Aileen Through the Looking Glass

My Snorkel Test!

Well, the moment everyone but me was waiting for. I am now officially a Dive Master! The big moment could not become official until the ordeal of the Snorkel Test was complete however. It started with Lisa making me do the Sweet Sweet dance followed by the Macarena. Lars thought this was girly and rubbish and made me stand on the "stage" and do a Drink/Drugs Briefing in the style of a Dive Briefing off the cuff. Sadly for him and everyone else, I of course, love that kind of shit and was quite happy to be the centre of attention and be funny on stage.

Of course, this was just putting off the inevitable. To give you a clear idea, I had to take three big breaths when the mask and snorkel was on, and by now I cannot breathe through my nose, so when the alcohol arrives through the snorkel, I must drink it all before I can breathe. i am already hyperventilating by this point of course...

All was going not too bad - the video is hilarious and you will see it till you are very bored. But towards the end, Hendrik shouted that Lars was behind me about to pour something else into the snorkel and I completely panicked and let down Scotland and women everywhere by spitting out the last bit...

However, I don't really care, and finished the rest of the whisky and orange quite peacefully from a bucket with a straw. A nice night was had by all.

Some Photos

I can finally get to post some photos here, so here are a few choice examples of how I spend my time, and with whom:

Katie and Alex'x wedding, with us giving the traditional Diver's OK signal. Was a beautiful wedding on the beach with fireworks, Champagne - that Alex opened with a sword - very cool, and Wish Balloons (amazing large balloons that float for hours really high in the sky after you make a wish on them, they look like stars.

Lee and Dee (with the guitar) at Dear's birthday party on the beach. Dear is one of the Thai staff, a really lovely guy who speaks perfect English, but quite shy. Lee is mentioned in "The Cast" and Dee is one of the Instructors from Malaysia who is having a relationhip with his DiveMaster Trainee - so she does less work than me - ooh bitchy! But I had to get it off my chest - you understand...

Me and Loona who was here for a few months, from Denmark. Ooh look how thin, brown and blond I am!!

Katie's Snorkel Test!!! They make all us DiveMaster Trainees do this when we finish - is a Global Tradition apparently. The bucket has whiskey and orange juice in it and is poured into the Snorkel - obviously you can't breath through your nose and therefore have to neck it in one. Thank God we have Lisa as our Instructor or it would have all sorts of shit in it. Mine is in about 10 days and I am TERRIFIED!

Lisa and Lars who own the shop admittedly not looking their best on Snorkel Test night. Their wedding is on the 19th and is set to be a three day party which will go down in history. I wouldn't miss it for the world, and have a lovely new top made from the tailors - so cheap!!

Soona in a typical pose, one of Lars' friends from Denmark, and absolutely hilarious but quite mental. He has been here a few months now, but sadly will miss the wedding, but his leaving night should be worth seeing.

Me wearing the expression I usually wear when talking to Soona. Thankfully I have no recollection of what he has just said. Sadly i can imagine.

Still alive and kicking (or finning)

Well, its been a while, but I have finally found the time and the energy to write on the Blog again - sorry for the interuption to usual service but as you will see, my days are quite busy being a DiveMaster Trainee (or slave). Here is a quick snap of a typical day:

6:30am - get up, have refreshing cold shower (all I have), try and find clean clothes and walk to work

7:00am - start loading air tanks (very heavy buggers) on to the trolley and help haul them to the beach and load them on to the boat, plus all the packed Divers bags.

7:30am - gather up the customers and take them to the boat and head off to Koh Ha - beautiful divesite of 5 small islands.

10 - 2pm - do two dives, serve lunch to customers, repack bags and head back to Koh Lanta

3-7pm - Haul tanks and bags back to shop, wash gear, charge tanks and generally do what needs to be done in the shop

7.01 - 11pm - Drink red wine, eat food, fall into bed and read for 5 minutes and sleeeeeeep.

Hope this explains a wee bit why I haven't been online too much recently.

I love it though!

The Cast

So, who are all these great people that I work with....

