Phi Phi scuba diving - Dive 2

Post lunch, we off to our dive spot for the second session. I was hoping that we would actually get underwater this time. This was going to be the last dive for the day and for the trip and we really had to do it.

This kind of stupid pressure is of course the key to panicking all over again. Which I duly proceed to do once I got into the water. I spent ten minutes thrashing around and breathing out through my nose, leading to frequent bouts of coming up for air. Meanwhile, P was battling her own demons and told me that if her ear were to start paining again, I should just go on without her. Yeah, right.  

Finally I calmed down and remembered to breathe through my mouth and life became better again. P also was meticulous about doing her ear equalization exercises. Katie held onto our hands and slowly took us down.

It was fascinating. There were all sorts of fish swimming past us and below us. Thanks to Bobo’s books, I could recognise the banner fish. And what looked like a sun fish and an angel fish. There were also several bright blue star fish clinging to the rocks. The vividness of the colours stunned me.

We descended further and I spotted a clown fish. I had been really hoping to see a clown fish so I could tell Bobo about it. And there it was!

However I was quite subdued when it came to expressing my joy. It was all very well finally being able to breathe underwater but there was no way that I would let excitement get the better of me and lose my regulator or let water enter my mask. The tricks I had been taught to handle these, would be enormous challenges to actually implement underwater and if I could avoid those situations, I would.

Right on the heels of the clown fish, we saw a Blacktip Reef shark (we found out the name later). A shark-spotting is considered a sign of a good trip and nothing could have made the dive better than seeing one. It was a shy creature, around a metre long, hiding away in the shadows. The sharp fin on the back was quite clear, so was the pointy front. Delighted, we swan past it.

For most part, we were seeing some beautiful coral or fish in the water. The sea bed descended gradually and we stayed close to the reef and the sea bed, taking in the sights. However, there were some points in the middle, when there was nothing to be seen but the dull green water with lots of tiny particles of dust (?) moving briskly with the current. It felt like we were in space.

We swam for what seemed like a long time. My throat began to feel a bit parched from all the salt water I had consumed earlier. I was hoping I would not end up puking (‘just puke into the regulator and soon you will have fish feeding close to you’ had been Katie’s helpful advice. Like I was going to enjoy that).

Finally Katie did the ‘ascend’ sign and we burst through the surface of the water.

It was over and we had done it! Katie gave us big grins. I eagerly asked her how far below we had gone and she said it had not been much. It turned out to be around 3 metres or so yet had felt like a mission to a different universe. Still, we had actually swum a long distance (this we could see for ourselves) and stayed underwater for close to an hour. We were divers!

P and I were tired and happy when we got back. A little relieved too to have done the diving after having come this far. Katie had told us stories of clients who had come but had chickened out in the end. But by far the most important thing she repeatedly told us was that the dive was ours to enjoy and we should only do things that were comfortable for us. If that had meant, staying on the surface, so be it. It had helped enormously to know that we did not actually have to do the 12 metres maximum.

The boat eventually reached the shore and we went back to the dive centre to get our certificates of appreciation. Later that night, I wrote my post card, describing the things I had seen.

It felt good.

Phi Phi scuba diving - Dive 1

On the morning of the dive, we had to be in the dive centre by 7 a.m., after breakfast. We duly presented ourselves and waited for the boat to be ready. Luckily, we did not have to carry our equipment this time and Katie was going to set it up for us. We just took our weights and walked to the boat.

Once the boat began to head to the diving spot, we got busy getting ready. The idea was to jump into the water as soon as we got to the dive spot. We wore all the stuff and then waited with our cylinders resting on a bench behind us. When the time came to get off the boat, Katie inflated my jacket with air from my cylinder. The two valves to control how much air was in the jacket would be operated by Katie. It would be key to maintaining my depth in the water. A quick ascent or descent can be dangerous, with nitrogen quickly filling up the body and leading to pain and a trip into the decompression chamber.

I had to stand at the edge of the boat, hold onto my mask and regulator with one hand and my weights with the other and just step off into the sea. I was surprised that I did so with little fuss. Atleast I knew that an inflated jacket would keep me buoyant and so was not too stressed.

