Wet paradise

My own private bungalow, a stone throw away from the pristine beaches of Khao Lak on the Andaman coast in the Southwest of Thailand. That was where I woke up on that fine Sunday morning. But it had been quite an effort to get there. The ride to the airport went fine, as my dad was kind enough to drive me there, and the flight to München was no hassle*, but Thai Airways left a bit to desire. My choice of food was out, and I had to settle for a less than tasty fish. The cutlery was filthy, and whenever the cabin crew went by they swooshed past, hardly making any effort to make sure we got what we wanted. And on a 10,5 hour flight, you need to fill up on liquids.
You also need some on-flight entertainment, and while they did have a decent choice, the quality of the picture was like a corrupt DivX-file from the 1900's and the audio was there maximum 75 % of the time. As if that wasn't enough, the passenger behind me kept insisting, in German no less, that I had my seat all vertical-like (which, I suppose, is hardly Thai Airways' fault) and the overhead compartment was reserved for the crew's gear, forcing my well-filled dayback to the seat in front of me, leaving my leg room far, far behind.
With a short, intermittant and shallow night's sleep, I made it to Bangkok Suvarnahabhumi, and spent six hours there, awaiting my connection flight. Eventually I boarded the plane to Phuket, got picked up in the pouring rain at the airport and driven to my home for the next few days: My own private bungalow, a stone throw away from the pristine beaches of Khao Lak on the Andaman coast in the Southwest of Thailand.
As I woke up the next morning, it was still cloudy, but the rain had mostly stopped. Not that it would matter much, though, as I planned on spending a significant time in the water anyways. I took my Scuba refresher course, in which I repeated the excercises I learnt 12 years ago, when I took my Open Water certificate: Bouyancy control, taking off and on the mask, aiding my buddy with air, being aided by my buddy with air, taking off and on the BCD and so forth, and so on.
It was a good refresher, and a much needed tune-up for my upcoming Advanced course and my liveaboard trip.
After my practise dive, I took a simple dive around the reef, just for shits and giggles, and also to test my spanking new UW-case. It seemed to be working just fine, and with that my Indochine 2012 tour had begun for real.
Scuba up, Ted!
*) And, presumably, no Hoff.