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Seeking Seahorses on Koh Seh

12/23/2015

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It seems like ages ago that Matt was exchanging bottles of his home brew for donations to the Before It's Gone Journey cause. At the same time, it feels like just yesterday that we hosted a farewell party with a "pop-up thrift store" of our stuff, pledging to set aside proceeds to fund environmental action on our travel. It took us over a year to stumble upon the right opportunity at the right time that was worthy of the generosity sourced from our Naturebridge community, but find it we eventually did. So we'll start this blog off with our appreciation of their sponsorship of our time at Marine Conservation Cambodia.

Last November and December, we took yet another pause in our cycling to spend five weeks volunteering for Marine Conservation Cambodia, based out of an up-and-coming beach resort area called Kep. As the name implies, MCC is a grassroots organization primarily focused on protecting a small section of Cambodia's coast from illegal fishing practices. Trawling in areas shallower than twenty meters, electric-shock fishing, and the collection of organisms with breathing-assistance (i.e. tube fishing) are all highly destructive, short-sighted, yet common harvesting methods that have been banned by Cambodian Fisheries Law. 

The catch (pun intended) is a lack of effective enforcement by Marine Police, who are actually paid off by local and Vietnamese fisherfolk to look the other way. When MCC set up shop just down the beach from a Marine Police outpost on the little island of Koh Seh a couple of years ago, they began picking up the enforcement slack. They conducted their own patrols led by local Khmer staff, confiscating illegal fishing apparatus and chasing boats out of areas that still had enough habitat left for a shot at recovery. This was not without some good ol' Wild West-style drama though. Those rascally Marine Police deployed their firearms (probably for the first time ever) with warning shots intended to scare off the MCC crew, claiming that the illegal boats were "under police protection." That does make for an awkward situation for sharing a tiny island, doesn't it?

Fortunately for the endangered seahorses and other incredible marine creatures not yet scooped up in a trawling net, English ex-pat Paul Ferber, the founder of MCC, is not so easily unsettled from his goal. The rationale for quite literally defending this small triangle in the Gulf of Thailand is to demonstrate that the simple act of enforcement of Cambodia's existing fisheries laws actually created relatively healthy marine ecosystems. And once that happens, everyone will want to have one, ideally spurring the government into nationwide action and thereby saving the future of Cambodia's biodiversity and preserving the livelihoods of small-scale lower-impact fisherfolk.

Of course, all of this silly conservation theory has to be proven effective again and again, and that is where MCC's volunteers come in. By conducting coral reef surveys and collecting data on MCC's flagship seahorse species, the citizen scientists have set a baseline for measuring progress, essentially creating dynamic "before and after pictures" of MCC's enforcement campaign. Monitoring the process of recovery also provides insights as to how quickly specific species recolonize their habitat after it's been decimated, and how successfully certain populations of organisms are able to rebound from human-caused catastrophe. Should this whole enforcement thing catch on in the region, this would be quite a valuable resource to inform other localized restoration efforts and management decisions going forward.

We personally did not get involved in wrangling any fish burglars (so sorry to disappoint you), but we heard that things got a lot more exciting on that front a couple of months after we left! Nonetheless, our experience had many positive aspects combined with some influential challenges that ultimately resulted in a memorable chapter of our journey with a complex aftertaste. That is if chapters had aftertastes. Well, you know what I mean...hopefully. Some examples include:

Shallow Water Diving--It was quite an adjustment to jump in to water that we could almost stand in for the duration of our dives. At times it resembled snorkeling with a scuba tank on. Too deep of a breathe could send you to the surface and a full exhale might have you clunking along the bottom. It was kind of claustrophobic! On the upside, a tank could last all afternoon with no need to conserve, or even check your air supply gauge for that matter. And given that our deepest moments were still above the 15-feet (3-meter) safety stop mark, we could surface as needed for a conversation with our dive buddy when underwater sign language got too confusing. Risk of decompression illness was nil, which made for a low-stress return to diving after my encounter with it a few months prior in Thailand.
seSeagrass is cool, really cool--As we had never spent time diving in the shallows before, this was our introduction to sea grass habitat and the surprisingly diverse collection of species it supports. Sea grass beds don't reveal their secrets easily though. At quick glance, it just appears to be a uniform patch of stubby green blades, kind of like a neglected underwater lawn. This feeling was enhanced by the nearly constant murkiness, the result of suspended sediment in the water from the illegal trawlers churning up the ocean floor just outside MCC's reach of protection. But we learned to appreciate the details while cruising slowly a couple of feet above the grass, and almost each dive revealed something new for us, whether it was the truly insect-like sea moth, adorable crocodile pipefish, or a tiny octopus. And it is only appropriate that these pastures of grass are where the horses of the sea like to hang out!

