Sunday was an amazing day in Phuket. I'm pretty glad that I decided to go to Thailand instead of hanging out in KL or SIN for the weekend. My good fortune multiplied when I realized that they did not have any good meetings for me in KL on Monday, and I canceled that day of my trip.
Sunday I got up early and met the minibus outside the hotel at 7:45. After the typical circuitous trip around the area to pick up passengers, we went to the port and boarded our dive boat. Why is my hotel always the first one? Never fails. Maybe it's because I'm always at the best hotel?
There were 11 divers on a pretty good boat - lots of shade and comfortable seats. Shade is very important in the tropics! We had a 1:30 minute ride to Racha Noi, where we did two dives. The first was about 45 minutes, to a max depth of 27 meters. This dive was pretty good, and I was quite happy that I was able to stay down for so long. The two others in my party both used up their air pretty quickly, so I got a 15 minute private dive with the instructor. All in all, however, no really big deal. We saw a barracuda, which might have been a big deal if it wasn't for the dives that Carol and I did in Mexico where we saw schools of them.
There were 3 people on the boat who were actual dive doctors. They work at the local decompression chamber. They were, of course, doing some really technical 3 tank Nitrox dives. I guess they need to learn about their customers!
One of the guys was here during the tsunami. He had just moved to thailand and was working on setting up an emergency evacuation center on Khao Lak island near here. Ironically, the day of the tsunami was to be their first day open. He was headed for breakfast on the beach at the hotel he was staying at, when his phone rang. One of his friends asked him to come by and look at their friend who had fallen off his motor bike. So he went inland instead of down to the beach.
Thirty minutes later, his phone rang. Are you ok? What? The tsunami! Returning to the beach, he said "it was like Hiroshima. there one minute, gone the next". He couldn't find any sign of the restaurant, which was a substantial concrete structure. He spent the next several days doing whatever he could, setting bones, etc. Then he left the island, along with every other person who servived, and never expected to return. Over 600 people died in the Sofitel hotel there.
He said he spent 5 weeks working 16 hour days taking DNA samples of victims. He had to wear a plastic suit in the tropical heat, and cut a segment of rib from each victim. These were used to try to identify the victims. He said that it was part of his survival guilt - he had to help any way he could.
It's amazing how this place hasn't really changed. I didn't look around much the last time, but I did not find too much that looked destroyed. There is an obviously new mall, and some big empty lots down by Patong Beach where there must have been buildings before. It's great to see that it has bounced back.
After the dive, I went for a swim in the ocean at sunset. The water was perfect. Then I went to the bar and ordered a margarita to watch as the sunset. When I was done, I asked for the check and was presented with another margarita. Happy Hour!
After cleaning up from the dive, I took the bus into patong beach. I did some shopping for fake stuff, but quickly got tired of all the hustling - indian tailors (make you good shirt), transvestites (take my picture?), hookers (me love you long time), watch dealers (I got cheap rolex, sir!). There is actually two short streets that are like outdoor malls of bars- dozens of bars, each with several "bartenders" waiting to take your order :-(
I was about to leave to go back to the resort for a late night swim when I stumbled across a bar with a live band - a bunch of thai guys covering classic rock. They were Amazing! The bar was run by an older Aussie couple who had lots of aussie and other european regulars. Very friendly place. After a while, an old thai lady came in selling hand-made flower lais for 50 Baht. She must have been 75 years old, 4 1/2 feet all, and pretty tired looking. She told the aussie owner "one more left". So I gave her 100 baht ($3.20) for it, and put it around her neck. She was very happy, and we danced for a while to "My Sherona". When I left much later, she was still dancing!
