Saturday, April 7, 2012

Thailand part I

Swimming with fishes and thunderstorms

Today I went swimming with fish. I did yesterday as well, twice actually, but today was different. A baby shark took a bit of a liking to me, possibly not of the good kind, and took to circling me in the water in a slightly disconcerting way. Of course, it is hard to be concerned about a creature as long as your forearm, and rather slimmer, but when it looks like a very small Great White you can't help but feel slightly alarmed. But the other fish were stripy, spotty, and very colourful! There is one type, which are a velvety black, with blue tails that I like, and also some which are a sort of velvety dark blue, until you see that they are actually iridescent and then you notice that their fins are pink and purple, and their tails have a yellow bit in the middle!

Also, when we went yesterday, I swam a good 400 meters with a small child riding on my back. Yes, riding. It is hard not to laugh when a child is pulling on your bathing suit saying "Turn this way!" in a most petulant tone, as though you are a boat which isn't responding properly, rather than a human being fighting against the pull of the water to even swim in the right direction, struggling with an extra 15 kilograms of dead weight shifting constantly on top of them.

As a side note, laughing while wearing snorkel and mask is a bad idea. The extra air that comes out your nose raises the air pressure inside your mask, meaning it simply slips open to let the air out, and promptly fills with water. This does have the positive effect of stopping you from laughing pretty quickly, but it is not a pleasant way to be stopped.

In other news from the land of awesome stuff, there are lots of thunderstorms! They're epic, and an almost nightly occurrence. I love thunderstorms. I tried to take a picture, and it actually worked!


















Anyway, if I want to get any sleep tonight, I had better get to bed. It is past midnight, and I am tired. I am often tired here, I seem to need more sleep than in normal climates.

2 comments:

  1. That is a very good photo of the thunder storm!

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  2. Thank you! I spent quite a while trying to get a picture of it, and only two of them came out at all, and this was definitely the better of them! I love thunderstorms :-D

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