Exploring Koh Lipe

My best buddy Blake came and visited me for two weeks. Sadly, he just boarded a plane to head back to the states. Check out the snaps tab for lots of photos from our island adventure in Koh Lipe.

Koh Lipe is a tiny island located in the Andaman sea. It’s very close to the Malaysian border, and about a 1.5 hour drive and then another 1.5 hour ferry ride to the island (disclaimer this is not a ferry, its a damn speed boat, which did not help my motion sickness). Majority of the islands are protected by the Tarutao National Marine Park. In the evenings, when the tide went out, national park guides would patrol the beaches (to make sure the tourists weren’t walking on the coral). This island has only been modernized in the past five years, before that there were no hotels, restaurants, or really much of anything. On our last night in Koh Lipe, Blake and I figured out the culture divide. We had noticed that the locals on the island were not as friendly as on the mainland. Finally, we understood why our Thai wasn’t helping us make any friends... haha. The entire island is home to many aboriginal people called the Malay, they don't speak Thai. Therefore all the Thai language we kept spinning was pointless. We would have done much better with our English. Because the island has only been modernized in the past five years, most of the native people do not understand concepts such as recycling or even the use of a trash can. That’s because five years ago, they were eating chips out of a banana leaf and then throwing the banana leaf on the ground. I actually saw one person just throw a plastic bag of chips on the ground and children were just leaving water bottles by the ocean for the tide to take away. This of course infuriated me. “How could they not care”? Then I realized they didn’t know any better. I made a point of picking up trash every time I went swimming and I did my best to educate the children, I saw doing this. It’s still a beautiful island and it is known for having some of the best diving, because unlike other Thailand islands the national park service has worked really hard to maintain it.

During our week in Koh Lipe we rented a small bungalow. This bungalow was made out of bamboo poles and I considered it glamping (glamour camping, for you non-millennials out there). The floor was also made of “said” bamboo poles. Blake slept on the top bunk and we laughed and said if he jumped off it, we would possibly go right through the floor. We had a full bathroom equipped with a roofless shower. I could look at stars while showering. This also allowed all island creatures to come into our room. I had a shower while making direct eye contact with a praying mantis. Another evening we noticed our soap was becoming a snack for some creature. By the third night the animal just took our entire bar of soap. We learned from the bungalow staff that this was a rat.

So the time has come for me to talk about scuba diving. Yes, I went, I tried it. It was utterly horrible. I had imagined this transcendental experience of feeling like a mermaid and a explorer while swimming through caves and viewing untouched sea life. But I can only describe my experience as one of the most claustrophobic catastrophes I have yet to encounter. I spent some time trying to find a descent dive instructor before I even went to the island. Blake and I chatted with our accommodations dive master, I wasn’t impressed and I begin looking elsewhere. I took a few yoga classes and my yoga instructor, who is amazing btw, ended up taking us. Its very important to me, to find someone that I felt comfortable with.

The morning I woke up before we went for the dive I was feeling a pound of anxiety, hamster wheeling through my mind. For anyone who knows anxiety it is constant steamrolling thoughts of fear, hopelessness, and evaluating every possible thing that could possibly go wrong. Within those thoughts you are telling yourself that you are probably going to do at least one of those things, so in some sense preparing yourself for it, by the time you actually get into that moment you are frozen with fear because you are so afraid of what might actually happen. It’s ridiculous and mind crippling, and I don’t even realize that I am doing it until after the fact. We sat through about an hour long class where I was shown videos on all the ways that my lungs and ears could explode. Then we did a practice swim with all the scuba gear on. The practice swim was actually fine, and my breathing was good and I could feel how meditative diving could be, just like yoga. Except my ears were hurting. I was having a really hard time equalizing. Blake, couldn't sink to the bottom and needed nine pounds of weight put on him to do so... haha I however, was like a rock in the ocean with very painful ears. Our dive instructor was again great, she took her time and we actually spent about an hour just farting around in 4 ft water with the gear on. Then we went back to the diving shack and had lunch. My lunch was laced with chicken, again not really anyones fault because they had apparently put allergies on my form. I didn’t think being a vegetarian was an allergy so I hadn’t put that on the form. Needless to say I ate some chicken, I could feel my stomach churning as we put back on the scuba gear, to go for our deep water dive. We then boarded a wobbly wooden motor boat and set out for a tiny island in the distance. The boat ride made me sick. Once we stopped we had to exit the boat by falling over backwards into the water. This made me even more dizzy. Once you are in the water you have to control the amount of air that is in your suit to either stay afloat or sink. Blake had some problems getting his buoyant ass to sink. Then my anxiety kicked in that he was going to drown and I couldn't save him. Then we all slowly released the air from our suits and floated to the bottom of the ocean floor. I again tried to equalize my ears, the pain was excruciating. So awful that it actually went from a ringing in my ears to a sharp pain all the way down my jaw. I sat on the ocean floor 24 feet down feeling like my lungs were going to explode and that my ears were possibly bleeding. Disclaimer: several years ago I flew on a few plane when I had pneumonia. My ears actually bled. I think I might have a preexisting inner ear problem that I need to get checked out.

So we are now all on the bottom of the ocean floor 24 ft down. Blake, myself and our diva master Kiera. Kiera is swimming around making random motions with her hands to describe all the fish, we see a massive starfish. I on the other hand am like “SCREW THESE FISH, I AM GONNA DIE, CAN YOUR BUTTHOLE EXPLODE UNDERWATER?!...AHHHHH..” Also, I have a fear of deep dark water and sharks (there are no sharks in Koh Lipe, I asked everyone). But whatever, I don't like deep dark water. Where I don’t know what giant creature is going to jump out at me. We ended up swimming to this underwater mountain where I couldn't see the bottom then my breathing got erratic and I couldn't control where I was going and I was worried that I was going to bump into a sea anemone or maybe a huge sea urchin. I turned around and all I saw was a deep dark abyss of the ocean. I panicked and swam back towards the ocean floor. Forty-five minutes later, yes, thats right I stayed down, we surfaced and I clung to the boat like a barnacle. I then some how managed to climb into the boat, which was rocking back and forth and making me feeling like I could vomit at anytime. Then everyone on the boat started trying to help me, by thinking if I ate pineapple I would be so much better. Needless to say we made it back to shore. Blake loved his experience, we went scuba diving the next day. I was not a fan. However, I don’t want to call a quits forever, I will try it again after I get a check in with the ear doctor.

I’m back in Hat Yai now, preparing for school. Which begins May 16th. I’m finishing up my graduate school class and tutoring a student. I am also volunteering at a art gallery in Hat Yai to help them with English marketing. With Love,

Felicia

Blake and I snorkeling.