Secret of the Ages

Author: admin

  • Swimming With A Whale Shark — Dreams *Do* Come True!

    Swimming With A Whale Shark — Dreams *Do* Come True!

    Ever since I got my scuba certification last summer it’s been a dream of mine to swim with (and photograph) a whale shark. I selected the whale shark for the photo on the back of my Advanced Open Water card. It even became a major goal for this trip. Well that goal was accomplished today!!

    I did a dive at the “Sail Rock”, a circular coral reef formation near Koh Tao (even though I started from Koh Samui). We were not in the water for five minutes when a huge whale shark came swimming by within about 20 feet of me. I was stunned at first, in awe and amazement at the sheer size of it. It’s by far the biggest thing I’ve seen while diving. I estimate the length to be 5+ meters (you can get an idea of the scale by the divers in the background). In spite of its bulk, it glided through the water with silent grace and stately elegance. What a beautiful creature!

    I snapped several photos, then jetted straight toward it (abandoning my buddy and dive group in violation of normal diving protocol!) until I was close enough to touch it. It then occurred to me that even a casual flick of its powerful tail could send me reeling, so I backed off a little but continued to follow it, taking several more photos. It obligingly turned towards me at one point so I got a good look at the head and mouth. It wasn’t spooked at all and seemed totally at ease with the divers in the water. It’s hard to describe the feelings I had at this point, but it’s something I’ll never forget.

    Who says dreams don’t come true??

  • Ao Nang, Krabi

    Ao Nang, Krabi

    After Phuket I took a bus to Ao Nang beach in Krabi. This was quite a pleasant place, with more perfect beaches and good pubs and restaurants. Here I went on a longboat ride around some of the islands, and a kayaking trip to the “Garden of Eden”. You kayak up a river and then into a low rock tunnel. It gets completely dark in the tunnel, so you have to kayak blindly for a while. Then, you emerge into a lush river lagoon with no other exit. We also kayaked to a cave containing petroglyphs from 2000 B.C.

    I also went to the Cobra Show, involving several hissing Black Cobras, and the biggest King Cobra I’d ever seen! (bigger than the previous biggest one I’d seen in Penang)

  • Koh Phi Phi

    Koh Phi Phi

    Koh Phi Phi is another beautiful island with gorgeous sandy beaches and clear blue-green waters near Phuket. I took a day cruise out to that and neighboring islands. Visited Phi Phi Don, Phi Phi Lei, Viking Cave, Monkey Beach.

  • Thai Cultural Program – A One Man Show

    Thai Cultural Program – A One Man Show

    I went to a One Man Show tonight. Not that there was only one performer; there were in fact a couple dozen performers. But there was only one person in the audience — me! Let me explain. It was a Thai cultural music and dance program at the Phuket Cultural Center and Orchid Farm. This was some distance away from the part of the island I was staying at, so you had to take a motorbike or taxi. I had come here earlier on a Sunday, only to find that was the only day they *didn’t* have a performance. So I came here again on another day (making sure it was not a Sunday). However when I arrived the place was again deserted and the theater was empty. Finally a woman came by and explained that they canceled that evening’s show because there were no attendees! Bummer. This is the second time I made the trip all the way out here, only to be denied again. She must have seen the disappointed look on my sulking face, because I saw her make a few phone calls and after a few minutes she informed me that the show was on again. They would put on the whole show just for me, a one-man audience! One by one the performers came on stage and performed a traditional Thai music and dance number. I began to feel a little guilty that they had to perform just for me and hoped they weren’t resentful, but I really appreciated the effort. The dancers are supposed to make eye contact with the audience members, but since there was only one person they all had to look at me! After each item, I applauded as loud as I could to make up for the lack of audience. In the end I have to say I really enjoyed my first one-man show!

    Oh, and the orchids were pretty good too.

  • Fantasea

    Fantasea

    This is not your typical dinner show, but a high production values extravaganza comparable to one of the big Las Vegas shows, featuring live animals (elephants, goats, even chickens!), aerial acrobats suspended from the ceiling, and stage magicians. There is a theme park built around it with the usual carnival games, rides, and vendor booths. They also had a huge and magnificent white tiger. I was so captivated by the beauty and raw power of this animal that I just stayed and watched it for more than half an hour. For some reason my camera flash always reflected in his right eye as orange light, and in his left eye as green light!

  • Butterfly Garden

    Butterfly Garden

    Many places in Thailand and Malaysia have Butterfly Gardens which house hundreds of beautiful species of butterflies (often including rare ones) and provide an opportunity to see them up close. These are generally worthwhile to visit. I had missed a chance to see one earlier in Malaysia, so I went to one in Phuket. I actually wanted to go to the Cultural Show but it was closed, so I went here instead. I rented a motorbike and rode into town, to the Butterfly Farm.

  • Oh, Phuket (Revisited)

    This is my second time in Phuket. The first time we zipped right through from the airport to the clipper ship in the marina with no time to spare. So I came back here to do it right.

