( Overview
/ WHEREVER THE MOOD TAKES US….
Saturday 19th January
Up at 6, taxi to Con Dao airport, then flight at 7.50 to HCMC. Arrived around 9 and then collected bags. J is heading off to Mue Ni on the coast and I’m heading to Phuket. I’ve wanders with me to international Departures where we say our farewells and then I’m into a monster queue which seems to take forever it’s just as well that my flight time got knocked on by an hour. Eventually get to PIA around 3 as there are further delays, I then have another monster queue through passport control and then finally I’m out the other side. Sort out some money, a sim and a taxi and eventually I make it to Khao Lak at around 5.45! Thank god the boat isn’t leaving today as I would have missed it… I’m on the dive boat from tomorrow evening.
Monday 20th
A relaxing day sorting out my bags to repack for diving, checkin and sort gear at the dive centre and sort a room out for Friday 24th as need somewhere to stay as can’t fly until 25th due to diving. Also sort a taxi… a bit of time to relax by the pool at Chu’s boutique hotel (the staff were lovely although probably thought I was weird hanging out there all day!). I head out for something to eat at 5 and then make my way to the dive centre for 6 and we leave sharply before 6.15 by coach. It takes an hour and three quarters to get to the port then back on MV Andaman and we’re off bound for the Surin islands, a typically bad nights kip!
Tuesday 21st to Friday 24th
6.20 wake up, dive, eat, sleep / sunbathe repeat x4 on the first two days, including some nice night dives. Day 3 is 3 dives and Day 4 2 so we clock up 13 in total.
Diving overall was fantastic, lots of dives in the Surin Islands to kick off and then we wound our way to Similan Islands. All the staff and guests are lovely and even though we have a few snorers in our bunk area (we have 6 bunks on each side of the boat plus there are 4 double cabins) it’s manageable with earplugs. There are 19 guests of mixed nationalities; Dutch, German, Swiss, French-Canadian, Italian, Polish, NZ and Chinese plus me, the only Brit flying the flag! Our guide, Champ, is a lovely, gentle Thai man and a super underwater guide finding really small and unusual things, my favourite of the week being, a ghost pipefish which was minuscule and he found it at one of the largest dive sites of the trip, Richelieu Rock. RR has to be one of my all time favourite dive sites in the world (that I’ve dove so far). Everything has been superb, they even throw a bbq and cocktail night for us on Thursday night, it’s all gone so smoothly but then disaster strikes as one of the divers on the boat shows signs of decompression sickness and has to go on oxygen. Basically he has a huge rash type bruising all over his abdomen and sides of his body. Things don’t improve so they decide to take him back to land in order to get him down to the Chamber (in Phuket). Sadly this means that the boat needs to leave the Similan islands immediately and we won’t have time to return. Whilst the bbq gets underway poor Pavel (the Polish diver with dcs) is lying on the bunk next to mine on oxygen. I keep popping in to check he’s ok as do the guides frequently. We get back to port at 1am and he’s taken off the boat and transported away into the night bound for Phuket. Back on the boat the guides have come up with an alternative plan, we have headed back out to a wreck dive site where we’ll do our last two dives of the trip.
The wreck dives were superb, so much life, masses of moray ells, porcupine fish, box fish, lion fish basically all the usual suspects but I have never seen a site with so many baby morays and porcupine fish it must be a breeding or training site for them. The wreck, Boonsung wreck is interesting, basically a ship carrying tin mining equipment which sank in the 70’s. After the last dive on the wreck, we head back into port, packing up and having a final lunch on board. We get back to the dive shop at 4 and say our farewells. Pavel did have DCS and is still in the Chamber, just hope he fully recovers. I’m off to stay in a B&B close by the dive centre along with one or two others. I now have the task of unpacking and repacking my rucksack plus having a very long, hot shower, after 4 days of very quick pits and bits showers I’m in need of a more luxurious one 😘 Pop out for a quick Pad Thai with one of the guys who was in my dive group and then I’m off to bed.
Saturday 25th January
I’m awake at 3.30am which is really annoying but I’m obviously excited about my trip back to Vietnam. I get lots of admin done, a bit of reading and then a yoga session before it’s time to head out for breakfast. Get back to pick up my bags and a taxi is waiting to take me to the airport (1,200 THB). Hopefully today will run smoothly. Flight to HCMC at 2.15 (already delayed to 2.45 as I write this!) and then a connecting flight to Da Lat. More on that later… fingers crossed things run to plan.
Meantime, J is back in Da Lat having a lovely time, he really seems to like it there, more so than his time at Mue Ni (which was sadly also dominated by our Russian friends) so I’m looking forward to getting back to Vietnam to continue our travels there.
