The next morning, Hel, Jeroen, Martina and I bid a fond farewell to Will, Powerbeach and temporarily Koh Phangan, to complete our journey to Koh Tao.
Whilst Martina buried her seasick head into the side of his leg, Jeroen lovingly ignored her and ate his own weight in Ritz crackers, keeping a keen eye on the bartering that Helen and I were doing with the reps from the various diving resorts and schools.
Dagley, in her element, drew a makeshift matrix diagram and, mathematically dumbfounding everyone around her, played each of them off against each other.
My own charm even got us not one but two packs of mini Oreos.
Helen confirmed that although my priorities weren't exactly right, I had made a vast improvement on my haggling skills post India. (I don't really like them anyway. I like the inside bit but I'm not too keen on the biscuits. They're a mixture of bourbons and custard creams but for people who think that they are above bourbons and custard creams, which they're not. Tarts.)
With a shortlist of three, we outlined exactly what we needed. A four day Open Water course, a two day Advanced Open Water and free accommodation throughout.
We were surprised that two of the three men could do this easily, and the third probably could as well but she was a woman and she had wandered off at the vital moment - probably to knit something, look at a kitten or have a period - which was a shame because the two men had been outrageously sexist about her and I would have wanted to have gone with her out of sisterly solidarity.
Somewhere in the midst of overrated biscuits and sexism we had lost Jeroen and Martina, but we were pretty sure they knew where we planned to go, and as far as we knew they weren't diving so they'd probably got a better deal somewhere else.
With a shortlist of three, we outlined exactly what we needed. A four day Open Water course, a two day Advanced Open Water and free accommodation throughout.
We were surprised that two of the three men could do this easily, and the third probably could as well but she was a woman and she had wandered off at the vital moment - probably to knit something, look at a kitten or have a period - which was a shame because the two men had been outrageously sexist about her and I would have wanted to have gone with her out of sisterly solidarity.
Somewhere in the midst of overrated biscuits and sexism we had lost Jeroen and Martina, but we were pretty sure they knew where we planned to go, and as far as we knew they weren't diving so they'd probably got a better deal somewhere else.
So, armed with a deal so good Noel Edmonds would re-enact that bungee jump to get his hands on it, we jumped off the boat and into the car of a man called Pee. Which for some reason he didn't even find funny.
We drove past where we think Becca Lando Calrissian worked for a short period last year, and briefly thought of home. Then we remembered we were on Koh Tao. You can fling 'home' into a paper piss parcel. Whatever that means.
Bailing out of Pee's Jeep like a couple of first-time post-office robbers after a botched getaway, we entered the dive school bit of the resort and were immediately greeted by a generic sneering German (a lot more on these later) diving instructor who wouldn't have looked out of place playing a bit part as an SS soldier in 'Allo 'Allo.
He apathetically handed us over to the capable hands of the Thai lady that obviously did all the work around the hotel, and we were shown to a room that had bah-badabahbah-bah-bah-bah BAH! Air bloody Conditioning! We had struck cold. That bad boy was not being turned off all week.
At this moment our lawyers would like us to point out that we had absolutely, categorically, nothing to do with the frequent blackouts that the resort suffered from. Nor the fire.
On top of the room, the cold air, the toilet with a seat that wasn't only just there but it didn't slide off when you sat on it, I also got a free 'fun dive' that I could take once I'd passed my PADI thing AND - most wonderfully of all - we didn't have to pay straight away. This meant that I could finally take off, and all importantly, wash the complete-bastard-but-actually-life-saving money belt that had essentially grafted itself to my waist over the last eight weeks.
Eu-fucking-reka.
Re-emerging into the midday sun, who should we see but the Flying Dutchhumans checking in. We thought the day could not get any better. But we were wrong. The Green Curry we had that night was pretty nice too.
On top of the room, the cold air, the toilet with a seat that wasn't only just there but it didn't slide off when you sat on it, I also got a free 'fun dive' that I could take once I'd passed my PADI thing AND - most wonderfully of all - we didn't have to pay straight away. This meant that I could finally take off, and all importantly, wash the complete-bastard-but-actually-life-saving money belt that had essentially grafted itself to my waist over the last eight weeks.
Eu-fucking-reka.
Re-emerging into the midday sun, who should we see but the Flying Dutchhumans checking in. We thought the day could not get any better. But we were wrong. The Green Curry we had that night was pretty nice too.
No comments:
Post a Comment