Sout East Asia

[vidiotic.]

Thought I would write up my trip from last year or so. Some of my memories might be a bit Sketchy though. Anyway we will start with Thailand and Koh Tao.

Koh Tao is a small island in the Gulf of Thailand. Its a really pretty place and is really easy to get to from either Samui or the mainland. The beache here is amazing and there is loads of little bays for you to investigatge. Food is cheap and there is plenty on offer in the main part Mae Haad as well as down Sari beach. Have to say though that is mainly a backpacker place though and this is refelected in the bulk of the accomadation on offer (Huts and cabanas). There are a few resorts offering up scale accomadation with prices from 2000Baht a night upwards.
Right onto the diving, many many many operators here, in fact you can't move for them. The popular ones being Coral divers and Bans. Never dived with Coral however I knew a few people that worked for them and they seem like a good operation. Now we move onto Bans. The course director is excellent and well regarded in PADI asia pacific circles. In general the level of instrcutors you get here is fairly high. And if you fancy doing your IDC or DM course here then I would highly recommend it as you become a member of a very extenede family. If on the other hand you want to get your OW or AOW then be prepared to be in big classses with mulitiple instructors (Bans is know as a dive factory). If thats not your thing then Sunshine divers over on the other side of the Island is the little sister to Bans and has less student divers.
The Bans boats are big and can hold up to about 55 people. Cattle boats! All dives are DM lead and you will normally find yourself being lead around the dives sites by DMTS. The diving in itslef is OK with some of the prettier sites being Twins and White Rock - just watch out for the trigger fish - and the deep ones being Chumpon (Bull shakrs a plenty ) and Soutwest pinnacle. If your lucky you will get to see a Whale shark at either of these 2 sites (I found that April/May was best time of the year for this). Viz in the high season is incredible but for about 4 months a year the viz gets really poor usuablly around December, Jan, Feb and March.

Bali: WE only dived the liberty here which we did with a operation in Padang Bai, Absolute Scuba. We got a lovely little hut on stilts, free breakfast, free nitrox and 2 dives each for the grand total of $65.00. Thought the wife did flash her instructor card. The lberty isn't that good as a wreck dive goes but the amount of sea life you see is incredible, big barracuda, turtles, ghost pipe fish, stone fish the lot. Well worth the trip in my opinion.

Komodoa. What can I say apart from outstanding! We dived with reef seekers, the same operator that was in the papers earlier this year with the missing divers. Even though they got lost this is still a very professional set up and I was surprised to learn that it was Kat that got lost. Still, I would highly recommend them. The boat is small and takes groups of about 12 divers out with 3 leader, Ernst and Kat and of course our favourite Nordin. Excellent dive briefings and of course Ernst little lecture on Marine biology make for a great boat trip out to the sites. A lot of people claim that Komodo can only be done really well by a liveaboard but we really enjoyed the trips out to some of the further sites. Sties to go for are Cannibal rock of course, a critter fans dream, warnign though, this site gets cold and diving in a rashie and boardies will make you freeze your arse off, Bata balong, fish market and airstrip where you will see Manta Rays stopping off to get cleaned. Word of warning though, the currents can get quite strong round here and even though most of the diving is drifting and can be quite hard work at times. Would only really recommend some of these sites for advanced divers. All days out on the boat include lunch and as much coffee as you can drink! Thoroughly recommend this part of the world!
On land though there is little to do unless you want to take a bus ride out to the voclanoes or a trip round the national park, though you do get a mrning trip out as you will need to get your pass and as part of this you get taken round a small part of Rinca, you will see komodo dragons though and they are MASSIVE !!!! Accomodation is cheap about $8.00 a night and eating out is just as cheap. Not many places to drink round here though but sunset cafe (I think) is quite popular. Expect to be in bed early most nights.
For a good few days of diving make the trip to serraya. Will cost you about $40 and this includes meals, boat ride out and a hut on the very secluded beach. Great for snorkeling and great for back to basic living (Water from 6-8 PM and lecy for about the same time).
Getting to Komodo on a bdget is tricky but you can fly into Flores from Bali for about $65/70.

Sulawesi. AVOID THE CENTER OF IT !!!! From Manado you can get across to Bunken. We dived with 2 fish divers and found them to be OKish. We didn't stay at the resort as we thought it was too expensive so stayed at Lorenzos, which was superb. Cheap, super friendly and the food was great. Anyway on to the fun stuff the dives, we thought we had spoiled ourselves at Komodo but the scens when you drop in at Bunaken is amazing, massive big wall dives, plenty of outcrops and superb VIZ made this a very memorbale trip. Its absolutley teaming with marine life and I saw my biggest ever turtle here, i kind of went over my head and its felt like that scen from star wars, you know the bit at the begining when the ship comes over the top. Anyway we had some amazing dives here all for the grand total of $150. Dives times where for about 75-80 minutes or depending on good you are with your air, at 50Bar you have to go up. We did 2 dives a day. Dive leaders are great and know where the little cool stuff hangs out but its always a superb feeling when you find your first ghost pipe fish! Oh you also get a funky little badge with your national park entrty fee.

Anyway, hope this helps if people are planning on going over this side of the world. Its a great place, with great people and some outstanding diving.

Enjoy !

[coldhands]

(22-09-2008 11:05 AM)vidiotic. Wrote:  this site gets cold and diving in a rashie and boardies will make you freeze your arse off

It's never going to happen...