let's take a journey back in time...

yes. please.
duddle-lu-do ฎพด duddle-lu-do ไดก duddle-lu-do
are you still with me? i've gone back in time... to March 2009...

so yes, i'm lame and haven't kept up with this correspondance thing on this new-fangled blog method. Not trying to make excuses, but Indian internet services are not up to the snuff their otherwise self-proclaimed Bangalorian IT supremacy likes to suggest; power outages, pricey log ons, incredulously slow connections and narrow-minded internet shops who dont let you temporaily upload pictures to their desktop twart many frustrating attempts to communicate, let alone blog or put up pictures at all. (ok. so i had a couple of breakdowns right there in public at the internet shop -it wasn't pretty.)
but i'm back in the land of smiles. aaahh Thailand. (i actually told the customs officer when i arrived in Bkk that i loved his country. no really i did. i couldn't help it i was so relieved.) So relative internet ease and cost has coaxed me back to the kepyboard slowly but surely. just gotta figure out Picasa in Thai and then i'll be right with you...

DM gets easier...

Well, i'm almost at the the end of my Divemaster training and finally it's starting to settle in in spite of the unsettling trend of constantly learning from one's mistakes -argh! from going too fast to forgetting my compass, learning comes the hard way. turns out from having spoken to my instructors that they see it actually as a very good way to learn it and everyone has been there. some consolation in the face of my embarrassment!
so, i will soon be the proud owner of my very OWN compass and will try even harder to follow the golden rule: TRUST the compass. duh. right? and to top it off, i've also bought my own BCD (buoyancy jacket) so that i can keep doing this in the near future. it's been tiresome to remove all my extra effects off shop gear and try and remember to put it back on... so now i'm pretty much set! need a regulator... and i want a flashlight to point out all the pretty things... but that will come!
there are some great underwater pictures of me and friends and fishies on my facebook page that i will try and link to here but i think you have to become my friend first! no worries, there'll be more where thses come from...
big glub glubs to all~
xo

catching up on pics...

another day off... it's gotten slow here! booo!
but i needed this day so it's all good... no more beer for dinner already!

click here to see more pics... they're all bunched together <:(( i'll figure it out yet...

thailand continued

here all is well -can't complain since i'm on a day off and just finished a lovely thai massage and a pedicure. aaaahhh....it was goooood. shortly i'll be off to the beach. unfortunately my co-dmt's are all with ear problems at the moment (one of the trials and tribulations of diving!) but they are therefore lucky enough to have more time off to go to phuket overnight. hrmpf. feeling a bit trapped here in khao lak. plus i'm without compadres this eve! boo. hopefully they'll bring me back a treat like yummy blue cheese...
anyway this also means that i'm getting many opportunties to guide and learn more and more from my many mistakes. ok -they're not life and death but it would be nice to get it right more often. although i am unlikely to forget or hopefully repeat!! however, i am also more and more relaxed and not sucking back the air as much -don't want to be coming up because i'm short on air -that wouldn't be cool! dives aren't necessarily deep anyway but on the wreck we're down at 19m for most of the 40min. it's a great dive with loads of lion fish and scorpion fish to watch out for as well as eels swimming about and huge porcupine fish. last trip we spotted the ghost pipefish -shich is rather rare -i've seen 4 now but never spotted one myself... i'm determined yet!
otherwise i'm doing ok -trying to get a run in every second day -there's an uphill part and a beach part and i must start out by 6:30 or else it gets too hot. there's also been torrential downpours every day or eve -not supposed to be monsoon yet but feels like it sometimes! i do like the thunder -but out on the water coming back from a dive it feels a bit hairy(sp?)!!

hope you are well and think of me with a sip of wine... here the cheapest option for wine is the S.Af. 1/2 l from the 7/11. it's not bad actually but we have to by a few to go around!

cheers!

well i'm off to the similan islands in a couple of days for a 3day liveaboard -4dives a day!! looking forward to some better viz since it's been crap at the wreck i\ve been doing loads of -which is a good thing since i have to map it. yikes. actually must go home after this a doodle some more on my draft...anyone want ot do some research for me on Boon Sun wreck and tin mining off the west coast of thailand? if you're boared....;))
anyway, how's it all there? last night there was a toga party -mostly staff and very hilarious -ended up in the pool til about 4am and had to drag myself home to get some sleep and pump water before diving this am! actually the dive improved my sensibilities muchly! and i'm still awake!
หฟพฟ้

back flash to last day in kolkota...

