by Peter Lloyd
Pattaya Today
I have just got back from a seriously adventurous diving trip to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I don’t know anyone else who has dived there, but perhaps I now know why, as we had faulty equipment on every dive and air leaks in all the equipment, as well as two unusual experiences, one which saw us left behind in the water for hours after a dive, and the other saw me scrapping with a giant crab underwater.
On the first day I spotted easily the largest crab I have ever seen underwater. It had a body the size of a large dinner plate. Half-submerged in sand, it looked dead as I swam up to it, and when I went to take a photo at point blank range, it suddenly exploded into life, launching at me with its long red pincers. I was so shocked it took me a moment to react, but when I did I was aware that I was now embroiled in a crab on man underwater punch up in a cloud of sand, flailing arms and red snapping
Pattaya Today
I have just got back from a seriously adventurous diving trip to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I don’t know anyone else who has dived there, but perhaps I now know why, as we had faulty equipment on every dive and air leaks in all the equipment, as well as two unusual experiences, one which saw us left behind in the water for hours after a dive, and the other saw me scrapping with a giant crab underwater.
On the first day I spotted easily the largest crab I have ever seen underwater. It had a body the size of a large dinner plate. Half-submerged in sand, it looked dead as I swam up to it, and when I went to take a photo at point blank range, it suddenly exploded into life, launching at me with its long red pincers. I was so shocked it took me a moment to react, but when I did I was aware that I was now embroiled in a crab on man underwater punch up in a cloud of sand, flailing arms and red snapping
 A close encounter of a non-dangerous kind |
pincers. The combative crab came again, jumping from the sandy floor to try to catch onto my knee, which it did, but it couldn’t get a good grip, so it just left two deep red welts on either side of my leg.
Luckily it then decided to discontinue its attack, and moodily retreated, as I swam away laughing hysterically. Crabs that size can cut you through to the bone if they catch you right, so I was very lucky.
The next day we had a far more serious problem.We did a relatively new dive, a drift dive, (following an underwater current) which took us for over a kilometer underwater, and were down for over an hour.
This current usually takes divers close inshore, but this day it took us quite far out, and we watched as the dive boat searched for us in all the wrong places. It couldn’t see us in the water as the dive guide didn’t have a big red inflatable safety balloon, and we were drifting out to open sea very far from the boat. People onboard couldn’t hear us shouting and whistling to it, as the boat had its compressor running, and nobody thought we would be so far away, so they weren’t looking in our direction.
After a while, the boat gave up and sailed off thinking we might have gone a different route and disappeared out of sight around an island.
At this stage we had been in the water and exposed to the sun for over an hour after surfacing, and I could see we were drifting out to open sea. There were fairly rough waves ahead of us, which would make it even harder for the boat to see three small bobbing heads in the water, so I told the dive guide I was making for the nearest shoreline, where we could get into calmer water, get out on the rocks, have higher visibility, have a rest from floating/treading water, and get out of the sun.
He stupidly thought we should stay in the water and wait, presumably because he didn’t want his dive buddies to take the piss if we beached ourselves, but by now I didn’t care what he thought, as this was getting to be more about personal safty and not diving, so me and my friend gradually made our way towards a nearby island, and he reluctantly followed.
After another half an hour swimming, we beached ourselves, completely knac-kered. We lay on the rocks, took off our equipment and started to work out what we would do next, if the boat didn’t come back for us.
Finally, fully 2 hours after we had finished diving, having had an hour and a half floating and swimming in the sea to get to safety, the boat finally spotted us, waving on the rocks. Had we followed the guide’s advice we may never have been found, as the boat had no clue where we were or where we would have drifted in open sea.
But that apart, it was certainly an interesting trip to a very undeveloped dive destination, and I will go back for more later in the year.
I also have some pertinent observations on Sihanouk-ville versus Pattaya for my next column.
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The Demise of Thailand Elite
In my first ever column for this paper, in 2003, I wrote that promoting the new Thailand Elite card was like flogging the rotting carcass of a dead, stinking horse. It really didn’t add up, there was bound to be a scam somewhere, and the recent announcements that the scheme is to be abandoned, and links to a Singapore bank account are to be investigated, came as no surprise.
Nor did the miniscule number of card buyers. The government hoped for 1 million card members but ended up with maybe 2,500, and many of these were given free to celebrities and bigwigs to promote the scheme.
A misleading suggestion that card holders would be able to own land inflated sales, and once that myth was put to bed, the number of buyers plummeted, and recent horrendous losses have forced the new government to abandon the ill-thought out scheme completely, and admirably look at ways of compensating card holders.
My first column about the cards saw the editor called into Pattaya police station to be told by one of the senior policemen that they didn’t like my comments or my tone, and that I should show a bit more respect to the brainchild of their then leader Thaksin. This incident was a useful and an early lesson, making me realize how widely-read Pattaya Today was. It also taught me to be a bit more careful in my epithets and in chucking round my ill-expressed opinions, as you never knew who is reading them.
Still, it’s nice to know I was eventually proved right, and that, even after all these years, I can still write about it in my column.
