My first shark

The shark is whitish/yellowish and hard to see thanks to
the cheap camera...

In Phuket, I also took a day to scuba dive. We went to three sites. The first was a ship wreck from 6 or 7 years ago. Unfortunately, it was too deep, and the cheap disposable underwater camera I had would not work. It worked ok at Shark Point where, what a surprise, we found a 1.8 m shark. It was just lying there, doing nothing interesting, but cool to see anyway. At this and the next site where we dove along the underwater portiong of a karst wall, there were lots of cool fish and other underwater creatures. The 40 to 50 minute dives felt more like 15 minutes.

Pang Nga bay

My most recent travel was to southern Thailand. I will go back the first chance I get. The beaches and sceenery are beautiful. I stayed in Phuket town which is not much to speak of, but the islad of Phuket has very nice beaches. One day, I took a tour of Pang Nga bay. The mangrove forests and karsts that stick stright up out of the bay create amazing views. Some karsts have caves near their bases, and we took inflatable canoes into some of them.

Further out in the bay is Panyee. This is a village of about 200 families that make a living mostly from fishing. Their houses are at the foot of a karst in the bay, using stilts to stay above the water. This and other villages like it are muslim. This is the part of Thailand where the Buddhists from the north and the Muslim from the south overlap. It was a very interesting place to see. The door of one of the houses had what I suspect is the Koran above the door. There's also a mosk in the back of the village, next to the karst. I wish I could talk with the people, but my efforts at learning Thai have not been successful.

In this bay, there is a place known as James Bond Island. It's a tiny little place where they filmed one of the old James Bond movies (when Roger Moore played 007). I found a spot to do a little rockclimbing and weightlifting on the beach, but I was most definitely not dressed for the ocassion.