Spotting the Masters of Camouflage--Finding a sea horse is kind of like an underwater Easter egg hunt, a really hard one, or perhaps a Where's Waldo search if he were sporting a camouflage-printed scuba suit. But the rush of excitement is exactly the same when you do finally lock eyes on one. When Matt and I have dived together previously, I was usually the first one to point out the tiny nudibranchs and tricky scorpionfish. However, at MCC I simply could not spot "my own" sea horse. Once my dive partner (usually Matt but sometimes other volunteers) had already located one, I could hone in on it quickly though. At first, I figured I was just unlucky in that my designated search areas were barren of the sparsely populated critters, but as the weeks dragged on, the statistical odds of that actually being the case went down and down. Finally, it happened! "My" cute little juvenile was too small to be tagged with a non-toxic polymer tattoo for further individual study, but it sure posed for photos nicely so it's smug mug could be added to the citizen science driven database called iSeahorse. And after that encounter, the curse was broken and I began spotting seahorses on almost every dive.
100 dives under our weight belts--Through a combination of sea horse surveys, artificial coral reef maintenance (a.k.a. scrubbing over-abundant algae from rocks), and aimless exploration, we hit the milestone of 100 dives logged. It was only after the fact that we learned from the volunteer coordinator and dive master Amick that we tradition dictates the 100th dive is a naked one. Oh well...Maybe next time! I ended up with a few more dives than Matt overall since he struggled with ear infections for about half of the time we were there, a common ailment when spending so much time equalizing the ears in very warm shallow water that naturally harbors more bacteria.

​Island life--On Koh Seh we lived even more simply than our usual lifestyle while cycle touring. Our bungalow had a cement floor but loosely woven bamboo walls and thatched roof. Showers were of the bucket variety, meaning that we dumped a frugal amount of precious rainwater over our heads. We didn't have to make the typical lengthy decisions about when, where, and what to eat as delicious Khmer meals were provided on a general schedule in an open-sided communal bungalow. A noisy generator provided electricity from dusk to dawn and luxuriously powered a ceiling fan that sort of penetrated the mosquito net we slept under. We could technically connect to the Internet through a distant cellular network, but could rarely load any pages. That was usually just fine with us, as hammocks beckoned and a dip in the ocean was never more than a few steps away. We were close to nature and had no option but to be present in the moment. Except for all those nights we "escaped the island" while watching a movie on our laptop, but I digress. It actually felt unfamiliar to stay in a solid-walled, multi-storied building with running and water and wifi after we left. In fact, in five weeks, we only returned to the mainland for one weekend, so we really got the chance to settle in to the slower, relaxed pace that seems to be an inescapable characteristic of tropical islands.
The sunset ritual--One of my favorite things about the ocean is the sunsets in to it. The MCC base is east-facing, so it had fabulous sunrises that I never saw, save for a few times when I opened my eyes to beautiful colors filtering through the little gaps of our bungalow's woven bamboo wall and promptly fell back asleep, but I don't think that really counts. I don't really like sunrises anyway. Fortunately, it was only a three-minute walk over a minor hill to the other side of the island where a calm, quiet rocky shore provided the perfect place to watch the sunset. With cans of warm Black Panther "Foreign Export Stout" (certainly only distributed domestically) in hand, we made it to that spot every day and took a photo of each sunset, each one with its own mood shaped by the unique combination of meteorological forces at play each day. We usually had the west side of the island to ourselves, except for one constant companion: Jill the Jungle Dog. Part of the daily tradition was bracing ourselves for Jill to come tearing out of the forest for perhaps the most enthusiastic greeting we've ever had from a sweetheart of a canine (and that's saying a lot since I'm not really a dog lover). Due to a serious history of dog drama between MCC's multi-generational family of pit bulls and her, Jill lives a solitary life in the forest with occasional forays to the fringes of the MCC property until the pit bulls pick up her scent. She is free to roam, but I think she does get lonely.
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Jill the Jungle Dog
A week with Liger Learning Center--Liger Learning Center is actually named in honor of Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal, but that is only the first thing that makes it awesome. With the goal of empowering the most brilliant minds of Cambodia's disadvantaged youth to make a difference in their country, the middle school students learn primarily through implementing projects of their own design. Twelve lovely students and three of their wonderful teachers traveled from Phnom Penh to gain firsthand knowledge of the marine environment and the various threats to it. Many were thrilled to swim and snorkel in the ocean for the first time, but were just as enthusiastic to clean 250 pounds of garbage off the beach or examine algae and seagrass under a microscope. Their visit also served as the basis of submitting a proposal for a year-long project to develop alternative sustainable livelihoods for illegal fishers, one possibility being algae aquaculture. As this was our only exposure to the familiar world of environmental education since we began our travel in Asia, we thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the students and bonding with their American teachers. 
Read more about Liger Learning Center's visit at my guest blog post on MCC's website.
The Shoel (rhymes with stool)--Despite having seen a lot of marine debris--and litter on its way to becoming marine debris--at home and in our travels, it was still shocking to see the sheer volume of plastic products washing up on Koh Seh each day. A large garbage bag could be filled with styrofoam in a matter of minutes. Equally depressing was witnessing the black smoke of that garbage pile as it burned. We removed toxins from the sea in one form only to send them to the atmosphere in another, which of course will eventually fall back in to the sea. It was an unsavory and unhealthy catch-22. Sending the rubbish to the mainland would use additional fossil fuels and once there would also be burned, since Cambodia lacks the infrastructure and/or political willpower to deal with waste management in an organized way. (While cycling around Cambodia, we've smelled enough burning plastic to last a lifetime, or at least shorten it.) But without beach clean ups, the island would literally drown in plastic.