Up at 6, taxi to Con Dao airport, then flight at 7.50 to HCMC. Arrived around 9 and then collected bags. J is heading off to Mue Ni on the coast and I’m heading to Phuket. I’ve wanders with me to international Departures where we say our farewells and then I’m into a monster queue which seems to take forever it’s just as well that my flight time got knocked on by an hour. Eventually get to PIA around 3 as there are further delays, I then have another monster queue through passport control and then finally I’m out the other side. Sort out some money, a sim and a taxi and eventually I make it to Khao Lak at around 5.45! Thank god the boat isn’t leaving today as I would have missed it… I’m on the dive boat from tomorrow evening.
Monday 20th
A relaxing day sorting out my bags to repack for diving, checkin and sort gear at the dive centre and sort a room out for Friday 24th as need somewhere to stay as can’t fly until 25th due to diving. Also sort a taxi… a bit of time to relax by the pool at Chu’s boutique hotel (the staff were lovely although probably thought I was weird hanging out there all day!). I head out for something to eat at 5 and then make my way to the dive centre for 6 and we leave sharply before 6.15 by coach. It takes an hour and three quarters to get to the port then back on MV Andaman and we’re off bound for the Surin islands, a typically bad nights kip!
Tuesday 21st to Friday 24th
6.20 wake up, dive, eat, sleep / sunbathe repeat x4 on the first two days, including some nice night dives. Day 3 is 3 dives and Day 4 2 so we clock up 13 in total.
Diving overall was fantastic, lots of dives in the Surin Islands to kick off and then we wound our way to Similan Islands. All the staff and guests are lovely and even though we have a few snorers in our bunk area (we have 6 bunks on each side of the boat plus there are 4 double cabins) it’s manageable with earplugs. There are 19 guests of mixed nationalities; Dutch, German, Swiss, French-Canadian, Italian, Polish, NZ and Chinese plus me, the only Brit flying the flag! Our guide, Champ, is a lovely, gentle Thai man and a super underwater guide finding really small and unusual things, my favourite of the week being, a ghost pipefish which was minuscule and he found it at one of the largest dive sites of the trip, Richelieu Rock. RR has to be one of my all time favourite dive sites in the world (that I’ve dove so far). Everything has been superb, they even throw a bbq and cocktail night for us on Thursday night, it’s all gone so smoothly but then disaster strikes as one of the divers on the boat shows signs of decompression sickness and has to go on oxygen. Basically he has a huge rash type bruising all over his abdomen and sides of his body. Things don’t improve so they decide to take him back to land in order to get him down to the Chamber (in Phuket). Sadly this means that the boat needs to leave the Similan islands immediately and we won’t have time to return. Whilst the bbq gets underway poor Pavel (the Polish diver with dcs) is lying on the bunk next to mine on oxygen. I keep popping in to check he’s ok as do the guides frequently. We get back to port at 1am and he’s taken off the boat and transported away into the night bound for Phuket. Back on the boat the guides have come up with an alternative plan, we have headed back out to a wreck dive site where we’ll do our last two dives of the trip.
The wreck dives were superb, so much life, masses of moray ells, porcupine fish, box fish, lion fish basically all the usual suspects but I have never seen a site with so many baby morays and porcupine fish it must be a breeding or training site for them. The wreck, Boonsung wreck is interesting, basically a ship carrying tin mining equipment which sank in the 70’s. After the last dive on the wreck, we head back into port, packing up and having a final lunch on board. We get back to the dive shop at 4 and say our farewells. Pavel did have DCS and is still in the Chamber, just hope he fully recovers. I’m off to stay in a B&B close by the dive centre along with one or two others. I now have the task of unpacking and repacking my rucksack plus having a very long, hot shower, after 4 days of very quick pits and bits showers I’m in need of a more luxurious one 😘 Pop out for a quick Pad Thai with one of the guys who was in my dive group and then I’m off to bed.
Saturday 25th January
I’m awake at 3.30am which is really annoying but I’m obviously excited about my trip back to Vietnam. I get lots of admin done, a bit of reading and then a yoga session before it’s time to head out for breakfast. Get back to pick up my bags and a taxi is waiting to take me to the airport (1,200 THB). Hopefully today will run smoothly. Flight to HCMC at 2.15 (already delayed to 2.45 as I write this!) and then a connecting flight to Da Lat. More on that later… fingers crossed things run to plan.
Meantime, J is back in Da Lat having a lovely time, he really seems to like it there, more so than his time at Mue Ni (which was sadly also dominated by our Russian friends) so I’m looking forward to getting back to Vietnam to continue our travels there.
Diving the Boonsung Wreck
A bit of time on land
Plenty of back rolling off the rib on this trip…
Elephant Head Rock, Similan Islands
The checkpoint at Phuket on the way to the airport
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