just some pictures of my roamings on foot, boat and by taxi -couldn't figure out the bus chaos in the stench and heat and really wanted to get to this "botanical garden" i'd been to before where there's this 250 yr old banyan tree. the core trunk has been removed due to disease but the rest of it growns on... branches growing down and rooting and becoming their own trunk til the thing covers nearly a hectare!
and then there are the colours of the women in sari and the haze of the noon heat in the city. then it was off to the Kali temple but no pictures there! not aloud. sorry!

coastal thailand

greetings from Khao lak!

this is a strip town that i have yet to fall in love with... it lies along the thoroughfare to phuket. it aint pretty. noisy and packed with "farang" -mostly germans -old couples and very young families. go figure. but it'll get the job done -i'm well into the divemaster course i set out to do. found a room with hot water and a garden out front and a tv with satelite on which i get 1 channel in english for sure: RT -which stands for Russian television. it's actually kind of interesting but loops. it's either that, the occasional Tom and Jerry cartoon or evangelicals on at least 3 other stations. i can only take a bit of bible thumping after a long day at the dive shop. the days are long because we're just going through theory theory theory. and other than that practicing demo-ing skills that have yet to be perfected ourselves. funny, can hover to check out a fishy but not in the pool. hopefully we'll be in the sea tomorrow. took a walk along the beach yesterday eve and a run this am. it's lovely and fairly warm. but i'm not too keen on the swimming right there. this is right where the tsunami swept through an left absolutely nothing. in all honesty, i think it swept away some of the charm too. certainly funds have been used to rebuild. and rebuild they have and not stopped. it's all a bit too planned and resorty. knicknacks and cheap flashy clothes line the road. i cant imagine what it was like before but they are defintely in love with concrete now -whereas i believe bamboo was more common before.

well every baht counts and i'm trying to pinch them. so ciao for now! more pics when i get a break in the studying... i'm into the physioligy now after suffering and surviving! the physucs -i mean physics.

big hugs from me and this gekko who hangs out by this computer...

chillin in nakhon pathom with my frined Yo -staying with her mom in a big teak house outside of town. talk about peaceful compared to india. nobody honks. public pissing is not such the national passtime. the food is great (although i confess to have cheated and eaten fish and had pork literally put in my mouth by her mom! well... when in Rome;b. the temp is great and humid. and most of all the company makes it feel like home. Yo is one of those people i will always know and connect with no matter how much time has gone between us. she's super into Buddhism and is very wise and soothing to be around.
presently i can hear the monks chanting prayers from the temple on the rise across the street -tallest standing buddha in thailand. he's absolutely beautiful. and so few people know or think to come to this place. although otherwise it's just a bustling typical thai town of several 100 thou.
followed Yo to her IT classes the last couple of days. now i gotta look for the bus sched to Khao lak... looking forward to being in the water... oneness...

but will also have to backtrack to tell of my last days in Kolkata -the city of Kali, Shiva's dark consort -the godess of mortality, the ancient banyan tree and endless people. pictures too! tomorrow...

off to teach with Yo and her EFL students -she'll be wondering what happened to me.

गोइंग नॉर्थ तो...

back from...
Assam!! look north and east past the chicken neck to the tea regions of india. Flight to darjeeling was cancelled so headed to Guwahati instead and then onto Shillong in the hills which was all i really wanted -green, ups and downs to walk, interesting new faces. met up with a honeymooning couple from Nagaland -now i want to go there too! found a lovely guest house at the top of the town. it was run by a true gentleman who appeared to be perhaps an ex-military, raj era or something by the likes of his taste and travels. From there it was time to stretch our legs along a trail to a measely waterfall and then through the hillside houses down to the police bazaar -didn't seem like a likely place where merchants would gather but however -a great cappucino was had! (comforts of home cannot be underestimated even this soon in;)
but we couldn't stay there for long; the nexst day it was time to return. Not so easy though with a bandh on -a strike barring all publik transport! so onto a lorry we climbed and sped down towards the airport at about 30km an hour the whole way -woohoo! the lorry driver and his sidekick were quite the comic relief to counter balance the rising panic of a fast approaching flight time. After many random stops we came to the end of the road for the lorry ride and then by auto-rikshaw(which i swear went fastar than the truck did) to arrive at the airport just in time to hear the flight take off. ye. fortunately our excuse of the bandh worked (true too! it was quite astonishing how vacant the roads were) and the tickets were "refunded" (we shall see...) hopped a later air india flight and made a late return to the ever bustling kolkata. this place never stops -the honking and beeping and merchant calls or crows and cats, even the hindi song hummed or blasted creates the symphonic assault on the senses that only subsides in the late evening and takes up again as the sun rises. sometimes it lulls me and other times, it makes you feel traped by sound. that's not to mention the smells and stenches that are inevitable in a city of some 15million at a foggy 31+degrees.
off to Kalighat and to find a banyan tree to mediate unde or something.