Unlike the previous day, the weather was cloudy. This made the water dull but not cold. P and Katie jumped in right behind me. We had to kick our way a short distance to a reef. The area around it was shallow. We would do our three tricks there again and then begin diving around the area.

There is something about putting your face into the water and looking at the sea bed below and imagining that you had to be close to it that can throw you off kilter. I panicked. Immediately, I also forgot my breathing.

For the next half an hour, I struggled to stay below the surface getting my breathing right while P did a snorkeling session, patiently waiting for me to be ready. I finally calmed down enough to remember my breathing. And Hey presto, once you do remember to calmly BOTH breathe in and out through the mouth, it becomes easy-peasy to go underwater.

Katie began to slowly lead us down where our heads were just below the water. She had already taught us a few hand signs she would be using under water since we obviously could not chat under water. She showed us the OK sign to ask if we were and we both signaled back in the affirmative.

We went down deeper and I was not feeling panicky any more. Just a bit scared, but manageable enough. Katie had been swimming between us till this point. Now she hovered above us, holding our jackets and operating our buoyancy devices. I settled into the groove of things.

Suddenly, we began to ascend. Huh! I was doing ok I thought. When we burst through the water, I realised that P had signalled to be taken up. Her ear was paining.

One of the main risks of diving is that as we go down, there is an imbalance is the pressure between and the outer and inner ears. This can cause acute pain and eventually lead to the ear drum being damaged. It is important to do equalization exercises to balance the pressure every time you descend and even then there is a possibility of ear pain. In which case, you went back to the earlier depth and began to descend all over again.

P’s ear was not just paining but was also ringing.

Katie decided to end our session. It had been almost an hour and with the up and down from my ‘getting over my panic’ sessions, combined with P’s ear pain she did not think it was a good idea to go on.

We waved our hands and the boat came close to us and threw us a rope which we clung to while they pulled us in. Most people were already back in the boat. It was a relief to get out of the equipment and dry our hair and sit in the upper deck.

We docked near Maya Beach (made famous by the movie ‘the Beach’) and had our lunch. After a while, the non-stop gentle swaying of the boat made me feel a bit sea sick and I closed my eyes and lay quietly. 

Dive session #2 was still to come and I did not want to  be sick for it.

 

Phi Phi scuba diving - The Prep

When I called up P to check if she would be interested in doing diving, she replied in the exact manner in which I was hoping. She excitedly told ‘Let us do it’.

Two weeks later, we were in Krabi, wandering about its night market and scarcely believing that we were actually there. The feeling persisted as we got into a ferry the next morning to go to Phi Phi island where our diving centre was located.

Phi Phi is a small island and even from the jetty, we could see our hotel. However, the minute we entered its narrow streets, packed with dive shops, souvenir shops and restaurants, we had to navigate by sense, rather than sight to get to the Phi Phi hotel, which was going to be our base. It was close to the streets, to the dive centre and to the jetty. Even if its claims of being a four star place seemed a bit spurious, it was very convenient.

When I had done my initial research on the diving, I had picked Phi Phi since the weather was supposed to be good in February and it was rated one of the best diving destinations in S.E.Asia. It was also easily accessible for P (or rather relatively so) and me. We had already picked a diving centre, the Phi Phi Dive Centre based on the fantastic reviews on the net. Phi Phi is however filled with plenty of options and a lot of people just seemed to be walking into the various shops and booking a spot for a dive. There were enough P.A.D.I certified centres, the certification that provides credibility for a dive shop.

We had signed up for the ‘Discover Scuba Diving’ programme. This normally would involve a one day tour with two diving trips. However, given the butterflies that had taken up residences in our stomachs even as we spoke about the trip, we had also requested a theory cum shallow water practice session. And so, we appeared at 1 p.m. at Phi Phi Dive Centre. We were assigned Katie, a petite Texan girl, who was among the newest of the instructor crop.

Katie sat us down and meticulously took us through how to assemble and disassemble our equipment. This is not a standard part of most trainings but it did us good to understand what each part did and how to put it together and use it. This took us over an hour. Next it was time for our practical session in shallow water. Which basically meant a walk to the nearest empty spot on the beach, wearing our outfits and lugging our equipment along. This was easier said than done since a key piece of the equipment was an oxygen-nitrogen cylinder, which Katie estimated weighed around 20 kgs. First we had to get into our wet suits. Then tie the weight belt around our waists. Next our masks went around our necks. 

