Day 1 – was sleep deprived – didn’t sleep all night. flight was relatively short, probably shorter than my flight to india. we got annoyed by getting all of sharan’s bottles – moisturisers, deodorant, etc disposed.

landed. wandered outside the airport and found that we could get a bus to ao nang, where our hotel was

It’s Day 2 of being in Krabi. It’s midnight. It’s Sharan’s birthday. Yesterday was day 1, and it was a bit of a ghost day because we flew in without getting any sleep the night before. That was probably a bad idea. In general, it’s a good idea to sleep. Sleep is good and necessary. So sleep more, bro. Sleep regularly. Sleep early. Get some good quality sleep.

On the first day, we flew in. We took a slightly rickety bus from Krabi airport to Ao Nang, for 150 baht each. We checked into the hotel. (Before that we looked around at the McDonald’s next door  – everything seemed pricier than we’re used to, maybe because McDonald’s is still a bit of a luxury in Thailand? And there was a dog, a moderately large dog, blackish, that looked kinda sad, with dirty nails. The dog was just hanging out behind the outdoor seats. A white man looked at it quizzically. After a while, one of the staff came out and shooed the dog away, rattling the ‘slippery when wet’ sign at it. This made my wife sad. While I was waiting for her to use the bathroom at McDonald’s, I watched as a white girl (woman? young woman? girl) sat at the long wooden table outside our hotel, sipping on her starbucks drink and glancing at her phone.

The checkin counter was outside the hotel – which seemed weird, because it was outdoors – why not have the check-in indoors? And we were brought to another reception counter on the third floor somewhere behind. There we were given orange juice and cold towels, which we were very grateful for because it was quite hot out. Then we were led to our hotel room. It’s a nice room with a nice view. Wife was hoping for an even better view than we got, but personally I thought it was pretty good. One of the better hotel rooms I’ve stayed in. The wifi is so shitty though, which is unfortunate.

We headed out for a late lunch, we were hungry. Ended up at a place called La Casa, where we had green curry, pad thai and a hawaiian pizza. And iced tea. The tea was great. The pad thai was pretty good. The hawaiian pizza was underwhelming. But the staff was nice and we had a good view of the sea. We went out to walk on the beach. We were hoping to see the sunset, but we were out a little too early for that and started to get a little hot and sweaty. We walked along the shops by the beach. We got pedicures, and then went back to our hotel and slept relatively early. We were sleep deprived after all.

We woke up early today, at about 7am or 730am, and went to have the hotel breakfast. It was okay, nothing amazing to write home about. Ate some toasted bread with jam, maple syrup, nutella. Chicken sausages. Made-to-order eggs. Had a nice view of the cliff. It started to get a little hot after a while. Went back to the hotel room and slept some more, until about 2pm. Then we headed out for lunch again. Settled on a hipster coffee place – The Coffee Club. Had mushroom pasta, chicken sandwiches and a couple of coffees. Read a bit from her kindle. Sat by the beach and watched the sunset. Then got foot and leg massages from the same place that we got our pedicures. Bought more pad thai, returned to the hotel room. Got frustrated with the shitty wifi, bought a sim card. We didn’t have anything to open the sim card tray with, wife doesn’t even wear earrings – so we had to head out. Found some paper clips at the reception area, so we used that. Had a beer. Now lying in bed. Tomorrow will be Tuesday. Then there’s Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and we fly back on Saturday. I think we’ve had a decent enough start to the holidays, but we’ll want to do a couple of more things. Get on a boat, for sure. Scuba diving now seems like it might be a little too ambitious – maybe we’ll kayak instead? Head to Rilay? Tonsai? We’ll see. Important thing is to sleep well.

Today was a water day. We woke pretty early – 730? And we went for breakfast again. Then we took a nap? And headed out for lunch as Jeseao. Had green curry, rice, iced tea and some pizza. Then we decided to take a boat out to West Rilay. We hadn’t fully planned what to bring and how to bring it, so we nearly got our phones wet – but ultimately it looks like everything’s okay. Still, if you’re going to head out on a boat, make sure you put all your water-sensitive stuff in ziploc and/or plastic bags! Riley’s a really nice beach with a very long slope and soft, clay-ey sand, very easy to just sit in and roll around. Had a beer there. We contemplated heading to Tonsai from there, but figured we didn’t have a ton of time so we thought we’d head back. We lounged in the hotel pool for a while, making fun of noisy Chinese tourists. And then we got back to our hotel room again, which is where I’m writing this right now. We’ll head out for dinner, and inquire about scuba diving.

Scuba diving day. It turned out to be an overwhelming experience for both of us, for Sharan more than for me. It was humbling.

