One
of our dogs, Moo, is dying. We have four dogs in our
yard, and Moo is the oldest, a kind of gentle patriarch
of the clan. He is half Labrador and half Thai dog,
which means he has short bristly black fur and a bony
head. But Moo is not dying of old age, however, he
is dying from heart worms, that are slowly cutting
off his blood supply. In the past week, I have seen
him go from a muscular healthy animal to a walking
skeleton.
My
brother in law, Bu, takes care of the dogs and he
doesn't want to take Moo to the veterinarian, because
he believes that the vet will not cure him but only
make him suffer more in his last few days. We already
went through this when Moo's father Mork died of the
same thing a few years ago.
It
was Saturday morning and I could have stayed in Bangkok,
and caught up with some paperwork, but I felt I had
to escape. The gray concrete and diesel fumes of Bangkok
reflected the bleakness of my mood.
I
hadn't been to Ko Samet for many years. I could of
course go to Pattaya, which was closer, but I wanted
a more natural setting. Pattaya was a place that fueled
your passions and I wanted the opposite, a place to
subdue my passions, and gain peace of mind. Ko Phangan
or Ko Tao were options, but they were too far and
too expensive for a 2-day weekend. I surveyed the
diving equipment that I bought last year. Finally,
I would put the equipment to good use...
In
my previous life, before Thailand, I lived in Hawaii,
on the island of Oahu, and was an avid free-diver.
I used to go out mainly at night, and I used to catch
live exotic fish and sell them to the wholesaler,
who would in turn export them throughout the world.
I
did it for a few years and learned to make and modify
my own equipment and nets and I learned the habits
of various fish and how to identify valuable breeds.
Although I made money doing this, I never made enough
to pay my expenses, both in terms of my equipment
and the massive expense of energy that was involved.
Most
of the fish I caught probably wouldn't even last more
than a year in captivity. Marine aquarium fish, unlike
fresh water aquarium fish, are very difficult to raise
and nearly impossible to breed. Some would die in
transport. Others would make it to the retail store
and be sold to an aquarium owner, but many of the
aquarium owners wouldn't be able to sustain the proper
salt water environment that would allow the fish to
live and thrive.
I sometimes wondered what type of karmic debt I had
incurred by stealing so many fish away from their
environment and indirectly leading thousands to their
deaths. I hadn't done a night dive in years, but I
would start again in Ko Samet. This time, however,
I wouldn't catch any fish, I would just visit them
and say hello.
I
had been to Ko Samet before, but got turned off by
the island because of the distance and the long travel
time. When I went a few years ago, I clocked it at
about 5 and 1/2 hours from Bangkok each way. This
was just not worth it for one weekend. However, as
is often the case, there was an easier way that I
didn't know about back then.
What
I was doing wrong was taking the slow ferry from Ban
Phe to the main port of Samet and then taking a songthaew
(taxi) to the beach. The new method I would try this
trip was to take a speedboat from Ban Phe that dropped
me directly off at the beach. I could cut an hour
and a half off the traveling time. The speed boat
costs about 1,000 to 1,5000 baht each way (Maybe you
can work out a better deal than I did). You also avoid
all the ugliness that surrounds the main Ko Samet
port, and we're talking packs of mangy dogs, litter
and dilapidated buildings.
I
went to Ao Pai beach, mainly for convenience. It has
a lot of activities, restaurants and bungalows. There
were other beaches that, if I was with my wife, I
would have preferred. Two beaches down is Ao Nuang,
which is reachable only by foot; it is secluded and
full of natural beauty. I will save that beach for
the next time.
Ko
Samet has beautiful beaches, and the feeling is something
in between a Thai resort town in Cha-Am and a foreign
oriented resort like those in Ko Samui. There are
a lot of families, Thai and foreign, and a lot of
young Thais and foreigners spending the weekend. There
are no big resorts or hotels, only small home-spun
affairs. The island is technically a national park,
so perhaps that is what is keeping development down.
The
reason I prefer diving at night to diving during the
day is that at night, the feeling is more mysterious,
dangerous; it is like entering another world.
The
ideal time for a night dive is the middle of the night.
If you go too soon after it gets dark, you arrive
in a transition period, the day-time fish are already
hibernating and the nocturnal fish haven't woken yet.
You want to go when the night-time fish are out and
active, which is deep into the night.
For
this dive, however, I was just experimenting, so I
planned the dive for 8.00 pm and I had the afternoon
to kill. I got a massage on the beach and took in
the scenery. The topography of Ko Samet is different
from that of the Southern islands, such as Samui.
The forest area is more woodsy and there are few if
any palm trees. This doesn't detract, however, from
the beauty of the white sandy beach. The beach itself
is rocky, with smooth, lava like rocks creating a
smooth shore line, which is different from the protruding
cliffs in the South.
