{"id":1146,"date":"2014-12-22T04:58:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T10:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2014-12-22T04:58:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T10:58:41","slug":"lovely-lanta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/?p=1146","title":{"rendered":"Lovely Lanta and Scuba Diving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We spent about five days in <a title=\"Amazing Beaches around Krabi\" href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/krabi\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ao Nang\/Krabi<\/a>, and while the trips to islands were beautiful, the town and beach there was trashy, overdeveloped, overcrowded and you could tell the locals were just beat down by rude tourists and in no mood to be nice at all. So when Alvin and Jennifer headed back to the states, we headed off to find a different island base. We went with Koh Lanta\u00a0\u2013 described on a travel review as \u201cThe Island for People Who Can\u2019t Decide What They Want\u201d, as in it has waterfalls and caves to hike to, great scuba diving, a little town at one end, a bunch of uncrowded beach, some rocky areas and the occasional all-night beach party. With our travel ADD, it was great for us!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/P1100233.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1118\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/P1100233-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We arrived in a bit of a funk, tired of the trashy overdeveloped, not-quaint-whatsoever cities\u2026 and were immediately relieved by the cute little port. We hopped in the back of a pick-up truck that our beach bungalows had sent to pick us up and rode to the other side of the island, where we quickly found the island paradise we had been hunting for!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_6501.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1112\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_6501-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Paradise - Koh Lanta Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/P1100299.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1123\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/P1100299-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Complete with idyllic sunsets and hippies practicing their fire dancing and hula hoop skills. <em>(by the way, these photos don\u2019t have filters or anything, its just that gorgeous).<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lovely Lanta\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/115158712?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The next day we went in search of where we would take our scuba course. We had thought about doing a one day &#8220;fun&#8221; dive where you don\u2019t have to be certified, just to see how we liked scuba diving since neither of us had done it. But we quickly agreed \u201cof course we\u2019ll love it\u201d and with our standard go-big-or-go-home attitude, decided to go for the 3-4 day course that gets you a PADI Open Water Diver Certification.<\/p>\n<p>After talking with over a dozen different shops, landed on <a href=\"http:\/\/phoenixdivers-kohlanta.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Phoenix Divers<\/a> with kind owners and amazing staff from all over the world. We didn\u2019t realize that Koh Lanta (Koh = Island in Thai) has a huge Swedish ex-pat population. Especially in winter when Sweden is getting only 3-4 hours of sunlight a day.<\/p>\n<p>So we were off to studying, we had about 100 pages in a textbook and 3 quizzes to complete before our class started the next morning. Lots of studying, but not a bad place to do it!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/P1100236.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1119\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/P1100236-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Studying on the beach - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first day of the course we reviewed the theory at the scuba shop with our instructor in the morning, then headed off to a pool to put on the equipment and practice all we had heard about. Basically you\u2019ve read a bit about how it works and what\u2019s supposed to happen, and then you\u2019ve read A LOT about what could go wrong, what you\u2019re supposed to do to prevent it, and what you do when it goes wrong anyway\u2026. And that last part is what you\u2019re practicing in the pool.<\/p>\n<p>This did not go so well for me. Turns out I take things very literally when it comes to life-or-death instructions, and I took things a bit too literally\u2026 when the book said \u201c#1 Rule: You must breathe constantly. Never hold your breath\u201d, I did that, which made me feel super uncomfortable breathing from the regulator, and made me want to breathe through my nose which doesn\u2019t work well in scuba because it makes water come into your mask, which means when you breathe through your nose the next time water comes into your nose. Combine that with all of the drills where you lose your mask and have to hang out underwater without it, lose your regulator (thing in your mouth where your air comes from), swim without your mask, swim without your regulator, rescue your buddy who\u2019s lost his air supply, do that while you\u2019ve lost your mask, do backflips while singing the national anthem while underwater without your airsupply, on and on and on. Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n<p>I did not enjoy it. It was like acting out \u201c1,001 Ways To Die\u201d Scuba episode. I was not sure I\u2019d make it the next day when we went out into the ocean. And to add insult to to injury, we had to go home and study three more chapters for about 5 hours!