The only partial solution was to find a way to burn less plastic, and the only way to do that was to make the debris useful again. MCC diverts a fraction of the styrofoam infestation by shredding it for bean bag stuffing, but I was interested in the creative potential of all the shoes. Yes, shoes. The perimeter of the island was lined with hundreds upon hundreds of flip flops and sandals. The shoes had captivated the imagination of other volunteers too, ranging from a legendary decorative flip flop tree to an uncomfortable hammock. I opted for something basic but solid--a stool. Constructed of about fifty pieces of rejected footwear, "The Shoel" turned out to be a bit of a commitment by the time we collected, washed, drilled holes, and lashed them together with fishing rope also scavenged from the beach. With the (temporary?) success of The Shoel, I was ready to move on to a whole bench, but unfortunately I procrastinated until too close to our departure for that one.

If you can't stand the smoke, get off of the island--Unfortunately, the previously mentioned beach cleanup rubbish was just one source of smoke to fill our nostrils on Koh Seh. Perhaps the least offensive, but still overpowering, was piles of sea grass burned along the beach often filling up our cabin. The beach collected an unnatural amount of sea grass from the illegal trawlers uprooting it as they dragged their nets attached to heavy apparatus along the sea floor. Apparently, if the sea grass wasn't raked off the beach, it would cause a stinky mess of decomposition and its smoke was rumored to keep the mosquitos at bay. More constant was the cigarette smoke. We were in a small minority of non-smokers on the island, so it seemed that there was always someone puffing away upwind of us, which really limited our desire to be social. 

It's the simple things that make a difference--It was also really disappointing to find cigarette butts everywhere on the ground, even intentionally thrown onto the same beach and in to the same ocean that the people doing it were claiming to be protecting! The glaring hypocrisy really boggled our minds. As volunteers, we were actually paying a good chunk of money to pick up litter mostly created by people who were getting paid to be there. When we chose to collect and weigh the litter on a weekly basis, it ranged from three to seven pounds each time!

While it is normal to see butts and litter everywhere in Asia, we had falsely assumed that things would be different in this microcosm of environmental passion. And that's when we realized how our latent expectations had misled us. At least as of yet, MCC is not a broad marine conservation organization consistently concerned about the dispersed but constant threats of climate change, ocean acidification, bioaccumulation of toxins, marine debris, and so on. It is a marine protection organization focused specifically on the most immediate and direct threat of illegal fishing on local habitats and species. We understand it is a relatively young organization; we get that it is resource-strapped from being solely funded by volunteer fees; we know everything is an uphill battle in Cambodia. But none of that is an obstacle to keeping your toxic butt out of the sea or recycling your beer can instead of trying to burn it. As we see it, if you're going to forcefully stop impoverished fisherfolk from destroying the ocean, then you better being doing everything you can to not contribute to its demise either, especially when a starting point would be simply refraining from eating and drinking out of single-use plastic and styrofoam, as one example.