Lisa and Lars - Dutch and Danish respectively, are engaged but neither speaks the others language, although both speak about 4 others between them. They own the Dive shop and have become as indispensible as possible to Lisa - who really runs it! The result is that i am now indispensible and therefore cannot stay out all night drinking as have to be in work at 7.00am! Love them both.

Yael - Isreali, absolutely lovely person, and Dive Instructor. Just ended a 7 year relationship - and he works here too, George. Has coped unbelievably well with it all, and we have had many a deep chat and glass of red wine together. A star.

Kate and Alex - English and French. Katie is doing her Dive Master with me, and we are an equally bad influence on each other - a partner in crime and a good friend. I did the make up at her wedding this week - unbelievably beautiful day, and she was too. Will get some pictures of it up soon. Ales is utterly gorgeous and very French and fabulous and a genuinely nice bloke. laugh lots with them both.

Lee - Well the least said the better in a way, but 24, from Essex, far too good looking for his own good. Am well over it. Most of the time. Waste of space. Then I have a drink. Nothing changes, especially not me and bad boys with cheeky grins. Moving on...

The Thai boys - Boat boys and Boat Captains. All hilarious and teaching me Thai. Hearts of gold. Also insane.

Scott and Julie - English, freelance Divemasters. Utterly love them. They come and take me away for buckets of Mai Tais when I get stressed in the shop. Are getting married one day soon. Both hilarious and always a good night out.

Still alive and well...

Its been a while, but I have an unlikely but true excuse. I have been working 12 hour days in the Dive Shop!! I know, who would have thought it. Even more unlikely is the immense pride I take in keeping it clean and sweeping the floor every day. Its the small things that give the most pleasure. Anyway, I thought it would make sense to give you an idea of the people and things I am doing on a day to day basis, so the next couple of Blogs will be about that. I promise they will be soon.

Telephone problems

Hi Everyone

Am having some telephonic challenges at the moment, so if you can't get me or don't hear from me for a few days, nothing is the matter, just local technical difficulties. As it is New Year tonight, I thought a couple of you might be trying to say hello.

Will be on email in a couple of days again, but New Year will be shutting down most people and places.

Have a wonderful New Year, and may it bring you all you deserve.

Love Aileen

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents..."

...so I have bought myself a new pair of fins and boots for diving!

I had a bit of bad news (well a big bit to be honest) as I was about to leave the Maldives. The Foreign Office issued a No Travel alert for Bali, and there was some trouble with planes going out to Flores also, so I am not actually in Flores with Beth and Dom for Christmas after all. They both know how sad I am that I am not seeing them for a while yet, but all is not lost, as I was warmly welcomed back at Palm Beach, Koh Lanta Thailand. I have spent this week doing my Rescue Diver course in which I learn how to save people who are panicking, tired, unconscious, stupid etc from the bottom of the ocean and on the surface. I AM EXHAUSTED! Plus, so far, everyone has "died" which is a bit dispiriting, but they do that to everyone so that you learn the hard way and remember it all - so at least I am not alone in feeling like a numptie - no idea if that is how you spell that.

I nearly saved someone at one point and then got so excited at my cleverness that I let all the air out of their jacket and they sank and "drowned" First of all, this is actually quite hard to do, and of course is not something I would ever have done until I went on a course on how not to do it. Anyway, tomorrow is our final test, when we sit on a boat and wait for something horrific to happen which we then have to save. Or in our case, kill. Joking aside, it has been really helpful and interesting, and I can do CPR and stuff now too.

Christmas should be a drunken affair with a meal at the beach. We all bought flashing Santa hats last night - I get drunk very quickly when I am tired I have learned - so we are all set for the Festive Spirit (s). I bought a bottle of pink Champagne at Singapore airport which I cannot WAIT to drink as the wine here is absolutely crap, but we are ploughing on.

