Friday, November 9, 2012

Koh Tao Diving with Sharks

Sorry for the delay in blogging for a while.  I've spent the last couple weeks on tropical islands, boats, and rain-forests with limited internet access. 

Even though Koh Tao is only 8 square miles in size, more people get certified to scuba dive on this tiny island than anywhere else in the world.  It is a pretty fantastic place, although I wouldn't exactly classify it as a Thai experience.  There are more westerners on this island than thai people, and everything there is very well set up for travelers.

Sai Nuan Beach, Ko Tao 

The plan was to stay for a few days while Adam got his Open Water scuba certification, but we ended up staying there for over a week.  We both got our Advanced Adventure Diver certification (we can now dive down to 30 meters, dive at night, and have been trained to dive in various complex situations -- like with low visibility, around a wreck, and in strong currents).


Wreck Dive

The diving on Koh Tao and the nearby reefs was pretty phenomenal.  The reefs were very healthy, the visibility was 20-25 meters, and there was an amazing amount of biodiversity there.  I saw many large schools of fish, sharks, rays, eels, shrimp, anemone, urchin, soft and hard corals, even a sleeping turtle.  Unfortunately Adam's underwater camera was not rated to go to the depths we were diving at, so I don't have many pictures from these dives, but below are some pictures taken by others who we dove with, or pictures I found on the internet which show the sites we dove at and the animals we saw.

Moray Eel

Scorpion Fish

Angel Fish

Christmas Trees

Anemone Fish
(image credit: Carin Nelson)

Lion Fish

School of Fusilier
(image credit: Kytus Ho)

Nudibranch (small sea slug)

Coral and Stuff
(image credit: Kytus Ho)

Fish 
(image credit: Kytus Ho)

My favorite dive site was Sail Rock (a reef surrounding a rock in the middle of the ocean, about 1 hour's boat ride away from Koh Phangan).  There I saw a whale shark, several bull sharks, huge moray eels, and a large school of bat fish.  There were also some huge groupers and barracuda.  


Video by Peter Teunisse of our Sail Rock Dive

Diving with sharks is not as scary as it might seem.  Whale sharks, while the largest in the shark family (and the largest fish in the world), feast on plankton and have baleen/filter instead of teeth.  They are mostly just intimidating because of their size, but pose no real danger to the divers.  Whale sharks actually enjoy swimming in the bubbles that divers produce, and so if you come across one while diving they will often circle above the divers to feel the bubbles on their skin.   We encountered our whale shark while descending on our first dive at Sail Rock.  The whale shark actually circled around me, and was an arms length away.  It was amazing.

Whale Shark!
That's me in the bottom left
(image credit: Janina Faller)


More pictures from our dive with a whale shark.

Bull sharks on the other hand have been known to bite humans, and are considered the third most dangerous shark in the world (after great white and tiger).  From what I've read, sharks actually don't like the taste of humans, and never intentionally try and eat a human.  What happens in shark attacks is that either they mistake a human for a seal or some other fish (this happens a lot with surfers because of the shape of their board -- be careful Frankie!) and then take a "test bite" from the human to see if it is something they like to eat.  However, as soon as they realize that what they have tasted isn't a tasty fish or seal, they don't eat it anymore.  Unfortunately the "test bites" are often large enough to cause the person to die or lose a limb.

Bull Shark with a Whale Shark!
(image credit: Janina Faller)

Another thing that happens is that in certain places people/divers/tour groups will feed sharks or chum the waters in order to give people a more exciting experience / interaction with the sharks.  This causes problems, because the sharks learn to equate humans with getting food.  So accidental bites occur during feeding (like a hand gets bit off), or when a hungry shark mistakes part of a human for the food/chum.  Shark "attacks" are a much bigger problem in countries or locations where there is a practice of humans feeding them.


Bull Shark

At Sail Rock is the home of a family of bull sharks for several years now.  Divers are almost guaranteed to see a bull shark during a dive there.  However because the sharks are not fed by the divers, and have enough marine food to satiate them, there has never been any problem with the bull sharks attacking the humans there.  Fortunately I didn't even realize that bull sharks were dangerous until after the dive, and so I was completely not scared at the time.  In retrospect, it's pretty crazy that I got the opportunity to swim with them in a natural, non-manufactured setting.  The bull sharks we saw were 2-3 meters in size.  We even got to see a bull shark interacting with a whale shark -- they seemed to be in a intimidation dance with each other that ended in the bull shark swimming away suddenly and incredibly fast.  Seeing the bull shark move that way made it very clear that if it was interested in eating me, it would have been able to do it without a problem.


Bull shark

Another creature that I encountered for the first time in Koh Tao is the bat fish.  These fish are pretty huge ~30cm.  At Sail Rock we saw a school of about 50 of them.  Bat fish are super curious, and tend to like to follow around divers.  They don't bite or attack.  It is almost like they are playing a game of chicken to see how close they can come to a diver before they scare themselves away.  It is pretty adorable.


Bat Fish

Bat Fish School

The moray eels here are also incredible.  I've seen small eels on other dives, and in aquariums, but these eels have heads which are about the same size as human heads.  It was hard to tell their length because often they were inside crevices and hole, but we've been told that they get up to 3 meters here.  Moray eels are pretty fearless, when you swim by their home they keep eye contact with you and bare their teeth.  A moray eel with not bite you unless they feel cornered so they aren't dangerous, but damn they look scary when their mouths could easily fit your entire hand.  


Moray Eel



I did read a story about a moray eel at a popular dive site, that was often fed sausages by divers.  This eel would "come out and play" and swim around divers.  However, one day a diver fed the eel a sausage, and then the eel mistook the divers fingers for another sausage and bit off the diver's entire thumb.  Another example of human-fish interaction that causes injury to the human but because human's feeding the animal causes them to behave in an unnatural way.