Since the lack of a general environmental ethic was undermining MCC's victories, at least in our eyes, we introduced a "how to walk our talk" initiative as diplomatically as we could. Staff and volunteers brainstormed ideas and got some of them underway. We fashioned lids on garbage cans to see if that helped with the litter problem. I got a compost system up and running that had fallen by the wayside, diverting a portion of the food waste from being dumped and/or burned. Matt nailed makeshift ashtrays to trees near the hammock hangout spots along the beach, where some but not all butts were then deposited. As it turned out, the containers were too big since folks then quickly filled them with empty beer cans and cigarette packaging. We hope we left some idea of accountability for personal actions and perhaps others will continue where we left off.

Perhaps as the strangest moment in our history of environmental activism, we were particularly proud of getting the momentum going on an "incinerator" as slightly better way to burn garbage. While it would not actually reach true incineration temperatures that would eliminate toxins in the burning material, the hope was it would burn faster and more thoroughly, thus reducing the island residents' overall exposure to the fumes and reducing the quantity of toxic ash that then had to be "disposed of." Paul had made the design, rocks for the walls had been hauled to the site, and the foundation had been laid by the time we left. MCC just needed enough money to buy more cement in order for the project to progress. 
We were happy to offer what we could to Marine Conservation Cambodia and we took away new knowledge and gained new skills. We enjoyed getting to know the multicultural and personality-diverse cast of characters on the island, made up of a constantly shifting collection of volunteers, longterm staff, and their kids. We're grateful to have had the opportunity of an experience different from anything else on our journey, even if it wasn't quite the right fit to settle in to for a longer stay. Never totally confident with how our efforts were being received, we were honored to have some people go out of their way to thank us when it was time to move on. Perhaps the best thank you came from the ocean. On the boat ride back to the mainland, we had our first and only sighting of some of the few dolphins still hanging on in these trouble waters.
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From Kep to Kampot and Back Again

11/16/2015

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We arrived to Cambodia's coast at Kep, a couple of weeks after our original plan that was made before my rim cracked in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Kep is an odd place in its modern incarnation, but its quirkiness is rooted in its history. It was first a beach resort town for the French and Cambodian elite from the turn of the 20th century until the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The French colonial mansions as well as modernist villas were abruptly abandoned, later being stripped of nearly everything as impoverished local residents did whatever they could to survive during those years and through their aftermath. Kep is now on its way to thriving once again as one of the fastest growing areas for tourism, despite only having one small beach with white sand trucked over from Sihanoukville every couple of weeks. There is not a whole lot to do in Kep after gazing upon a collection of seaside statues, poking around the decaying shells of structures built for fancier times, and eating Kep's signature dish of blue crab cooked with local green pepper corns. That does make it ideal for relaxation though, and we found the perfect place to attempt this at a small hillside resort called Khmer Hands Bungalows. It is run as a social enterprise by an American-Khmer couple who provide disadvantaged youth with hospitality and English skills to open up further opportunities in life.

From Kep, we took a boat shuttle out to Koh Tonsay, a.k.a. Rabbit Island, to take the relaxing to the next level. It is not much more than a collection of basic bungalows run by several Khmer families on a tiny island in the Gulf of Thailand. While most people simply alternate between sitting on the beach, swimming, eating, and of course drinking, my idea of relaxing is catching up on this blog. I did at least bring my productivity to a hammock at the water's edge, so the office view was quite soothing as I typed away. That is, until the battery died mid-afternoon several hours before the generator was fired up for the evening. Then I was simply forced to enjoy a sunset and happy hour beers that were cheaper than those on the mainland.

After returning to the mainland from Rabbit Island, it wasn't long before we were headed out on another boat to a neighboring island in the gulf. In Kep, we had been in discussion with an organization called Marine Conservation Cambodia about the possibility of volunteering with them. They invited us to check out their research base on Koh Seh (Horse Island) for a few days to learn more about them. As the boat pulled in to the pier, we were greeted by a tribe of outgoing kids wearing homemade cardboard masks. We had happened to arrive just as Halloween festivities were, a trick or treat circuit to all of the bungalows, and a not-so-scary story campfire. Almost all of the kids had grown up in Cambodia, so the phrase "trick or treat" had to be explained to them. It didn't stick, so by the time they got to our bungalow, I had to prompt them with "What do you say?" while holding the candy bowl above my head. They all put on their sweetest smiles and in unison said, "Please!" It was perhaps the only time I have ever told a child not to say please! "Nope, don't say please, say trick or treat!" The evening was a great introduction to the island and we felt instantly absorbed into the family atmosphere.