The 26th is a Public Holiday in memory of the Tsunami, of course, and as I can see PhiPhi from the Beach here, it will make it all the more poignant. All the guys here were on Phi Phi the day it happened, and all lived through it and helped other people that day and the next. I imagine there will be some difficult times for them that day. I will be taking some time alone to commemorate Aidrian, and I know that some of you have asked for various prayers etc for him. I will do as you have requested.

Anyway, have a marvellous Christmas, get drunk and think of me, as I will be thinking of you all.

Maldives

Yes, its beautiful, yes its expensive and yes its sinking, so if you want to visit the Maldives, do it soon.

My tip would be to go to one of the smaller islands quite far away from Male itself, so you get more of a desert island feel. Plus take a ton of money, an orange juice was $5.50. I ate a lot of soup when I was there and not a lot else.

Unfortunately it also rained the whole time I was there pretty much, so those that were cursing me for being on a beautiful desert island in the sun while they were in the pissing rain in Glasgow, can now feel free to feel bad.

Comments

A wee note to Mantha - I love all comments on the Blog, and I love the fact that you commented at all. Of course, not everyone will have the same experiences when they are away, so thanks for taking the time to give a more positive view of Sri Lanka than I did. For everyone else, I will never censor anything on the Blog that is written as it is free for all to put their tuppence worth in - and I hope you do - it let me know that you are all still out there reading it.

For those that know me well, you can see how much I have mellowed since coming out here, no?....

Serendipity Part 2

Sadly there are no photos of Sri Lanka for you to see at the moment as wonderful as the Maldives are (where I am writing from on a sunny Saturday morning) they have set up their computers so I cannot downlod pictures from my camera. All will be solved when I reach Beth and Dom next week.

So, on with Sri Lanka. As an aside, before I left Kandy, I ventured out on my usual global quest for interesting pain killers, preferably full of codeine. The pharmacist proceeded to try to sell me diclofenac and a PPI!!! (sorry this is a bit of an in joke for the Pfizerites) He couldn't work out what I was so horrified/amused at and finally sold me some rubbish with 8mgs codeine in it. Bloody pharmaceutical advisors get everywhere!!

My driver/guide Upali must get a mention as he was very kind and helpful and told me interesting things as we drove round. Admittedly it mostly consisted of how many people had been killed last night - oh, did I not mention the 2 and a half year ceasefire ended the night after I arrived?! He also was keen on pointing out what bits the British had built when they arrived with a flag and some serious uppity attitude about three hundred years ago ("Hello, chaps! Do you have a flag for this country?? No, well we do, so we'll just pop that there, and if you could carry my bags for me we'll just appropriate that city over there for starters..." etc). I am not usually hugely patriotic abroad as we have usually done something screamingly embarrassing and cruel, but even I was being indignant as all we seemed to have done was build some bloody good roads and the only bridges left standing.

On my last night, I met, quite by chance, the Head of Operations for the European Commission for post conflict and tsunami aid. Quite a large business card, but a top bloke, and we had drinks and dinner together (no, not like that) and I learned more from him than I had the whole week about this sorry country. As I mentioned, ATT have taken up their guns and torches offically again, after 2 years of "peace". The new Prime Minister is very anti-Tamul, in my opinion, and things are not going to improve with him. The Tamuls forcibly stopped their own people voting in the elections, and are determined to get their own separate state in the North, but it will never happen - even though it would be a good solution. As ever, unless you have lived through these situations, my feeling is always that you don't get to have a valid judgement, so I won't make one, except to say that both sides are wrong, and violence will never be the answer. It is interesting that the UK media has never really given the Hindu Tamul side of the story that I have seen, but as Peter says, they are now modelling themselves on the Khymer Rouge, so maybe they don't deserve it.

Anyway, as we all struggle on with our daily politics and power struggles dealing with assholes in our way, spare a thought for Peter, who is trying to find a glimmer of hope and postivity for normal people trying to find a home to live in that won't get burnt down as soon as it is built. Now that the guns have started firing, he can't build houses anymore - there is no point. He really is dealing with assholes, and I hope he and his family stay safe in that hell on earth they call Sri Lanka.