So much to share:

I finished up in Chiang Mai after 3 days of cooking classes. These were great, and worth every penny. I learned a lot, and cooked the most amazing Thai food I have ever eaten. Ian and I were complaining that we were expecting to be amazed by the food when we got to Thailand, but that it was not much better than what we can get at home (except for the foodstalls). This food, though, wow. And probably the best part was that by cooking and trying a total of 18 dishes, I ate dishes I never would have bothered to order at a restaurant, and found them to be amazing. Like stirfry chicken with cashew nuts - it always sounded so boring. It's not boring.

Then it was a sleeper train Sunday night to Bangkok, a day in Bangkok running around picking up my passport, changing my vietnam visa, changing my hong kong tickets, etc. In the afternoon, though, I managed to make it to the cinema. The choices were poor, and I ended up seeing The notebook - I'm almost too embarassed to admit it. But the Thai movie experience was great. First of all, you can go to the super special theaters, where you can get the "gold box" for about 12 dollars, and sit in a VIP lounge beforehand, and then in your special lazyboy... I opted out of this, and just saw a regular movie, after specifying what seat I wanted. (And they make you wait to go in the theater until the showtime, and usher you to your seat.) The best part was standing up for the national anthem beforehand, and the little photo montage of the King. I love standing up for the national anthem. Today I'm killing time again in Bangkok, and stayed in Hua Lamphong (the main train station) until 8 am just to stand for the anthem. I could now sing it for you, if you wanted. Well, not the words.

Upon getting to the movie theater, though, I realized that I smelled. Kind of bad. I guess the whole sleeper train thing. So, when I got back to Hua Lamphong after the movie, I took a 25 cent shower, which was actually the nicest shower I've had in Thailand. Still all cold water, but the best water pressure, and pretty clean, too.

Ok, so the sleeper train - I was very excited for it. And it was exciting, I guess. The best part was that the bed was actually more comfortable than the bed I'd been sleeping on in Chiang Mai, so that was fabulous. All in all, a good night's sleep, and an easy way to go 12 hours by train.The bus, on the otherhand...

On my second day of cooking class I met an American, Annie, who had just come from Koh Tao (an island off the east coast of southern Thailand), where she'd learned to scuba dive, and couldn't say enough good things. I hadn't been planning on going to the islands, but scuba diving - well, that changed things. If I had something to do, like scuba dive, during the day, instead of sitting on a beach, that would be great. So, I went to Koh Tao Monday night, on the VIP bus.

The VIP buses are the super shiny double decker buses I'd been eyeing at the bus stations, but not figuring out how to buy tickets for. The trick is to use the white-westerner-only (read: sucker) travel agents, and be suckered into the joint ticket (bus and ferry) to an island resort. While these buses look really nice from the outside, the hidden horror lies inside. Once on the bus at 8 pm, packed with only white tourists, I reclined my seat (very far) and pulled out my little I'm-a-weak-foreigner-and-need-comfort-pack (earplugs, eye mask, and inflateable travel pillow), and settled back for sleep. Except they put on a REALLY LOUD movie. Jurassic Park, too - since we were all headed to tropical island paradise, I guess they figured they might as well stick with the theme? There was no sleep to be had with Jurassic Park, and I finally nodded off at around 11. And then at 1am the bus pulled over for a "break" - everyone off the bus for 1/2 hour. And then at 3am, the three of us on the bus heading to Koh Tao were pulled off the bus, our bags practically thrown at us, and left on the side of the road, in the middle of somewhere. Ok, I'm super grouchy, and have no idea where I am, and it's 3 am, and I'm in Thailand. Luckily, it turned out the van to take us to the ferry office was just a little late, and it soon pulled up, and I slept the next 3 hours on the cold hard floor of the ferry office, before getting on the ferry to Koh Tao.Koh Tao was amazing. Pulling into port, it looked just as beautiful, if not more so, than any tropical island I've ever seen. Crystal blue skies and water, palm trees stretching up the mountain, white sands, a few shacks on the beach...

I took my scuba certification course (for Open water) through the "Scuba Shack" on the south end of the island, and got a free bungalow with the deal. The bungalow was up a hill, overlooking the water, with a huge bed (my third - I don't know what it is with thais and huge beds), and a deck complete with hammock.

My second night, I walked about 5 minutes up the one island road to the "famous" restaurant. Seriously, that's what its called. And, contrary to the expectations from the name, it may have been even better than the food from cooking class. It was just nearing sunset, and the restaurant was small and super clean, and the food was beautifully prepared, and amazing (I had green curry with stuffed squid, and some barbeque ribs, and a cold beer), and all for $3. Walking back to my bungalow, I felt like it was the calmest, most beautiful night ever.

Scuba diving. Well, I think I was made for it. I love to swim, as some of you know, and some people have dreams where they're flying, and I hear they're great. I don't have this dream, but sometimes instead, I have a dream where I'm swimming underwater, in the ocean, and I can breathe. It's fantastic. And that's what scuba diving is like. Our first open water dive, I was blown away. It's so beautiful down there, and fascinating. While the scuba diving mini-vacation doesn't exactly fit into my small-budget tour, it was totally completely worth it.My second to last dive was the best, though. It was my last day on the island (yesterday), and the first dive of the day left at 6:10 am. This meant I had to get up at 5:20 in order to pack, check out, have breakfast, pack up my scuba gear, etc. Which was fine - I'm on a super early schedule these days, especially since the island's "electricity" (only from 6pm to 6 am) was so incredibly weak, and the lights so poor, I couldn't read after it got dark. We walked down the cliff to the boat on the east side of the island, as the sun was rising - it was beautiful. And then we motored around the island and to the west to go to Chumphon Pinnacles.

This is supposed to be the best place to dive in all of Koh Tao, and this time of year, Koh Tao is the best place to dive in all of Thailand. And it was also our first dive to 18 meters - the limit for open water certification. We were the first boat there, since Scuba Shack, although dodgy in other ways, has the earliest dive times on the island. And we went down, and immediately saw a grey reef shark, about 2 1/2 meters long. And then another... and another. 6 total. 3 of them were just circling around us for about 20 minutes - so close, and so beautiful. Wow.

Leaving the island that afternoon, I took a taxi (aka pickup truck) back to the pier with 4 others from Scuba Shack. There was a super cute puppy hanging out by the taxi, and we were playing with it before we left. And then we pulled away, and the puppy started yelping. We'd run over the puppy. The driver stopped the truck, and looked back, and kind of shrugged, and continued on. It looked to me like the puppy's leg was broken, but that it would survive. But it was just a beach dog - one of many on the island. It didn't particularly belong to anyone, and certainly no one was going to be bringing it to the vet. In one brief moment, it's life was totally changed, and possibly over. But it didn't really matter. In the third world, life - human or animal - can't be treated with as much reverence as we treat it at home, and it's easy to forget, but easy to be shown. But it kind of killed that whole tropical paradise thing for me.

Then ferry back to the mainland, yummy foodstall waiting for the train, and sleeper train back to Bangkok this morning. Another Hua Lamphong shower special, this email, and then I'm off to the airport. I fly to Ho Chi Minh city, aka HCMC, aka Saigon this afternoon. I'm really excited about Vietnam.