Stories Vol 7: Koh Tao....Consolation Beach

 

 

One of my favorite albums for travel is "The Rolling Stones Greatest Hits." For some reason it just covers the gambit of travel moods. One can be in a mood of sheer annoyance with people or situations and the mellow happy beat of a song like "Ruby Tuesday" just lifts you out of your funk. To Quote Bill Wyman, bassist for the Stones, "It's just a nice melody, really. And a lovely lyric. Neither of which I wrote, but I always enjoy singing it."

 

The #1 song featured on the soundtrack for my trip to Koh Tao could be no other than "You Can't Always Get What You Want." As mentioned in my previous posts, my primary reason for heading to the island of Koh Tao was to get scuba certified. This is something I have always dreamed of. So many of my friends raved through out high school about scuba diving in the Marine Bio class. I unfortunately didn't have the credits to take it. Since then, I have been waiting diligently for my opportunity to learn.

 

This was my chance! My cousin and so many others had told me it was dirt cheap to do it in the gulf islands of Thailand. When I got to the hostel in Bangkok and there was a deal for 250 for a four day scuba certification classes with accommodations on one of the most beautiful islands in the Gulf of Thailand, I was sold.

Images from Koh Tao:

 

 

When I arrived on Koh Tao, I spent the first day getting acclimated to the beach town or rather beach. I pretty much just went down to the resort and lied on their chase lounges despite the fact that I wasn't staying with them until the following night. Like the 5 year old imagining to be a doctor or cook, I needed elements of the setting to surround me. All I could think about while I lied there on the beach was how amazing it was going to be to do a 10 meter dive amongst the coral reefs in 3 days.

 

After a few hours and a bit of a burn, I got on my computer and began to blog on the beach in this tropical paradise. I answered emails from Sherry, the girl from the first day of Bangkok, who happened to be finishing up her third day of the same scuba class I would be taking. She suggested I join her and her classmates for dinner. We arranged a time and I headed back to my hostel.

 

Sometimes I'm a dumb ass when it comes to the sun. Minnesota working life had robbed me of the last two summers and to add fuel to the fire we had a bitch of a winter… not one… two fucking "Polar Vortexes." By the time I left for Asia, I was a pasty ass and sleep deprived alabaster reflection of my true self. I wanted  my color back. I wanted to look like I was out and about enjoying the outdoors, what I wanted, was to cleanse myself of the stench of three years of long hours and mediocre pay. Getting a tan was my way of doing this. I think many people actually do tropical vacations for this reason. There is something about a tan that tricks your mind when you return back to work. Each morning following the vacation you wake up and the color makes you feel as if you aren't just working because if you were only working you would be white but for that morning you have a tan.

 

Where I'm getting with the above is that I over did it and ended up burnt to a crisp. So there I was hurriedly slathering myself with aloe in my hostel room waiting to meet up Sherry and company for dinner. An hour of this and two additional applications of the aloe later, I headed out for dinner.

 

Sherry's classmates were phenomenal there were two Frenchmen, an ambiguous 19 year old European guy and the 30 year old ginger brit. The group had just finished there dives for the day. It was pretty much all they wanted to talk about. I was excited to hear about all of it. They described the sensation of floating underneath the water as what they would imagine floating in a spaceship would be like.

 

Ahhh… each story made me more and more excited to start the class. After about thirty minutes of recounting the dive, the group switched topics and we began discussing back stories. One of the Frenchmen, explained that he is a "Modern" dance professional and that his friend was with him for only part of an extended travel journey. I can't remember what the story of the ambiguous European was. He was just so quiet that I don't think he actually voiced much at all the entire dinner. He was the token introvert among and a hoard of extrovert. Sherry's story you know. The one I found most interesting was that of Mitch's. He was a red haired Rastafarian esque Brit. Due to his hat I actually thought he had a full set of dreads but it turned out to be a huge head of curly red locks. He told us that he had been in corporate finance for 8 years, slowly saving away as much money as he could to one day break free of his corporate shackles.