The next couple of days we snorkeled along the reef, cleaned up a small section of the beach covered in plastic pollution from the Cambodian and Vietnamese mainlands, and chatted with the staff and volunteers on the island. We got a good vibe from it all so, while watching a brilliant sunset, we decided that we should commit at least a month of our journey to contributing to the efforts here in any way we could.

However, with limited internet connectivity on the island, we weren’t quite ready to jump in right away. We needed a bit of time to be ready to disconnect, so we returned to Kep. After a nice evening at the Treetop Bungalows, we cycled a couple of hours west to the riverside town of Kampot, a pleasant haven for a plethora of ex-pats to run restaurants and bars all catering to each other. Our visit coincided with the first annual Kampot Writers and Readers Festival so town was a little more lively than usual for that time of the year. In keeping with Cambodian style, it was still a laidback affair with loose organization, but in principle it was a really cool idea. After attending one disappointing session about travel writing, I decided that it wasn’t worth sparing the time to try the other events though. I had a lot of my own travel writing to catch up on!

We had picked some simple and cheap riverside bungalows a ways out of town center as a quiet place to work. It was peaceful for a couple of days, despite loud construction of new bungalows right next to ours beginning at 7am. Unfortunately, the weekend came around and an obnoxious group of partiers showed up that we dubbed “The Glitter People” as they were for some reason covered in silver glitter. The Glitter People joined the music pumping at the bungalow competitors next door, then returned in the middle of the night unable to remember which bungalow was theirs. We know this because a couple of them stood in front of ours and stupidly debated about whether or not their bungalow had two bikes parked in front of it….um, no dude, not your cabin.

We relocated into the town center the next morning, which allowed for several days of café hopping, literally spending all day working on the computer, only stretching the legs and getting a change of scenery as the next meal or snack time approached. We found the best spot for coffee, amazing mango and passionfruit sorbet, and even authentic Italian pasta and gnocchi cooked up along local food in a row of food stalls over the course of our daily wanderings. After a day or so of errands and shopping to prepare for the isolation of island living, we cycled back to Kep and headed out to Koh Seh to begin our month with Marine Conservation Cambodia.

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(Don't Tell My Mom, But I'm) Slightly Bent

4/11/2015

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PictureYou can just call me "Ol' Tingle Leg"...
If you can't afford travel insurance, then you can't afford to travel.

How many times have we begrudgingly witnessed a pricey travel insurance payment drop our bank account before travel, only to return home without incident and a sense of wasted money? Too many to count, of course. But as lucky or as invincible as we may seem on our adventures, the risks will certainly outspend the savings once they catch up to you. And they will eventually catch up to you.

 Let me share my story with the intent of convincing anyone who believes otherwise.


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Eat, Dive, Sleep, Repeat.

4/9/2015

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 After returning to the mainland from a week spent on the little dive island of Koh Tao, we were hit with a full dose of Thailand's heat as we cycled north. April is reputedly the hottest month of the year. After melting along the roadside despite our proximity to the beautiful coastline, we don't disagree with that statement one bit.

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Enough Koh Tao for Now

4/1/2015

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Of course, the drawn-out dread of taking the night boat turned out to be much worse than the voyage itself. Instead of the nice big boat docked the night before, we were instructed to load our bikes on to a smaller older-looking boat, adding insult to the injury of not directly rolling on to the Koh Tao-bound boat twenty-four hours prior. Nonetheless, the sleeping berth was cozy without being over-crowded, although a bit warm since our designated mattresses were at the opposite end of the one air-conditioning unit. With tourists on one side and locals on the other side of an aisle lined with motorbikes plus our two beasts, to our great surprise everyone was quiet and went to sleep immediately. Before we knew it, we were docking at Koh Tao early the next morning.

