Manta!

There were two public holidays in Singapore during late December – Hari Raya Haji (Dec 20), and Christmas. I decided to use a few days of vacation between them, and take a much-needed break from work. I flew up to Thailand (again… it seems like I’m always there) :-). This time, it was Phuket instead of Bangkok, and the purpose was SCUBA diving – not work.

Arrival in Phuket didn’t go as well as it could have. After waiting in line at immigration for over 30 minutes, they decided to close one of the lines & merge everyone into another line. This was not done with any semblance of order, and we all wound up waiting in line for well over an hour. Things didn’t get any better as we approached the front of the line & the immigration staff brought another family over to cut in front. I thought some people were going to lose it.

Well, eventually we got through that. And, after another 30 minute wait for a taxi – I was off to my vacation! I stayed in a cheap, but nice, hotel on Patong beach for the night & was picked up for diving the next morning.

My dive trip was on a liveaboard dive boat - Somboon 3. A liveaboard trip allows you to get farther away from land & go to dive sites that you couldn’t normally get to if you had to go back to shore at the end of the day. It also allows you to spread the dives out more during the day – giving you more time to rest between dives.




Somboon 3 was a little different than most liveaboards. It stays out at sea almost all the time. Every day, there is a speedboat that takes divers back & forth to the mainland. This allows everyone to choose how long they want to stay on the boat, which is really nice.

The diving was excellent. The water was clear, and it was sunny every day – which gave beautiful colors underwater (at least in the first 20 feet or so… after that, everything’s blue/green). We’d get up every morning and dive just after sunrise. Afterwards, we’d get out of the water & have a big breakfast. Then we’d have 3 more dives throughout the course of the day. On the first day, I did a night dive. It’s interesting diving in total darkness – the only things you can see is what your shining your flashlight on. But, since we were only allowed 4 dives per day, I chose the 4 day dives & skipped the rest of the night dives. There was plenty of interesting stuff to see during the day.

When I arrived in the Similans, I had 2 things in mind: manta rays & whale sharks. I knew that I was not likely to see a whale shark – it’s not the best time of year. But, I really really wanted to see a manta ray. Our best chance was going to be on Sunday, when we left the Similan Islands & sailed an hour north to the island of Koh Bon.

We did our first dive… no mantas (but we did see plenty of other things). On the 2nd dive, I saw one off in the distance. But, it was far away when I saw it & it was swimming away. I really hoped that it wasn’t going to be the only manta I saw that day.

On the 3rd dive, we went back to the same area where we’d seen the manta in the distance. We waited there for about 15 minutes… nothing! So, we started swimming towards a shallower part of the reef. All of a sudden, someone pointed above us. I looked up, and there was one directly above. It was huge! It was at least 10 feet from wingtip to wingtip. It swam/flew past & then turned (it banked, like an airplane does), and came past again. As it flew past, I turned around & there was another one behind us. It flew past & the doubled back again. They just kind of loitered around us – clearly not uncomfortable with our presence. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen underwater. They’re incredibly large, but very graceful.



Check out how big it is, compared to the diver in the corner!

As we were finishing our dive, we were about to start our safety stop (where you go to 15 feet for 5 minutes, to get nitrogen out of your blood). As we were doing that, another manta came by! This one came so close that some people had to get out of its way. It also doubled back for another pass by us. Incredible!






Oh, and here’s some manta trivia I learned while reading through a book on the boat. Mantas can jump completely out of the water – getting 10-15 feet in the air. And, pregnant females will jump out of the water & give birth mid air! Nobody’s sure why they do that.

I saw tons of other creatures during my trip to the Similans. We came across a leopard shark that let us get really close for pictures, as well as starfish, lionfish, scorpionfish (I almost put my hand on one of those – that would have been really bad), eels, lobster, and even some tiny sea horses.






I’ve put the best of my pictures from the trip up on my flickr page. Check ‘em out when you get a chance.

Oh, and by the way – Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2008 is good to you.

Addendum

Oops – forgot to mention a few things in my last blog update. I have a couple other stories from Bangkok & Penang.

I was in Bangkok for this year’s Loi Krathong festival. It’s a holiday where the Thai people pay respect to the water, for all that it gives them. They do this by floating small rafts on to the water. In Thai, Krathong is the word for the rafts, and Loi means ‘to float’.

I took the Sky Train down to the river, expecting it to be a little crowded. I was shocked to see how many people were there – I could barely move through the crowds! I suppose in a city as big as Bangkok, every holiday will be a very crowded event.
The rafts are made out of banana tree trunks, and decorated with flowers, candles, and incense. They used to be made with Styrofoam, but Thailand was encouraging everyone to be more environmentally friendly this year. Some of them were pretty elaborate. It was fun to watch everyone float their rafts out on the water. There were people in the water, helping guide people’s rafts. Little kids waved goodbye to their rafts as they floated away.

After the river, I took the train over to a mall to meet my friend Aor for dinner. Afterwards, we went to the Queen’s Park – nearby the mall. There’s a large pond in the park, and people were launching Krathongs there too. It was much easier to see at the park, the crowds weren’t nearly as large.





Oh, one other thing I came across in Bangkok – a Cosplay gathering at the MBK mall. There were all of these people (most, but not all, were teenagers), dressed up like their favorite video game characters. I think it originates in Japan, but it’s pretty popular in other Asian countries. Everyone was standing around posing for anyone who wanted to take a picture. Words probably don’t do it justice…



A cardboard mustache, a red nose, and a pink cell phone… what more do you need?

I have even more pics on my flickr page.

Another aside… when I was flying from Penang to Bangkok a week earlier, I had one of the strangest experiences on a flight. During take-off, a woman decided it would be a good time to get out of her seat. Now, this isn’t a few minutes after take-off, this is while we’re still getting up to speed on the runway – before we took off! What the?!?!?! I knew not to do that the first time I was on plane. You’d think her first clue was that she had to lean waaaay forward to keep her balance. Anyways, she eventually sat down. I thought that she maybe had to go to the bathroom, but she didn’t seem to go as soon as the seatbelt light went out. Hmmmm.

Anyways… jumping around in time a little bit more - I flew back to Singapore on Dec 1. On Dec 2, I woke up super early & went to run the Standard Chartered Half Marathon. They had over 40,000 participants, between the full & half marathons, and the 10k. It was unbelievable how many people there were! The half-marathon started at 6:15am (the full started at 5:30), which was necessary to beat the heat. Actually, it was really nice running weather that early in the morning, and it was great to be running during the sunrise.

I didn’t have (or maybe it’s “I didn’t make”) much time to train, but I was really happy with my time. I finished in 2 hours, 15 minutes, which is pretty much exactly half of what my last full-marathon was (which I trained heavily for). I guess that means I’ve improved my running, right? :-)

Well, I’m about to head up to the Similan Islands in Thailand (just off of Phuket) for a few days of scuba diving. It’s supposed to be a pretty good dive site – I hope I see some manta rays (they’re supposed to hang out around there). Then, it’s just a few more weeks until I get back to MN for a visit. I’m looking forward to the snow & the cold.

Lastly, Merry Christmas to all of you that celebrate it!
CB