He was on the 9th month of his trek and had been to South America, Africa, India and many other locales. We asked what he was planning to do in the near future. After all, he had been traveling for quite some time. He explained that he wants to do something he's passionate about. What he would really love, he explains, is to start a sustainable eco clean human habitat on some island in SE Asia where they need more up to date living. His passion for sustainable living made me think of my friend, Ben, back home. For the first time, I kind of was getting home sick, wishing that the friends who make up my family back home could do this trek with me.

 

All in all, dinner and the company was great. It ended with a walk back to the resort/hostel and a long night's sleep. The next day, while my new friends completed their last dive, I waited around, anxious to start my class at 4pm. I read, blogged and sun bathed. It was amazing how refreshing not doing anything was. I had no one to entertain but myself. I sat there all day on the beach and just reflected on the last 3 years. I'm not sure many of you know this but I've had a packed 3 years back in Minnesota with an emotionally heavy recent one.

 

 

I thought about my Mom telling me she had pulmonary fibrosis a year ago to date. It had freaked me out and I really didn't deal with it well. Rather than address how it made me feel, after all, this was the same illness that took her mother; I ran. I poured my heart and soul into getting into business school, into finding a relationship that would offer a glimmer of hope for a life near home and into finding a future place at a company I truly did not like. I thought about the crushes I had wanted to take a risk on but did not act on. I thought about the friend who almost over dosed on me after going out to dinner. I thought about so many instances where the people I cared about didn't get the best of me in my dealing with things.

 

Being able to escape it all and reflect about it there on the beach was relieving. This in all honesty was why I was doing the trip. I needed to clear my head. So many things had clouded my vision in the last 8 months and what I needed was to move past them. As I read a memoir about the killings in Cambodia, my struggles and the things facing the ones I care about seemed trivial. I wanted to commit to dealing with them.

 

Starting to feel my skin tingle, I realized I had been sitting in the sun too long. I headed into the dive school only to find out that I was five minutes late for the class. I apologized and took a seat at the table. With a big smile on my face, I listened attentively to each and every word they said as they went through the intro. They handed us paper work, asked for our medical histories and then pushed play on a video series we would watch for the next two hours. The time quickly passed and I listened as the videos detailed out scuba diving how-tos and safety instructions. Upon ending, the instructor comes over to me and says that there is a problem and that because of my Asthma, I cannot be cleared to dive.

 

At first I was horribly disappointed with this. I could feel my heart rise, then my mind wandered to the 250 bucks I had just spent. Recognizing the unneeded anxiety, I calmed myself and coolly asked what my options were. I figured that it sucked about the class but I could make the most of it. I was on a beautiful Island and there was plenty to do. They said that they'd have to check with their manager about a refund tomorrow but for tonight I would have to stay in the room. Realizing that it would do no good to freak out, I calmly agreed and flashed the worried instructor a smile. I told her,   "shit happens. I'm confident you guys will figure out a refund and I'll still have a blast relaxing on the island."

 

Sure enough the next morning, the scuba instructor found me and worked out a plan of attack to get my refund. It required some help from friends and family back home but it was a solve. I'm very thankful for having such awesome people at home to help get me the things I needed. I might have sent them a ton of emails and details and tasks to do on my behalf.

 

Returning to the beach with no agenda for the island now, I found myself reflecting again over everything that had happened. It was therapeutic and needed. Well I can't say that I'm passed all of it, I am on the right track. I came to the island wanting to fill every hour with scuba diving and get a certification from the course. However, to quote the stones, "You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes well you might just find, you get what you need." I needed the four days on the island to sit still not move and to just have me time. I had spent so much of my time back home packed hour to hour with activities and work. Now with nothing but time and rest I was starting to see clear again, I was dealing with the thoughts and emotions I had put off addressing. These were the things driving my Wander Lust.