<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to the next morning and we\u2019re out at the dive location, Koh Bida, I\u2019ve talked myself out of freaking out, but I\u2019m not excited about this adventure. I now know that both Rick and our instructor, Alex, were rather apprehensive that I was going to bail out\u00a0when we started having to do all of the \u201cways to die\u201d drills underwater. But as soon as I jumped in, it all disappeared! For once my ADD paid off, and as soon as I looked underwater and saw all of the fish and coral and amazing creatures, I was like \u201cSQUIRREL!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/dog-saying-squirrel-funny-pic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1109 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/dog-saying-squirrel-funny-pic-e1419242605523.jpg\" alt=\"Squirrel\" width=\"480\" height=\"442\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My distraction by all the cool stuff to see, allowed me to stop overthinking every little thing I was supposed to do, and instead just do it. Even when I managed to breathe in a lungful of sea water during our \u201clost your mask, swim around\u201d drill \u2013 my lack of panic when it happened and completing the exercise despite it, convinced Rick and Alex that I would actually make it as a diver! (what I was actually thinking was \u201cLiz you can\u2019t quit now because if you do, you\u2019ll have to do this whole stupid exercise over again!\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_6492.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1110\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_6492-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Scuba diving with Phoenix Divers - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At Koh Bida we saw a ton of fish! A huge cuttlefish (kinda rare, we were told), stingrays, lion fish, parrot fish, puffer fish, banded sea krait sea snake, lots of more eels. I think my favorites were the dozen different kinds of clown fish playing in the anemones. The funniest thing was when Alex kept signaling us with all of these underwater signs\/charade signals, and we had no clue what he was talking about. I keep trying to figure out that drill it means. We get to the surface at the end of the dive and I&#8217;m thinking &#8220;wow, I must have missed a ton of the drills&#8221;. Well turns out\u00a0each fish has a &#8220;scuba signal&#8221; and he was just telling us what to look at! Some of them are quite humorous&#8230; like the one for grouper&#8230; here&#8217;s a hint it includes groping yourself \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>We weren\u2019t able to bring our camera with us, even though it\u2019s waterproof because it only goes to about 45 feet and we were diving deeper than that. So these pics aren\u2019t ours, just a few from Wikipedia to give you an idea what it looked like.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/f\/f8\/Zanclus_cornutus_in_Kona.jpg\/640px-Zanclus_cornutus_in_Kona.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"764\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/9\/93\/Spirobrancheus_giganteus.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"471\" height=\"600\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/4\/44\/Gymnothorax_prasinus_%28Yellow_moray%29.jpg\/1024px-Gymnothorax_prasinus_%28Yellow_moray%29.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"751\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/1\/18\/Ocellaris_clownfish.JPG\/1024px-Ocellaris_clownfish.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/98\/Kalamar.jpg\/640px-Kalamar.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"853\" \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The next day was the last day of our course, went to Koh Haa. We successfully passed all of our drills and exams \u2013 YEA!! I finally got that you don\u2019t really have to breathe in and out constantly, and got really stinkin\u2019 good at the buoyancy stuff, so I could control all of my vertical movement with my breath. Apparently I\u2019m really good at managing my air supply, too. I would come with almost double the air supply left that Rick had.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_6493.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1111\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_6493-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Phoenix Divers - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Rick loved scuba diving! But not so great at the air management. He was so excited to see everything around him that he was sorta spazzy and flitting all over the place. Our instructor kept motioning to him \u201cslow, slow\u201d, \u201ccalm, calm\u201d. So a little work to do there.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We got do to more fun diving on this day than the previous, including going into an underwater cave sort of. \u00a0Sign language is a big deal underwater when you can&#8217;t talk to each other.<\/p>\n<p>We wanted to go for another day of diving to one of the best sites in Thailand that was very close to where we were staying, Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, known for whale sharks and giant manta rays. But the weather was too rough, so no trips were going. So we\u2019ll have to get our first \u201cofficially certified\u201d dive in somewhere else \u2013 Africa? South America? We\u2019re taking recommendations!<\/p>\n<p>We spent the next few days enjoying our beach front bungalow and exploring the island. A very relaxing way to close out our time in Asia.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/sunset.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1131\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/sunset.gif\" alt=\"Sunset - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We spent about five days in Ao Nang\/Krabi, and while the trips to islands were beautiful, the town and beach there was trashy, overdeveloped, overcrowded and you could tell the locals were just beat down by rude tourists and in no mood to be nice at all. So when Alvin and Jennifer headed back to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[43,100,101,99,102,53],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand","tag-animals","tag-diving","tag-koh-lanta","tag-krabi","tag-scuba","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}