Still in a daze, we cycled to the southern settlement on the island of Chalok Baan Kao where we checked in to the budget-friendly Tropicana "Resort" and waited for our pre-researched dive shop to open. We had singled out New Heaven for their extensive conservation efforts and investment in the local community, but unfortunately their customer service was severely lacking when we made a simple request for a 15-liter tank for Matt. Fortunately, our back-up choice came through for us as the amiable staff at Big Blue Diving casually responded, "15-liter tank? Got it, no problem, free of charge." While they also engage in conservation work, we had some reservations about going with one of the bigger and busiest companies on the island, but we signed up for two dives the next day as a test run.

Despite missing a whale shark sighting by opting for sleep over early-morning dives, we had a good experience with some easy shallow dives the following afternoon. We got a sense of the dive scene in Koh Tao as we boarded the biggest dive boat we have ever seen. This was followed by quite a surface swim to get to the actual dive site because of the queue of equally-large boats strung behind one actually tied to the mooring line. Nonetheless, our dive master Nick was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and particularly good at finding miniscule nudibranchs. Big Blue may be a mass operation, but it didn't ever feel impersonal. While the dives sites themselves were not too impressive, we were satisfied enough with the company to check out deeper and more famous dive sites with them the next morning.

While the whale shark sighted at Chumphon Pinnacle the previous morning had already moved on, we found the site to be one of the most dramatic places we had ever seen underwater. With excellent visibility, we could see "anemone fields forever" covering the angular rock walls, many of them the size of table for two. Little did we know at the time that that would be our last Koh Tao dive with clear water. Our second dive, at the HTMS Sattakut 742 wreck, introduced us to the murkiness of the plankton blooms allegedly timed with the approach of the full moon. Fortunately, our dive master Steven was a character both above and below the surface and kept us entertained with his humor and antics while searching out the small stuff.

The following day, we optimistically committed to an all-day boat excursion to the premier dive site in Gulf of Thailand known as Sail Rock. Unfortunately, the visibility was so poor that our dive master Ben missed the entrance to a vertical swim-through chimney as we descended. Again, our strategy was to stick close to the wall and look for the small-scale diversity of life, but it was a shame to miss the renowned beauty of the big picture. The crew adapted the day's schedule and opted to try Southwest Pinnacle rather than do a second dive on Sail Rock, but the visibility wasn't much better there either. We wrapped up the day at Shark(less) Island, supposedly named for the shape of the island resembling a giant dorsal fin.

Having adjusted our expectations with the lack of good visibility, we wrapped up our diving experience with a couple more pleasant afternoon dives followed by a night dive. Some new and favorite species we spotted over the course of all of our dives were blue-spotted rays, titan triggerfish, scrawled filefish, brown banded pipefish, and my personal favorite--the yellow box fish! While overall Koh Tao may not be the best quality of diving, it certainly is some of the most affordable. After just seven dives, we reached the cheapest price bracket of less than $25 per dive.

All of the diving combined with a hilly bicycle commute between our hotel and the dive shop at opposite ends of the island had not left us much time for relaxing or energy for exploring. We decided to take a non-diving day for some beach time and snorkel time. Somewhat ironically, the snorkeling led to our only sightings of a black-tipped reef shark and tremendous green turtle while on the island. Later that night, we even rallied to stay up past our bedtime in order to go to the Koh Tao institution of the Queen's Cabaret, a nightly show by extravagantly done-up kathoeys, referred to as Thailand's third gender and also known as "ladyboys." From serious to seriously sexy, we were enthralled with the variety of performances. Matt was super relieved that an obnoxious bachelor party group eliminated his personal risk of being selected for any audience participation numbers.

The next day, we put our bikes on a boat for the last time in the foreseeable future and said goodbye to Koh Tao. While we certainly enjoyed our week there, we didn't exactly fall in love with it either. With a younger party crowd vibe, we may have been more enamored had we visited ten years ago. That said, had we stuck around longer--perhaps for a full-length conservation diving course or dive master training program--we may have connected with the established dive community and changed our perspective as well. With the sheer numbers of divers in the water and one-in-the-same tourists consuming scarce water while generating waste on land, Koh Tao is far from pristine. However, with the multitude of dive shops and local economy so dependent on diving, there seems to be a general "before it's gone" awareness. It seems organized efforts are largely spearheaded by dedicated longtimers who have witnessed Koh Tao's exponential development firsthand. Beach and reef clean ups, artificial reef construction, and tree-planting for erosion control might not be enough in the face of rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, but it is more than one might expect from a popular backpacker destination.

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You pass through places and places pass through you, but you carry 'em with you on the souls of your travellin' shoes. --The Be Good Tanyas