We've decided to change plans after all. We have been in Ko Tao for about 4 days now and it looks like there are ample opportunities for me to pick up some teaching work, so I am going to stay here for at least the next 4 weeks. Val is still a little undecided on her plan. She may head north ahead of me and see some of Laos before I come up and join her somewhere in Cambodia. We still have lots of details to work out, but it is going to happen. We both need to make a 'Visa Run' before May 29th. I'll explain that later.

I've done a couple of days worth of diving here and I can tell you the beautiful coral and plentiful fish is not what brings people to Ko Tao to dive because there really doesn't seem to be any. So far, from what I've seen, the reefs are pretty badly damaged and silted over. There are very few large fish in the water, a sure sign of over-fishing, and the visibility has not been very great. In fact today, it felt like I was back home diving in Hood Canal:)

The big draw here is education. Thousands of people come here every year to get certified, and there are tons of shops here to help. The problem is that the sheer volume of divers and shops has led to a significant drop in the quality of the teaching and safety levels. I have found a new shop that is trying to raise the bar back to at least meeting the PADI standards and has turned down several 'cowboy' instructors because of it. If it works out, I'll be doing some free-lance teaching with them. If not, I will print up my CV and start looking at a few other shops. Work will not be hard to find here. The pay won't be great, but I can dive free every day and even get paid a little for it. This will make up for the work I didn't get to do in the Cook Islands.

Now, about those visa runs. It seems the Thais are very strict about not allowing people to stay longer than 30 days at a time. Since there are literally thousands of foreigners living and working in Thailand, a rather lucrative black market type of business has sprung up involving shuttling people back and forth to the various borders and having them cross over and back in order to get their visas renewed. Apparently overstaying is not only going to earn you a stiff fine, but it also likely will ban you from re-entering Thailand for a long time, and causes a lot of trouble trying to enter other SE Asian countries. So, in about a week to ten days, we will take the overnight ferry back to the mainland, catch a bus to the border of Burma (Myanmar), and enter another country only to turn around and come back. This whole thing costs 1400 baht (about $35) plus $5 US that you pay as a 'gift' at the border. Not sure if 'gift' is the Thai word for bribe or not:) In any case, we'll add another stamp to our passport, even though we won't see any of the country. Fun and games!

We'll keep you posted on how things go here with the teaching and what Val's plans for travel are as they develop.

One other thing. Today is the anniversary of Mt. Saint Helens first eruption back in 1980. The big news here is the volcano that is erupting in Indonesia right now. It's pretty far away from us, but natural disasters are taken pretty serious here as you might imagine, so the media is keeping everyone informed on all the details pretty closely. Hopefully we won't need to change our plans again!!!!!

That's it for now,

Eric and Val