I would totally recommend doing a diving holiday in Koh Tao, especially end of October / November.  Apparently there have been loads of Whale Sharks during this time for the last two years.  Also getting certified / diving there is about 1/3 of the cost as diving in America.  

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Sapa

From Halong Bay we headed up to Sapa.  Sapa is a small town high in the mountians of northern Vietnam.  It is one of the main market towns in the area, where several ethnic minority groups such as Hmong, Dao (Yao), Giay, Pho Lu, and Tay live.  Tourists flock here because of the beautiful tiered rice paddies, the elaborately dressed minority groups, and to escape the humidity and heat of the rest of the country.

While in Sapa we did a couple of treks to some of the minority villages, enjoyed the cool air, and took some rides along the mountain roads.  It was an absolutely beautiful region, and probably our favorite place in Vietnam.  Pictures are worth 1000 words, and because this place is so beautiful, it's better to just show pictures of it than to try and describe it.

I was able to replace my stolen rain jacket -- I got it swiped from me in Hanoi along with my iPhone :( -- with a "North Face" jacket that they sell in almost every store here.  It's not real, but it was only $20 and it's waterproof, so I can't complain too much.


View near Cat Cat Village

Jumpin' Jess

Trekking

Rainbow Waterfall

Mountains

Girls around Town

Lao Chai Village

Village kids with puppies

H'mong Embrodery

Chicken and Chick


Market

Rice Paddies


Trekking Guides

Baby on a Moterbike

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Halong Bay

From Phong Nha we went to Halong Bay with a brief stop in the city of Hanoi.  Hanoi was fun, we met some other backpackers, including Emily an American woman who had recently graduated from San Francisco University and had been traveling / working in South East Asia for the last 6 months.  Her hostel had a free happy hour, so we crashed that and met a bunch of other travelers.  We all then went out to dinner together and hit up a Sheesha bar (at Ed's encouragement/insistence).  It was the first time I'd had tobacco in over 8 years, and I have to say that I officially don't see any appeal to it anymore.  The only effect I felt was feeling like shit the next day, and my ears ringing from the overly loud house music at the bar.  I guess I'm getting too old for this shit, sorry Ed.

Halong Bay 

The next day we headed out on a three day / two night tour of Halong Bay.  We took a boat to several nature sights around the small limestone islands there.  On the first night we stayed on the boat, and on the second night we stayed on beach bungalows.

Our Boat

Beach Bungalows

Halong Bay is made up of thousands of tiny limestone mountains.  The features are dramatic.  It looks like the floating mountains of Pandora.  Unfortunately we were there during the time of year when it is very foggy, and so we couldn't get the full dramatic effect of the bay.  But it was beautiful none the less.  We had fun kayaking around the little islands, stopping on little beaches we had all to ourselves, wandering through floating fishing villages, swimming in the warm waters.  There was also a lot of card games with Ed and Chuk and general merriment both on the boat and on the beach.

Little island with beach and rock climbing

Kayaking at sunset

Cards with the boys

Friday, October 19, 2012

Phong Nha Farmstay

After Hoi An we took a train up to Dong Hoi to see the caves in Phong Nha.  Here is the longest (32 km) dry cave in the world and also the largest cave in the world (although it isn't accessible to tourists yet).  Phong Nha is a little out of the way and isn't on the main backpackers route, but we were told by some Kiwi's we met in Mui Ne that it was one of the best things they did in Vietnam, so we decided to head over there.  

We stayed at the Phong Nha Farmstay, which is a unique hostel/guesthouse in the middle of the farming villages outside of Phong Nha.  The farmstay is run by an Austrailian - Vietnamese couple, and has a very laid back and friendly vibe to it.  Many people come as guests and end up staying as tour guides for months.  The farmstay was set up with a central restaurant/bar/hangout area so you easily got to know the 20 or so other guests.  Here we made several friends and got to hear about a lot of other people's travels and stories.  


Phong Nha Farmstay


We went on two tours while in Phong Nha.  The first involved biking through the farms and villages to a small cave  where we took a boat to entrance and then were free to roam inside for as long as we want.  Biking through the village was beautiful, and the cave was also pretty awesome.  The best part was doing a little bouldering in the cave and climbing up to a high view point.  



Bike ride though village


Small Cave

The next day we went to more caves, one of which is the longest in the world, and was the most breathtaking cave I've ever seen.  The second cave involved kayaking and then swimming in the pitch black to get inside.  It was pretty crazy.  There are things that you can do here that would never fly in the sue-happy culture of America.


Phong Nha National Park


Longest Cave

The best part about Phong Nha was the people we met.  Specifically two guys from Scotland named Chuk and Ed.  They are totally hilarious and we quickly bonded over Ed teasing me for being a "flashpacker" and then during the rest of our time together apologizing to me if the accommodations / restaurants / bathrooms weren't fancy enough, or blaming me if we ended up somewhere too expensive or posh... saying "well, we are traveling with Jess, so we had to go here."  We ended up traveling with them to Hanoi and then did a boat trip to Halong Bay together.  


Ed (in hat) and Chuk (in red)

Having other people to travel with for an extended period of time was really great.  I love Adam, but we quickly run out of things to talk about when we spend all day together everyday for weeks on end.  Chuk and Ed really mixed up the trip.  We ended up playing a lot of the card game president, swapping travel stories, teasing each other, and overall having a great time.  I'm trying to convince them to change their travel plans and meet up with us in Thailand, so maybe we'll see them again before our trip is over.  If nothing else, I hope that they come and visit us in San Francisco at some point in the future.