    Phuket is a hotbed of decadence. If Pattaya is Sodom, then Phuket is Gomorrah. A friend described it as “too touristy and overrun by Eurotrash”. This is certainly true, but there are still lots of good things about Phuket. For example, there are beautiful islands you can visit just off the coast of Phuket, such as Koh Phi Phi.

    Phuket of course will always be remembered as one of the major sites hit by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. It sustained heavy damage and widespread flooding, but there aren’t many signs of that now. It’s been rebuilt so that the obvious signs of the tsunami are gone. But the legacy of the tsunami remains with the many “Tsunami Evacuation Route” signs all over town. And of course the memories of the tsunami linger in the minds of the locals here who lived through it. I talked to some of them. One of them described lots of gold jewelry floating in the streets, due to the tsunami hitting the jewelry shops and washing their inventory out.

  • Songkran — The Mother Of All Water Battles

    Songkran (derived from the Sanskrit word “sankranti”) is the Thai New Year (by the Thai Lunar Calendar) Festival. It last 3 or 4 days and is the biggest festival in Thailand. Activities include a Miss Songkran beauty pageant, sand temple building contests, parades and processions from the temples. But by far the biggest activity is the water fights. Everyone throws water on everyone else. If you are outside during this time you will get wet. And I don’t mean a little wet. I mean totally drenched. And this is totally expected. The only way to avoid getting soaked is to stay indoors for 3 days. I cut my trip to Vietnam short (only spent 2 weeks there) because I wanted to return to Thailand in time for Songkran. I did, and had so much fun!

    Lessons learned from Songkran:

    1. On the tuktuk ride from the airport to my hotel I got splashed with water 4 times. This is well below the national average.
    2. Nothing, not a squirt gun, a supersoaker, or any other high tech water weapon can beat the good old fashioned bucket.
    3. It’s the only time when you can pour a bucket of water over someone’s head, and they will smile and thank you
    4. Ammo (water) can be enhanced by placing a huge block of ice in your supply barrel, or with food coloring
    5. Keep essentials (money, cell phone) in a waterproof pouch; then you’re good to go.

  • Notes On The Vietnamese Language

    Vietnamese was the hardest for me to learn even a few words than any of the other SE Asian languages. There were also several other factors that made it even harder. One was the extreme difficulty in pronunciation. Vietnamese has many sounds that are utterly unpronounceable by the Occidental tongue. So learning a word from a phrase book is of no use, since you still don’t know how to pronounce it properly. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that pronunciation changes markedly from city to city. Another difficulty was the fact that it bears no linguistic connection to the Thai or Lao languages, so I could not use my knowledge of those to gain any leverage. It does bear a distant connection to Chinese, but they long ago abandoned the Chinese system of writing, in favor of an incredibly retarded transliteration system devised by incompetent French linguists. In fact it took me more than a week to get over my anger at the French linguists before I could settle down and start learning some Vietnamese words. To date, no competent linguist has looked at the Vietnamese language and devised a better transliteration system (this is something I could do, but I don’t have the time). This last item was by far the biggest barrier to learning Vietnamese.

    Vietnamese has a number of unique features that I have not seen in any other language. One is the use of titles in place of personal pronouns in many cases. For example, to say “I love you” you would not use the pronouns “I” and “you”, but replace them with titles. So you would say “Anh yeu em” (man speaking to woman). This means something like “Mister loves Miss”. If she returns your affection she would say “Em yeu anh” (“Miss loves Mister”).

    Here are some more Vietnamese phrases I learned:

    gam an thank you
    sin jao hello
    dam biet goodbye
    khong go zee you’re welcome
    sin loy sorry
  • Halong Bay – Natural Perfection Ruined

    Halong Bay – Natural Perfection Ruined

    Halong Bay is a serene fantasy-like seascape of stunning limestone karsts and stone structures in bizarre unfamiliar shapes, jutting vertically out of the water, rising high above it and shrouded in dreamy misty fog. Unfortunately, the natural beauty is rapidly becoming spoiled by overtourism. The bay is crowded with hundreds of noisy tour boats and thousands of tourists, destroying the inherent peacefulness of the place. Never once during our cruise were we alone — we were always surrounded by at least a dozen other boats in view. The promotional pictures and postcards always show a single junk boat with the Chinese-style sails in an otherwise empty bay. Such a picture would be impossible to take today, as it would always contain a plethora of boats within the frame. It turns out the Chinese-style junk boat sails are also fake. While beautiful, they are fake — just for show. None of the boat actually uses the sails for propulsion; they have large diesel engines instead. The bay is also becoming extremely polluted, with all the boats dumping all their raw sewage right there in the marina. The signature shot of Halong bay is a pair of stone structures called “The Fighting Cocks”, vaguely resembling two roosters facing each other. However we were not even able to approach it closely as there was a major boat traffic jam all around it (and even one boat collision).

    In spite of this, it was still impressive and enjoyable. There is a massive cave, a little floating village (complete with a local bank branch), and a kayak-able sea tunnel. My cabin onboard was fairly luxurious — better than many of the hotel rooms I had been staying in. All in all, it was a worthwhile trip. It’s just a shame that such a beautiful natural wonder is being spoiled by over-exploitation.