It was pretty challenging, I’d say roughly akin to a bad-ish first trip. I think we both want to do more but need to get better in the water first

You have to do all the drills etc. Actually a lot of things to worry about. You can’t anyhow ascend and descend, have to be mindful of pressure. Even a meter down you have to equalize pressure in your ears, in the mask.

And breathing through the regulator is actually quite scary, takes some getting used to. When you first dive in the instinct is to breathe heavily, which feels wrong. Tank air is very dry (to avoid humidifying your lungs). I could pass all the regulator tests 1m down but I didn’t feel comfortable. Just feel this urge to get out. The feeling of water pressure + breathing out of a tank definitely takes acclimatising. You wear weights and have an inflatable vest. So you deflate the vest to descend and inflate to ascend. For this try try see see trip, the dive master handles your vest for you. It was nice la to see the fishes all. But stress just trying to maintain everything, my heart rate is actually elevating just thinking about it lmao. And yeah we were super shag just from going down a bit. Went back to the boat and fell asleep almost immediately. Mad respect for all divers. It’s very, very unnatural. Even 1+ meter down, it feels hard to breathe because of the pressure. And this triggers the “fuck I must get out” reflex. I suppose you get used to it with practice.

Definitely doesn’t help that both Sharan and I are bad swimmers. I can see how it would be shiok once you get comfortable. I mean same for like, cooking or driving or whatever right. When you dunno what you’re doing it’s like ohfuck ohfuck. Only this time you’re playing with your breath so it’s lagi scary, even with an instructor etc. The possibility of passing out is not far away. If you get anxious or panic or cramp or what.

But still I’m glad we did it. Definitely a unique experience.

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Today was a scuba diving day. We had to wake up bright and early, which we did – at about 615am. We were picked up from our hotel at 730am, and drove out to the end of the beach in the back of a mini pickup truck type vehicle, with several other would-be divers and snorkelers. There, we met Fon, who was sort of our host for the day. She was tanned, bubbly, chirpy. She had tattoos of flowers on her thigh and birds on her wrist. She really fit almost perfectly into this archetype of the ‘surfer beach gal’, and reminded me of a couple of friends. We got on a longboat which was to take us to the bigger boat that would be the ‘home base’ for our diving operations. (You can’t go straight onto the big boat because you’d need a proper jetty for that, else the boat would run aground. But the only jetty in the area is privately owned, so. Small boat to big boat it was.)

On the boat we met the various diving instructors, who were almost all really fit and physically attractive, men and women both. It was interesting to consider how some of them are really having the time of their lives, doing what they love for a living. I sometimes idly wonder if I could ever be one of them, in some way. I know in my heart that the answer is no, though I’d definitely like to role-play it for some time. I have met similar people in other fields – soldiers, musicians, even software engineers and marketers. People who really love what they do, so much so that it becomes a cornerstone of their identity. They are not just willing but eager to make sacrifices in effectively all other areas of their life, so long as they’re able to work and play in the space that beckons to them so. I suppose for me it might be writing. Should I try to make a living as a writer in some way? Teach it? Sell it? I suppose in a way I am, but not quite in the way that I want. What do I want, then? I have to articulate that for myself. If I haven’t articulated it, I can’t achieve it. There are surely people who are already living lives that I envy as a writer – and I should learn from them, mimic them, embody them. I suppose what I’m jealous of is – with soldiers and scuba divers, there’s this really clear, obvious structure for you to plug yourself into. You almost don’t need to worry about anything (I’m surely oversimplifying because of my own ignorance, but I’ll roll with it) – you just need to get in and follow the structure, follow the signs. There are clearly articulated steps to follow. What is it for a writing career, where the goal is to establish yourself as an individual, in a class of your own? I think that’s part of what gives people “writer’s block’, and that’s part of why creative types seem somehow more prone to depression, existential crises, suicide and so on. (It could also be that those kinds of people are more drawn to creative pursuits in the first place – I think that’s definitely something I want to talk about in my novel.)

Anyway, we both struggled with the first dive – on retrospect we probably should’ve gone snorkelling instead. And we both need to get much better at swimming and being comfortable just navigating a body of water before we think about diving.

Chill day. Got a bunch of writing done. It was raining pretty heavily. We were considering taking a boat out to Tonsai, but ended up just lounging in the hotel most of the time. Went out for dinner. Did a bunch of shopping. Bought some t-shirts._

Airports all look the same

Subway

No touting? Minimal

Buddha

Shrines

Flags

King

No helmet

How do global things get everywhere? Self – similar

Where have i been so far

Animal clinic

Cliffs

Really good road

Dog at McDonald’s

Basic white girl with Starbucks drink and a bunch of bracelets

Big crowd of… Indians?

Different power plug standards

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