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Grenade photo article
Cambodia is a world leader is unusual signage. Two of my favourite bill-boards in rural areas warn people not to electrocute fish, with a helpful illustration of Cambodians doing exactly that (just in case you didn’t know how, this helps), and another warns people not to catch fish with hand grenades or dynamite.
Luckily it then decided to discontinue its attack, and moodily retreated, as I swam away laughing hysterically. Crabs that size can cut you through to the bone if they catch you right, so I was very lucky.
The next day we had a far more serious problem.We did a relatively new dive, a drift dive, (following an underwater current) which took us for over a kilometer underwater, and were down for over an hour.
This current usually takes divers close inshore, but this day it took us quite far out, and we watched as the dive boat searched for us in all the wrong places. It couldn’t see us in the water as the dive guide didn’t have a big red inflatable safety balloon, and we were drifting out to open sea very far from the boat. People onboard couldn’t hear us shouting and whistling to it, as the boat had its compressor running, and nobody thought we would be so far away, so they weren’t looking in our direction.
After a while, the boat gave up and sailed off thinking we might have gone a different route and disappeared out of sight around an island.
At this stage we had been in the water and exposed to the sun for over an hour after surfacing, and I could see we were drifting out to open sea. There were fairly rough waves ahead of us, which would make it even harder for the boat to see three small bobbing heads in the water, so I told the dive guide I was making for the nearest shoreline, where we could get into calmer water, get out on the rocks, have higher visibility, have a rest from floating/treading water, and get out of the sun.
He stupidly thought we should stay in the water and wait, presumably because he didn’t want his dive buddies to take the piss if we beached ourselves, but by now I didn’t care what he thought, as this was getting to be more about personal safty and not diving, so me and my friend gradually made our way towards a nearby island, and he reluctantly followed.
After another half an hour swimming, we beached ourselves, completely knac-kered. We lay on the rocks, took off our equipment and started to work out what we would do next, if the boat didn’t come back for us.
Finally, fully 2 hours after we had finished diving, having had an hour and a half floating and swimming in the sea to get to safety, the boat finally spotted us, waving on the rocks. Had we followed the guide’s advice we may never have been found, as the boat had no clue where we were or where we would have drifted in open sea.
But that apart, it was certainly an interesting trip to a very undeveloped dive destination, and I will go back for more later in the year.
I also have some pertinent observations on Sihanouk-ville versus Pattaya for my next column.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Demise of Thailand Elite
In my first ever column for this paper, in 2003, I wrote that promoting the new Thailand Elite card was like flogging the rotting carcass of a dead, stinking horse. It really didn’t add up, there was bound to be a scam somewhere, and the recent announcements that the scheme is to be abandoned, and links to a Singapore bank account are to be investigated, came as no surprise.
Nor did the miniscule number of card buyers. The government hoped for 1 million card members but ended up with maybe 2,500, and many of these were given free to celebrities and bigwigs to promote the scheme.
A misleading suggestion that card holders would be able to own land inflated sales, and once that myth was put to bed, the number of buyers plummeted, and recent horrendous losses have forced the new government to abandon the ill-thought out scheme completely, and admirably look at ways of compensating card holders.
My first column about the cards saw the editor called into Pattaya police station to be told by one of the senior policemen that they didn’t like my comments or my tone, and that I should show a bit more respect to the brainchild of their then leader Thaksin. This incident was a useful and an early lesson, making me realize how widely-read Pattaya Today was. It also taught me to be a bit more careful in my epithets and in chucking round my ill-expressed opinions, as you never knew who is reading them.
Still, it’s nice to know I was eventually proved right, and that, even after all these years, I can still write about it in my column.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grenade photo article
Cambodia is a world leader is unusual signage. Two of my favourite bill-boards in rural areas warn people not to electrocute fish, with a helpful illustration of Cambodians doing exactly that (just in case you didn’t know how, this helps), and another warns people not to catch fish with hand grenades or dynamite.
 Don’t Do It |
With the irony and good (or ill) timing which often accompanies writing this column, I took the accompanying photo in Cambodia outside a bar in Sihanouk-ville, as it seemed astonishing to me that a venue had to tell patrons not to bring hand grenades in with them. HAND GRENADES! Unfortunately, since I took this photo and decided to write about it, the whole issue took a turn for the serious when, in Thailand recently, a teenage cretin actually took an M-26 hand grenade to a temple party in Isaan and hurled it into a group of his rivals, killing seven people and wounding 100, who were happily dancing at the time. Proving that sometimes maybe you really do need these signs.
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TV Violence Ahead of the Curve
In my last column I criticized Thai TV stations for airing what basically amount to snuff videos, repeatedly and pointlessly showing grisly murders caught on CCTV cameras on prime time news programmes, filling impressionable young minds with real images of murderous acts of violence served up as TV entertainment.
I was pleased to see a storm of criticism in the Thai and English-speaking press after my column appeared, saying exactly the same thing. Not before time.
Contact me at pattayatodaypete@yahoo.com
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