a bit late, and by the time I realised I needed to go away I discovered it was Labour Day (may Day) bank holiday and every man and his dog wanted to take a long weekend, thus prices too high. So I got a train, possibly the worlds most unnecessarily slow train, to Hat Yai, just over the Thai border.
I was going to scooch up to Bangkok and visit our friend Kim, but when I got to Hat Yai I was just dead. See there were no beds left on the train, so I spent a delightfully gruelling 14 hours in a rubbish seat, the sort of seat you get on the little Sprinters, ie rubbish, with a small Malay girl-child staring over the seat in front at me for almost the whole bloody trip.
So, as you can imagine, the prospect of another 14 hours on a train to Bangkok (again with no beds available) was about as appealling as a putting a rotten fish in my socks.
Thus I opted for a new travel plan, and now I realise it could have turned out incredibly badly indeed, as it was it only turned out to be utter rubbish instead.
See, I looked at a map and thought, hmmm, I've still not gone into Myanmar (Burma) have I, and there is a train from Hat Yai that goes almost direct to Yangon (Rangoon). This was early Friday evening, and I was very close to buying a ticket and just having a bit of a peek, check the lay of the land with a view to going back in a few months and having a month long trip there. In the end I could ascertain when the train would leave Rangoon to come back to the Malaysian border area, so though, well never mind, this is only a short trip, no bother I'll go somewhere else.
Lucky I did n'all I rekon.

Instead, I went West to a marine park called Satun, it's only about an hour North of Langkawi by boat, and I've heard it mentioned so thought I'd have a look, then I could get a boat back to Malaysia and spare myself the pain of another long train journey. This decision turned out to be a good one on 2 counts. As I managed not to get caught up in the Typhoon that annihallated Rangoon and the Irrawaddy Delta, in sunny - not to mention delightfully oppressed - Burma on Saturday (which would have pretty much co-incided with me getting off the train) but also the nasty train crash south of Kuala Lumpur that has thrown the Malaysian rail network into confusion and dissarray. Whoop de woo, somebody's looking after young Timbo today.

Needless to say I had no idea about either of these incidents until I got back to Malaysia and used the internet, with a sigh of relief and only a petit browning of the underwear.

So, there I went to a place called Koh Lipee, via Koh Tarutao. It was a very lovely picturesque place, however me being a dunce I didn't take any pictures. See this was all a bit unplanned, and I'd packed the small camera deep into my bag. In a moment of clear thought I opted to keep one Tshirt dry for the return bus from Penang to KL, otherwise the insanely high Aircon would freeze a damp shirt to my skin and result in hypothermia, which is actually possible in the tropics if you go on a bus/train or linger in Malls too long. Where was I? Oh yes, dry tshirt, I put it in a plastic bag, then obviously I had the great idea of putting the camera in there too, to keep that dry. Then it seems I forgot about the camera, and whenever I looked at the dry tshirt bag, I just thought, "nothing but a tshirt in there". Yes, still the same old Timbo, forget my brain if it wasn't glued in. So I convinced myself the camera was in the appartment and you don't get to see any nice photos as a consequence.

Spending a few days on Koh Lipee was ok, but I really was not in the mood, I just wanted to be at home sorting out this film. The weather was OK at first, as my peeling tomatoe nose testifys, but after Saturday evening the sky went a bit black (tail end of Typhoon I now realise) and it got a bit drizzly and grey for rest of the time. Also it was the very end of their season, so most places weren't open and there was essentially bugger all to do. Which again wouldn't have been so bad if the bookstore wasn't closed and I'd brought enough to read. So I took advantage of cheap alcohol and drowned the days away.

On the subject of drowning, I nearly did. Not a very nice expeience. (Now I hear Mum have a heart attack and roll around on the floor gasping for breath).
Allow me to explain.
See I wanted to go for a dive, after all it was a marine park. So on the sunday I went and booked a dive, before I went away on the boat back to Malaysia. Monday morning I was quite hung over and tired, but that's not so bad, I've dived hungover before and generally it's not so bad. THe guy said he'd take us to a nice easy spot and just go cruising around on the reef.
As soon as I got in the water, the hangover went away, but I was still a bit tired. Never mind, we went down, and there was something very wrong. See he'd said that visibilty there was usually around 20 to 25 meters. This day it was about 1, sometimes less, sort of like swimming in a glass of milk.
The surface current was really not bad, which is normally where the current is, but when we got to the bottom there was suddenly a bit of a surge. Not to worry, we swam on. Then after about 20 minutes I was getting tired, whichever way we went we ended up swimming into the current, it just kept changing. Then I need to burp (quite normal) and was trying to get it out, when the current got really strong, like swimming and moving nowhere, maybe even backwards. Now I really don't like diving in such conditions and I was all for just going home and calling it a day, but we kept on going. I still couldn't burp cos too busy breathing and kicking. Then I got cramp in my leg. Again quite normal, so I went to release my cramp, by pulling by fin towards me. To do this you have to stop kicking, so I stoppped, but the current pulled me back and I really couldn't see very far, thus not wanting to loose the instructor and my buddy I kept on swimming, the cramp was savage, but I kept on kicking.
Luckily my buddy noticed I was getting into trouble, and he spotted a fishing net snagged on the reef. We both grabbed on for dear life and had a rest.
Then the strangest and most unpleasent thing happened>
First the fatigue hit me like a brick. Nearly 30 minutes of harm swimming and I was knackered. I released my cramps, but I'd started to breath too fast, I think I was close to hyperventillating, panic was starting to rise, it was getting a bit dangerous. Then, and I don't remember how, I choked on a bit of water, and before I even knew what was going on I had pulled my regulator out of my mouth!!!! Can you believe this? I had no idea what I was doing, I suddenly and for the first time ever, became the textbook "panic diver", "diver in distress".
Then, well luckily i realised that I'd taken my reg out before I tried to breath in (bear in mind I already had water in my lungs, and more, well, not really that healthy) so jammed it back in and breathed in, which of course caused me to cough up the water. Then I had a lovely long burp, and managed to calm myself down, with the help and eye contact of my lovely lovely buddy. I have no idea who he is, he spoke no english, but well I'm very grateful cos he was proper good.
So there we go, the first time something like that has happened and I hope to christ it is the last. It was a stupid decision of the dive leader to keep diving in those conditions, and I really don't know why we didn't just go up after 10 minutes of soup swimming.
There we go.
After the dive he was really confused, says he's dived there for 3 years and never seen conditions like it. Of course, now it's clear that the whole of the Andaman sea was in a state of turmoil what with the typhoon 500 miles away. At the time I was just happy not to become fish food, it would be a pretty rubbish way to die right.

So, not to worry, I just came home and now I'm just wish I hadn't had to go away, and I might do a bit more research before I decided to randomly take a holiday, oh and try to remember that I packed my camera.

Love to all and don't worry about me, not a bother innit, it's all in a days work for a bloke with no job