Finally we put on a jacket with the cylinder attached to it and carried our flippers in our hands. Backs bent over, we slowly made it to the beach and got into the water.

The trick to scuba diving is to get the breathing right. One uses only the mouth to both breathe in and breathe out. This is against the natural order of things and even though the principle is the same as snorkelling, the thought that you would be 12 metres below the surface when doing this can mess your mind. Our regulator, through which we had to breathe, was going to be our lifeline and we had to make sure that we got it right.

We sat in the shallow water and practiced our breathing. The weight of the cylinder had melted away the minute we entered the water. Yet the waves kept us off balance most of the times. Once we got the hang of breathing, Katie took us through the three key tricks. The first two involved putting the regulator back into the mouth if we lost it. This seemed fairly simple. The last one involved clearing water from the mask in case water entered it. This one was a bit tougher. We learnt (sort of) the three tricks and then we were done for the day.

We retraced our steps, the cylinder feeling even heavier after the practice session. I was beginning to get a bit worried about the actual diving session. This seemed like scary stuff.

I thought I was going to stay up all night worrying. The practice session had however, tired me enough to sleep. Yet, the next day I woke up early and thoughts began to race through my mind. This was obviously a bad idea. I had a kid back home and here I was throwing myself into stupid and dangerous activities. I thought of the post card lying in my hand bag, which I had superstitiously decided to post only after finishing the dive. I hoped I would be able to do it that evening. 

Malacca

Malacca has been on our radar almost from the time we moved to Singapore, three years ago. Yet, it is only now that we got around to making the trip. For one, one can only drive or take the bus to Malacca. There is no airport. The train from Singapore takes a long time and involves a long taxi ride once you get off.

We had to wait for Bobo to grow old enough to be able to handle a four-hour bus journey before making the trip. He behaved magnificently in the bus and it helped that we timed the bus journey to coincide with his nap times.

The bus made two stops, one each at the Singapore and Malaysia border. Otherwise, the only time it stopped was when passengers requested a pit stop. There were no stops for food and having been alerted by a friend about this, we carried a packed lunch along which we ate with great gusto, completely ignoring the ‘no food on the bus’ sign. But then, so did the other passengers and going by the snack packets we found under our seats on the return bus journey, eating on the bus seemed par for course. Perhaps the one thing we could have avoided was taking along Indian food. Who would have guessed that roasted potatoes could smell this strong in a closed air-conditioned bus (Yes, I totally understand the killer glances we got in the brief five minutes that we managed to shovel in all the food)

Malacca was considered a ‘sleepy hollow’ which is enjoying a second go at fame and buzz thanks to the World Heritage Site status bestowed on it. Back in the 1500s, under the local Sultanate, it had had magnificent innings as the port of call in Asia, with traders from China, India, Sumatra et al seeking its well-located straits to conduct trading. This attracted the Portuguese who wasted no time in conquering it. Then the Dutch came along and imposed high taxes on traders, thus making it more their personal port than a bustling trading centre. Eventually the British came along, hammering the last nail in its coffin by promoting Singapore and Penang at the cost of Malacca. Not to mention, the river began to silt up, thus making life more difficult for water traffic. In the end, like all good things, Malacca’s trading history too came to an end. Then back in the noughties someone woke up and decided to make money off the old and varied buildings in the city and managed to bag the UNESCO status. To give the citizens full credit, the old city is very well kept and the sights and sounds are well preserved. There is a lot of history in the town and there is no shortage of places to see.

Having economised enormously on travel (23 sing dollars a head for 707 Express buses), we splurged on the stay and ended up in Malacca’s most glamourous hotel, the Casa Del Rio. The hotel is conveniently situated, close to both Jonker Street and the other historical places. It also has a nice-enough lobby with water fountains and cabanas liberally strewn around it. Nice pool, nice spa and nice rooms completed the picture. But for the amount we had to pay, I would have expected just a little something more.

