Day 5 in Thailand

I found an internet cafe on Ko Phi Phi so I'll try to take a moment to post an update on my trip so far. Actually, it wasn't really hard to find one.

For a tropical island they seem to have plenty of them. You walk down the street (path really) and the stores go like this: Massage parlor ("Maasaaaage?? You want Maaasaaaaaage?"), tattoo parlor (you don't want to know how temped I am, if only to try to communicate to them how to do a tattoo of Euler's equation.), smoothie bar, dive shop, restaurant/bar, internet cafe, massage parlor and so on with the occasional souvenir shop tucked in.

There's so much to tell, but it's somewhat late, and I'm getting up for an early dive tomorrow, so I'd like to go to bed at some point, but I'll try to hit the highlights. As I mentioned in my last email, we were looking into the scuba diving, and once we got to Phi Phi island Brandon and I signed up for the 3 day course which gives you a lifetime certification to rent scuba gear internationally. Doug is already certified so he's been finding ways to entertain himself for the last 2 days while Brandon and I are in the classroom or out in the water. Doug is going to join us tomorrow, when we go on our last day of diving for the course. I've really been enjoying it, but completely expect that what my brother-in-law Neil warned me will be true: that as soon as you go scuba diving, snorkeling feels pretty lame. In fact today where we dived, there were a handful of snorkelers who were in the water near us, and I couldn't help feel anything but pity sitting on the ocean floor staring up at them desperately trying to dive deep enough to briefly see the fish up close. In just 2 dives today we saw a lion fish, puffer fish, moray eel, jelly fish (or something that looks like jellyfish), 2 leopard sharks (maybe 8 feet long), an octopus and a shit load of other crazy cool fish I've already forgotten the names of.

I can also see why this becomes addictive for some people, both scuba diving, and the whole island living thing. My instructor told me how she began working here. She originally showed up on the island to vacation for a week. She walked into a dive shop and asked them about doing a dive day trip and they asked her how much experience she had. She said she was a master diver and they asked her when she could start. "No, I'm just interested in diving today", "When can you start working?" the repeated. That was 3 years ago.

The island is nice but it is pretty tourist heavy. I'm trying very hard not become That Tourist. You know, the one who complains they heard such and such place was better before everyone found out about it and now it's super crowded without any trace of irony. But I still feel a bit of regret that it's so overrun, tempered with guilt knowing I'm just as much to blame. After a couple of days though, you just start to see through it, and you start to find the little things that make it feel more comfortable. The couple from Canada who you keep running into who are super nice. The amazing sunsets and natural beauty of the land. The bar you like on the beach that isn't so crowded, that serves white russians and pad thai, that plays a strange combination of electronic trance and Credence Clearwater Revival (trust me, it feels more natural then it sounds). Eventually you just kinda ingore all the rest that isn't going anywhere, but isn't really getting in the way of your experience anyway. Dear family and friends: be thankful I'm not a master diver (or have any other tourist industry skills), I'm not sure when you would see me again.

(Obviously none of these pictures are mine. Just like the Guatemala pics, there ones I shamelessly stole off the internet. The two landscapes are actually Ko Phi Phi. I'm hoping to buy a waterproof camera tomorrow, but I'm told the pictures don't really come out that well. And yes, I'm taking plenty of my own pictures as are Brandon and Doug, so I'll have plenty to bore you with later.)

Anyway, We leave on the 9th, and most likely straight back to Bangkok. We are going to try to get at least a day in Cambodia at Angkor Wat, but we've yet to figure out how that is going to happen. Hope you are all doing well. :)