Koh Tao, Part III: Dive Buddies and a Ladyboy Chop-Shop

There were four others in my dive-class, and we were all from different parts of the world. Yair was from Israel, there was Sasha from Germany, Amy from England, and Laura from Switzerland.

Yair, a tall, gangly Jew was about 28, still at university and still serving the army. He didn't know it at the time, but his country was about to go to war, not that they haven't been at war since their birth as a nation. He was soon to be a busy man once he returned in November. He was certainly the most covivial of the dive squadron, not including myself, of course. Yair's a very intelligent guy, though quite self-concious when it came to his accent, which was funny because there were more Israelis on Koh Tao than there were English speakers, or Thais for that matter. That tiny island was a haven for Hebrews, for some strange reason. I spent most of my time, when not alone, with Yair over those six days on the island. Great conversationalist, if a little boisterous of his sexual escapades in Bangkok, and he was always up for some late-night billiards.

Sasha was in Thailand with his girlfriend, who was already certified and diving with another group. I can't remember her name at the moment, but she would join us on later dives and debauchery. Sasha was my usual dive-partner; we helped each other suit up, and were usually side-by-side underwater. Sasha and his lady were both very nice people, but I didn't spend too much time with them. Sasha was the first to see the whaleshark.

Amy from England. Amy was a blonde Mary Poppins, a sorority girl and a fuck-bucket rolled into one British burrito, and no I'm not being vulgar in my analogy of Amy. The fuck bucket is the drink of choice to all hedonists in Thailand, which is an overwhelming majority of the foreign population. It's Sangsom Thai rum, Caribou which is Thai redbull, and Coke, all tossed into a bucket. Fuck buckets play an integral part in my Koh Tao adventure. And Amy liked to drink them. But anyhow, Amy was a ray of British sunshine, which has got to be pretty rare. She always put a smile on our faces whether we were in the middle of a boring-ass lecture, or at the bottom of the sea.

And then there was Laura Heutschi. The Miss of the Swiss. Laura was an lovely little lady from Switzerland who had regulators busting valves all over the ocean floor. She made checking tank-straps and the pressure gauge an enjoyable experience. And she gets adorably nervous when she takes tests.

I met these four lovely people in the classroom on the second floor of Ban's Dive Shop while we were giving our divemaster all of our vital information, and signing a bunch of papers saying it was not Thailand's fault if one of us fucked up and got the bends out there in the deep, after which we watched a worthless video on how not to scuba-dive, the whole while sizing each other up.

After our two-hour introduction course, I took a nice long walk along the rocky forested shore-line in the balmy evening. I passed a lady-boy who had a little hair-cut hut set up on the beach, and decided to get my first Thai hair-cut, which was a normal Scott haircut but with about an inch and a half of bare scalp over both ears. I walked back to Ban's, embarrassed and ashamed of my new KMFDM look (ashamed because I think I unwittingly agreed to it, and didn't put a stop to it fast enough, but that ladyboy was fucking intimidating), looking like a German industrial-techno fan, choking down the bitter pill of absolutley no chance of getting what I ought to get on my birthday in the land of thighs.