AJ's Adventures!: The Little Mermaid under martial law!

Hello! So sorry this is late, but I've been quite busy with underwater adventuring and ended up spending my free time on land making sure I had a plan and was going to be safe when I arrived in Bangkok...(as many of you know, Thailand is currently experiencing a military coup / martial law and a 10pm-5am curfew has been mandated over the entire country the day before I was slated to go to Bangkok on my way to Myanamar.) But, all is well and my transport went off without a hitch except that we had to drive through a few military checkpoints on my bus and went I arrived at ko San Road (Bangkok's notoriously crazy street), The streets were completely dead and silent which was a bit eerie. (Thanks Kerry and Francesca for keeping their eyes on the news for me!!) I then headed off to Myanmar where the power wasn't reliable - let alone the wifi - again, sorry for the delay!
Anyway, this post is going to be rather short because after I left northern Thailand, I somehow spent about a week just scuba diving and spending my days on the beautiful water of the Gulf of Thailand. Because I was looking for a really relaxed beach vibe, I choose to go to the island of Ko Tao. Ko Tao is one of the smallest islands in the Gulf of Thailand - the road that runs the circumference of the island is only 22km! It's most famous for having a super chill island-vibe and for its world class scuba diving at a fraction of the price that you would pay anywhere else in the world. The largest school on the island certifies more divers than any other school in the world. After about 20 minutes of research, I decided to stay at the second biggest school, Big Blue, which was centrally located on the main beach and to do one of their trial dives just to keep me busy.
Before I did my trial dive, I was planning on just staying for 2-3 days and then heading out to another island for the rest of the week, but my first day of diving was absolutely amazing. Maybe it was the fact that we were on a boat all day or that we were frolicking around in turquoise water, but I feel in love with it and made an incredibly impulsive decision to cancel the rest of my island plans to stay and complete my open water scuba certification (thanks for the advice, Corey!!). Our certification class was probably one of the most fun things I've done in the trip so far...we dove twice a day for 2 days after some academic and pool practicing and saw things like schools of huge barracudas, sting rays, sea snakes and nemo fish. We then spent the rest of the time jumping off the roof of the boat and eating fresh pineapple. At first, it took me a few minutes to feel comfortable, but I quickly got the hang of it and turned back into a fish. Given how type A I am, I was also surprised at how much diving got me to relax...but I guess spending multiple hours concentrating on slow breathing and feeling weightless would help :)

Our open water group on the boat roof on the last day...

What we did when we weren't underwater...

Can you see why I fell in love with this place?

Heyo - open water certified!!!

Celebrating open water - a bit too hard!

After my open water course ended, I definitely did not want to leave and was so sad at the thought of it, that I changed my plans for getting up to Bangkok before my flight so I could stay an extra 36 hours to complete the advanced scuba certification course. Obviously I didn't need it but I was having so much fun and the itinerary changes were simple enough that it was totally worth it. 80% of the class from open water was also continuing to advanced and I would have he same instructor, Chris, that I had had from day 1, so that was also a huge plus because he made me so comfortable in the water. In the advanced course, we did a bunch of cool stuff: Mastering buoyancy and body position by doing obstacle courses under water, learning about underwater navigation with compasses and dive computers (we were tested by navigating to certain points around a dive sight with just our buddy!), deep(er) dives up to 30 meters so that we felt the difference in temperature and visibility in each thermocline and something called nitrogen narcosis (basically an experience like laughing gas - yes mom, it's totally fine except you need to be more aware of things like air consumption and that you're not putting yourself at risk while being super happy and a bit loopy), and finally, ship wreck diving as we did a wreck dive at one of the US navy ships from World War II. We were also supposed to do night diving but that got cancelled due to weather...but I will be night diving at the Great Barrier Reef in a few weeks so I'm not too upset about that. I also inadvertently learned why it's a bad idea to dive hung over after almost experiencing my first bout of sea sickness if it hadn't been for the nearby meds. I will no longer drink more than one beer within 24 hours of diving :)
So, that was Ko Tau in a nutshell - my guide book said to not be surprised if you show up and change your plans because of the island's captivating energy and that is exactly what happened. Yes, it wasn't a cultural experience, but I had an amazing time and can't wait for more scuba adventures soon! Here are some pictures from the week:

Views of the beach...