Chris and I have now been in Thailand for two weeks and it is truly the vaca­tion from the vaca­tion that we both needed. I cannot think of one thing to com­plain about. The food is amazing, the weather is perfect flip-flop and bikini weather and we had fun learn­ing to scuba dive!

Everyones tank ready to go.

We are cur­rently on a very small island off the east coast of Thailand called Koh Tao. The island is only 21 square kilo­met­ers. We decided to learn how to scuba dive here because it’s pretty much the cheapest place to do it in the world and there are many dive sites sur­round­ing the island.

We choose Ban’s Diving Resort because it was highly recom­men­ded by our faith­ful Lonely Planet.  It cer­ti­fies more scuba divers every year than any other scuba school in the world! Last year they cer­ti­fied 40,000 people!

We did the first two dives of our lives on July 17. We des­cen­ded 12 meters for 45 minutes for each dive. On our second dive a video­grapher came a long. We’ll put parts of her video on our blog later.

Ban’s Diving Resort pool, where we started our scuba train­ing. We had the morning off so you can see Chris relax­ing while another class is doing their scuba pool training.

In total we did four dives to get our Open Water cer­ti­fic­a­tion which allows us to dive to a maximum of 18 meters and then we did five more dives to get our Advanced Open Water cer­ti­fic­a­tion which allows us to dive to a maximum of 30 meters.

In the Advanced Open Water course we learned how to nav­ig­ate under­wa­ter, how to read a dive com­puter and how to plan our dive with a site map and based on how much nitro­gen our bodies will absorb.

My tank and gear waiting for me to take it under for one more dive.

We did one dive strictly for prac­ti­cing our nav­ig­a­tion skills and I’m proud to say that Chris and I managed to find our way back to our instructor using only our compass.  This is import­ant because at the time we couldn’t see more than 3–5 meters in front of us.  I have come to under­stand that the water is not crystal clear, instead it is mirky and filled with thou­sands of particles.

We also did one deep dive where we went 29 meters below the surface. When you are that deep is it very pos­sible for some people to get some­thing called nitro­gen naurcosis. They can start to act funny, some­times trying to take off their scuba gear. Mostly peoples brains don’t work as well. To test if we had nitro­gen nar­cosis our instructor did a math game.

For example, he would show us four finger with the palm of his hand facing us and we simply had to show the correct amount of fingers so the total was ten. We also had to show him the oppos­ite side of our hand, so in this example I’d have to show him six fingers with the palm of my hands facing me.

Steve (on the right) our awesome instructor briefs us on our next dive. (Photo by Chris Beauchamp)

We all settled on our knees at 29 meters. There was a very strong current coming right through the middle of us and pushing on Chris’s back. He was having a lot of trouble staying on his knees because the current was so strong. I saw Steve flash five fingers, palm facing himself, towards Chris.

Chris, simply trying to hold his pos­i­tion waved his right hand, five fingers with his palm facing out, trying to signal “Hold on, I need to regain control”. Little did Chris know, he showed the right number of fingers in the right dir­ec­tion! He passed the test and he wasn’t even trying (reminds me of uni­ver­sity). I chuckled to myself a little in my reg­u­lator but then quickly focused my atten­tion on Steve for my finger test.

A boat of scuba divers coming back while we look on from the bar with beer in hand.

Chris looking content after the first two dives of his life.

The beau­ti­ful island of Koh Tao. (Photo by Chris Beauchamp)

Laura getting her wet suit on, or off, it’s hard to tell. (Photo by Chris Beauchamp)

Laura and Chris are now Advanced Open Water scuba divers! Woo-hoo! (Photo by co-diver, Richard)

We’re still hanging out in Koh Tao. We plan on leaving the island today or tomor­row with Surat Thani as our next des­tin­a­tion where we’ll catch a bus to Krabi on the west side of the country. The beaches are sup­posed to be abso­lutely stun­ning over there. We’ll soon find out.

Here are a few shots I took around Bangkok. I really enjoyed Bangkok with its huge roads, sky­scrapers, pros­ti­tutes, mil­lions of massage shops (careful which one you go in), lady-boys, cheap clothes ( bikini $6-$9), side­walk shops and res­taur­ants that can estab­lish them­selves anywhere.

This is the inside of the hostel we stayed at in Bangkok, called Suk 11. They con­ver­ted an apart­ment build­ing to look like you’re in a jungle paradise.

Hostel Suk 11 in Bangkok. For $22 CAN we got our own room, shared bath­room and breakfast.

Chris enjoy­ing his dinner on the streets of Bangkok’s China Town.

Temple in Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok traffic.

The majestic road­ways of Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand.

The jungle of Bangkok or Bangkok is the jungle.....? Um?

Bangkok, Thailand.

Kung Po soup. It is very, very spicy, but delicious.

Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand.

I thought these girls were just to cute, so I asked if I could take their photo.

Here are some more shots of Iran. Enjoy.

The mag­ni­fi­cent walls of the Ali Qapu Palace in Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Esfahan.

The ceiling of the outdoor patio of Ali Qapu Palace in Esfahan.

