שאוני והטילני אל הים

One week into my stay in Thailand, and I have found my purpose in life: scuba diving.

Today I swam underneath a school of about 500 barracudas. I have seen Christmas Tree Worms, Long Fin Banner Fish (or Gil, to those conversant in Finding Nemo), a Blue Spotted Stingray, at least three different kinds of trout, 8-banded butterfly fish, a parrot fish (the colors!), 3 Titan Trigger fish (yikes--they will eat your fins!). All this on my 4 training dives. Tomorrow I am  completing my Advanced Open Water dive course, at which point I'll be able to dive to 30 meters (100 feet, I think?). I'm also contemplating taking an underwater photography course, a Nitrox course, which would allow me to stay down for longer, and potentially one or two other things. Once I've completed whatever training I'd like, I think I'll head to the Andaman Coast (Western side of Thailand), which is supposed to be less crowded, with even more beautiful fish.

More than the fish, the feeling of being underwater is the most relaxed that I've ever been. I forget about the state of the world, my anxiety--nothing exists except for my breath.

Backing up to last Tuesday...

My first impressions of Bangkok: The highways look like LA, but with more tin roofs.

 I stayed in a guesthouse in Rattanakosin, which is a few blocks from uber-touristy Th Khao San, but I was surrounded by locals homes. The doors to people's homes are left open all day. Some people have mini shops there, or you can look in on a family watching TV.

While walking around Rattanakosin on Tuesday night, I noticed scores of Thai adults, mostly women, ranging in age from mid-20s-80s wearing fancy black clothing, with silver jewelry on the left lapel/breast pocket. After the first 10, I assumed that a Philharmonic concert had just let out, but by the next 20 I was confused (also, no one was carrying instrument cases). On Wednesday, I figured it out--these are mourners who are coming to pay their respects to the recently departed King Rama IX. Rama's body will lie in-state for 1 year, with thousands of mourners waiting on line for hours to visit each day. Each mourner gets fed at the expense of the King's family. I learned all this while visiting the Grand Palace, where the King's body lies in-state. Fun fact: Three times a year, the king is responsible for dressing the Buddha in the temple within the palace in the appropriate garb for the season (summer, rainy, or winter). Rama IX was king for 70 years, and was immensely popular--he did a lot to address poverty, and worked on environmental and water-related issues. The next king, who will be coronated next October, is pretty skeezy--he has been married three times, kidnapped his daughter from his second wife, manipulated the lese majeste law to get himself a no-fault divorce, has a number of illegitimate children, etc. 

Following the Grand Palace, I went to Ananta Samakhon Throne Hall, which looked like a Renaissance-era European building plunked down in the middle of Bangkok. Turns out Rama V really like Italian architecture, and he had it built. Anyhoo, I saw some really incredible wooden mural sculpture depicting Buddhist and Thai legends.

Shortly after arriving on Tuesday, I found a local travel agency where I could book a bus/boat combo to Ko Tao. They told me that the bus would pick me up at my guest house between 6-6:30 on Wednesday. This is somewhat confusing, as cars can't pull up directly in front of the guest house, but whatever, we'll go with it. At 6:20 there was nothing doing, so I walked over to the agency to check in. They told me to head back to my guest house, they'd call the bus company. Half an hour later, as I'm in the process of writing an email to the travel agency, a guy walks in to the guest house lobby. "Ko Taa?" he asks. Yes! I grab my pack and head out. That's when I notice that he's on a motorcycle, and is waiting for me to jump on the back. Adventure time!

My first thought: Huh, this is my first time on a motorcycle.

My second thought: Huh, I'm not wearing a helmet.

My third thought: And he just drove into oncoming traffic

That's when I started saying Tehillim.

I lived to tell the tale, I got to Koh Tao, and I went diving. Gus, my dive instructor, is a Scot, and insisted on mocking my countrymen for proving that, despite Brexit, Americans are still stupider than Brits. Thus, I have been unsuccessful in avoiding all mention of Trump. I have been similarly unsuccessful in avoiding Facebook and email, but I have been getting chizuk from all of the pictures and posts that you all have been sharing from the Women's Marches. Shabbat, which was between dives 2 and 3, was quiet--I read, slept a lot, and got rid of all of the nitrogen that has been gathering in my blood.

*Title comes from Yonah 2:12: Pick me up and throw me into the ocean