After a nice week in Hong Kong we flew to Singapore with a plan to go dive somewhere. Most likely Indonesia.
But plans change and we decided to stay one night in Singapore before
flying to Phuket. Yeah, I know. Phuket is tourist hell but the
flights were cheap and we wanted to do some diving near the island.
First we went to Phi Phi island. It was
full of drunk and high backpackers (mostly swedish), bars and
restaurants (Pilalla – ihan pilalla ;). Luckily we found a quiet
place to stay. We did 7 dives there, they were average but visibility
wasn't so good. We dove at King Cruiser wreck where visibility was
0.5-3 meters which is really poor for tropical waters (In Finland I
think it would be normal?). On other sites we saw black tip reef
sharks, turtles, sea-snake and mantis shrimps and after first dive we
had private group (only we and Dive master) so it was easier to avoid
other divers. We just did our own thing. Btw. Phi Phi islands are
famous because of the book and movie “The Beach”. The beach movie
was filmed on a beach called “Maya” on the small Phi Phi island.
Maya is full of day tripper tourists during the day and we didn't
care about that. But we saw it from the diving boat during surface
interval. Looks nice.
The next week we spent on Raya island
which is 23 km from Phuket.
It is really nice, small and quiet
island. There is just a couple of hotels and restaurants. During
daytime there is a lot of tourist having a day trip from Phuket. But
afternoon there wasn't too many people. Raya is a little bit more
expensive island so there is no backpackers around. We still had
clean and nice fan room for 1000 baht (25 e) so it's not terribly
expensive. We dove first time with very well known finish company,
Raya Divers. We did 10 dives (one night dive) there. Diving was good
and everything worked well with Raya Divers. We mostly had a private
group or group with another experienced diver so we did long and slow
dives. Just the way we like. Btw. We heard that the underwater scenes
of the movie “Beach” were filmed in Raya island waters.
For the last week we went to Koh Tao
which I guess is the most popular place to dive (or to do a dive
course) in Thailand. There are about 48 dive shops on the island and
diving is really cheap there. We were there 4 years ago first time
and realized that business has grown since that. We chose one of the
biggest company, Big Blue Divers. I have never seen so big dive
school before. About 20 people every day started an open water diver
course. There was training pool under our balcony and there was 2-3
groups all the time practicing their first diving skills. Anyway we
had really good diving around Koh Tao. They put us to small group
with other experienced divers so we had long dives (max 71minutes).
All dive masters we had were excellent. We were really surprised how
good diving still was there. There was a lot of coral (no damage) and
reef fish. Chumpon Pinnacle was the best dive site and we saw a
WHALESHARK there (also Olli saw it this time)! We also saw for
example massive groupers, barracuda tornados and school of cobias
(looks like a shark but isn't). We did one night dive and saw a small
octopus (it's very rare there) and turtle sleeping under a rock.
Diving was really cheap, we did 11
dives and it was 700 baht / dive and we paid 300 (7,5 e) baht for
nice, quiet and clean fan room / night.
We are now in Bangkok and next
destination is Singapore after few days. We'll meet Olli's parents
there and then go to Langkawi Malaysia together.
Merry Christmas and happy new year to
all of you!
Hyvaa joulua ja onnellista uutta
vuotta!
-Maija & Olli
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We have loads of frequent flyer miles
so why not try CX first class product for "free". Pretty awesome seat! |
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| Fine dining at 11km altitude :) |
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| Phi Phi Pier |
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| Phi Phi Island Beach (not Maya, but the one on the bigger island) |
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| Madventures: "Hajotkaa pakkaseen" |
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| Maija's new friend |
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| Hermit crab |
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| Find the Scorpion fish |
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| Coral and fish... duh... |
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| Slightly easier to find the scorpion fish when they are hanging around on the sand. |
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| Nudibranch. There is a book that covers only the different kinds of nudibranch. It is thicker than a bible ... There are just soooo many different colors, sizes and shapes of these fellas. |
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| Normally Olli dives without a wetsuit, but change is refreshing. |
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| Maija never dives without a wetsuit! |
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| Butterfly fish |
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| Lionfish (can't catch these in SEAsia) |
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| Maija is having a bath 32meters deep :) |
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| Cleaning shrimp |
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| Cool Mantis Shrimp. We like these guys. |
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| Praying mantis |