Chris enjoy­ing a break on the Palace patio. Esfahan, Iran.

I love the detail. Here is an example of the excel­lent crafts­man­ship in the Palace. Esfahan, Iran.

This mosque is found in Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Esfahan. Back in the day only women could worship inside.

Yazd, Iran

Chris wanted to take the picture from the perfect angle, but his guy beat him to it.

Laura trying her best to help keep the his­tor­ical fort of Shiraz from falling.

Checkout the man­nequins of Shiraz. This wasn’t even the best of them. Lots have real eye lashes, eye liner and hair styles ranging from the 1950’s greaser to 1990’s raver.

This lady befriended Chris and I on the bus from Yazd to Shiraz. She even gave me some hair clips and wanted a photo taken with me.

Here I am mod­el­ing the hair clip the lady gave me. Unfortunately it was so big it didn’t fit in my bag (wink) so I had to leave it behind.

The court­yard of our hotel in Yazd, Iran. It cost ~$40 CAN/night.

Beautiful Yazd, Iran.

Have you ever seen such a huge meat rotis­serie? This was in a place called 110 Burgers in Shiraz, Iran.

A typical Iranian hotel break­fast con­sists of a hard boiled egg, cream cheese, thin bread, jams and tea.

Here’s proof that we have sent post­cards to LOTS of people! This is only the batch of post­cards we mailed from Iran. To date, we’ve sent post­cards from Turkey, Italy, Morocco, Romania, Iran and Thailand. Hope you guys have enjoyed them! If you haven’t received one it’s prob­ably because I don’t have your mailing address. All you gotta do is send it to me and a post­card will be coming your way.

Hi bro!  I hope you have a very, happy and fun birth­day. I’ll drink a Thai beer in honour of your birth­day, cause the world wouldn’t be the same without you.  I’ll bring you a present back from Asia. Love you and hope to see you soon in GP.

Being in Thailand, all I want to do is put photos up about Thailand but as prom­ised here are some more shots of things we saw and did in Iran. I also promise you that I’ll make a special post about Persepolis. I got some good footage and photos.

For now, enjoy these.

Handsome Chris posing in front of the majestic roof top view of Yazd, Iran.

Yazd, Iran.

Yazd, Iran.

The tra­di­tional “female” door knocker. There is a sep­ar­ate and dif­fer­ent door knocker for men. This is so the person answer­ing the door knows which sex to expect on the other side. If it is a man knock­ing and a woman is answer­ing the door then she must first cover up with her head scarf and chador.

The tra­di­tional “male” door knocker. This set of door knock­ers was on the door an his­tor­ical house in Yazd, Iran.

Some women of Yazd walking down one of the beau­ti­ful mud-brick streets.

An Iranian lis­cence plate.

Yazd, Iran.

Some boys playing soccer in the his­tor­ical section of Yazd, Iran. Only the his­tor­ical section is still made of mub-brick, everything else looks like any modern city.

One of the famous air-cooling shafts in the mud-brick build­ings of Yazd, Iran.

I noticed this hand­print on the wall while Chris and I walked through an his­tor­ical mud-brick house that was cur­rently under renov­a­tion and restoration.

When I saw this mirror in the same house as the white hand­print I couldn’t help but take a funny photo. It looks like I’m stick­ing out my tongue even though I’m not.

The mirror worped and twisted my face in such amuzing ways, I just had to take another. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Yazd, Iran (his­tor­ical house).

Mud-brick build­ings of Yazd, Iran.

Yazd, Iran.

Yazd, Iran.

A cute-ass cat that lived at our hotel in Yazd.

Hey Sis, we’re think­ing of you. This dive’s for you!

Love,

Chris and Laura

We’ve done our four dives, and are cer­ti­fied PADI open water divers. Next stop: the advanced open water course. Woot.

Bridget (top) looking good and having fun with her sis Delaney. These are the smiling faces we get to look forward to in Grande Prairie (as well as the weather con­di­tions, thanks for asking). If you come from a sane place, yes, that is snow...

It was our niece Bridget’s birth­day yes­ter­day. She’s a whop­ping EIGHT! That’s like almost a whole decade. Pretty soon she’ll be driving cars and scuba diving and pretty much any­thing else she decides to want to do. For now, I think she’ll be con­cen­trat­ing on learn­ing how to rollerblade, which we think is pretty AWESOME. Just be careful Bridget.

Anyway, Bridget we love you. Happy birth­day, and we’ll see you soon. Your birth­day present will be coming home with us on September 4^th. Hope you don’t mind waiting!

–Uncle Chris and Auntie Laura

p.s. — We’re in a country called Thailand, Bridget, learn­ing how to SCUBA dive, just like your Mom knows how to do. Tomorrow we take our first dive in the ocean, instead of just in a swim­ming pool. We’re excited! Also, we sent you a post­card. Let us know when it arrives. We were hoping it would get there in time for your big day.

Unfortunately we don’t have better footage than this. Trust us: traffic in Tehran is far more “inter­est­ing” than presen­ted here. It’s just really hard to get clips when it’s 35 degrees and you’re home­sick and hungry.