We began to make our way through the key points on the tourist trail by starting off with Jonker Street on the evening of our arrival. Saturday nights are market nights and by early evening, the locals were already setting up stalls to sell food and cheap trinkets. Jonker Street is also reputed as a great spot for antique-hunting but most of these shops close by 6 p.m. We walked around, taking the sights and sounds, finally settling for dinner at the Eleven Bistro. Food was middling, and as luck would have it, the haze that had been plaguing Singapore reared its ugly head in Malacca as well. We retreated back to our room and after putting Bobo to sleep, watched from our balcony as the town’s citizens continued their Saturday night merriment undeterred by the haze. It looked really lively by the river side, and I would not have minded staying out longer.

The next day we began our day at the Dutch Square and went to the Stadburys which houses an average-ish museum and offers a so-so guided tour. Then it was onto St Paul’s Church, whose ruins look magnificent. Bobo was impressed by the ruins and even more so by a terrible singer who was making his living by singing along to his guitar. We sat and heard him, making the man’s day and even managing to attract a small audience for him.

From there, we headed over for lunch to the Geographer’s Café on Jonker Street. It is a cheerful little place, which manages to get its vibe just right. Though they had run out of their most popular dishes by the time we got there at 1 p.m., what they had on offer was pretty nice too.

The plan for the evening had included a river cruise, followed by a ride in one of the glammed-up trishaws that troll the streets. However, we ended up staying indoors thanks to the haze.

This meant that on the last morning of our stay, we still had many things to do. We began with the river cruise, and watched the world go by. The river is clean and does not smell. The long promenade on both sides are dotted with little cafes and interesting murals. It is actually a pretty nice way to spend time. From this, we hopped onto the trishaw. The trishaws were all mostly done up in the ‘Frozen’-theme and all kids, including Bobo, wanted to go on one. The trishaws also had huge music systems tied to them from which they blared really loud music. With much care, we selected a Frozen-themed trishaw that did not have any music system and Bobo mournfully asked us why we had no music.

I suppose I should be glad the kid loves music, even if it means terrible singers or dink-chak speakers.

Our trishaw ride took us to the maritime museum, which we did not explore due to a paucity of time and a friend making a passing remark about it not being worth it. Next, we went to the Taming Seri tower. An enclosed viewing lift took up 110 meters and then spun around helpfully for us to get a view of the city. It was quite a nice experience, beyond what I had expected. From the revolving tower, we went to a park which had a couple of train carriages and a small plane. I am not quite sure why this is on the tourist list, but I had great fun pretending to be Tom Cruise in the latest Mission Impossible and making the spouse take pictures that would make me look like I was hanging onto the wheels of a plane taking off (the trees in the background rather spoilt the effect). Bobo followed his mother in these silly acts and by the time we got back to our trishaw, we found a thunderous driver pointing out that our time was up. So we could not go by to the Sultanate’s palace. Nevertheless, we also had other things lined up and with a bus to catch that afternoon, decided to part ways with thunderous-Trishaw-man.

Our final stop was at the Baba and Nonya heritage museum. Like any respectable trading centre, Malacca boasts of mixed communities. Here they are known as Peranakans. There are Malay-Chinese combos (the men known as Babas and the women as Nonyas), there are Tamil-Malay combinations and there are Portuguese-Malay combinations, among possibly others. The Baba and Nonya museum is a house that has been preserved and converted into a museum. The free guided tour was excellent and so was the museum. It was worth the visit and we were quite ready to head to a Peranakan lunch at the much-recommended Nancy’s Kitchen. Alas, the haze was back and we decided it would probably be better to head back to the hotel to eat and pack.

The return journey seemed a lot slower and the haze surrounded us, even as we sat in our air-conditioned cocoons. By the time we reached Singapore, traffic was at its peak and it had begun to rain. Instead of staying on in the bus, we took a taxi once we crossed the border and managed to cut down some of the travel time.

It was good to have finally made that trip to Malacca. While it offers a lot by way of diversity and heritage, it is by no means an Egypt or even India where things can be magnificent or really old and sometimes both. Infact, I cannot think of any single thing that struck me as brilliant but I did come back with an overall nice feeling. Living as we do in Singapore, it would have been rather a pity had we missed it.