English Scuba Lessons in Seoul, Korea Don't Waste Your Vacation Time    Both of my 'greatest' dive experiences are on this page: one in Thailand and the other in Malaysia, off the island of Borneo. The first section below describes my diving in Thailand; the second describes Malaysia. THAILAND: To divers who ask about Thailand, I would strongly suggest southern Thailand. Above water, Thailand is a beautiful country just about everywhere, but if you are more interested in the beauty underwater, southern Thailand is your best option. I've had much better dive experiences out of Phuket and Koh Phi Phi in southern Thailand than I have had off the northern Thai islands of Koh Tao, Koh Samui and Koh Pahngan. The variety of marine life you can see on just a single dive in Southern Thailand is staggering, while in northern Thailand, you are either struggling to see through poor visibility or schools of other divers. Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little here, but I really do think the diving is better in the south. Also, it is true that Thailand can seem to be overrun with tourists, especially in the high season between December and March. Unlike the Philippines, it is extremely rare to be on a dive boat, van, bus or ferry boat that isn't jam packed with other people. In some cases, you will see more divers than fish. The bottom line is that if you want a good dive experience in Thailand, choose your dive sites and dive shops well. Research the sites on the internet so you will have a good expectation of what you will see. Once in Thailand, shop around at the different dive sites and make sure to ask how many divers have signed up for the next day's dives. PHUKET: Phuket is a mad house--teeming with tourists who are there to party in town and on the beach. Diving off the crowded beaches of Phuket or the towns to the south--Karon and Kata--is not recommended as visibility is usually quite poor. You might also have the danger of jet skis whizzing along above. Most dive shops take you further out to sea: day trips from Phuket usually go to Racha Noi or Racha Yai, the King Cruiser (large ferry boat) wreck or even all the way over to Koh Phi Phi. In Phuket, I highly recommend signing up for a liveaboard cruise out to the Similian Islands. I did this in January 2002. I got very lucky as I walked into a dive shop (Santana) and asked about liveaboards. They had a cruise ship going out at 5 p.m. that day with 8 cabins--normally it is two divers per cabin, but they only had 7 divers signed up. I was the 8th diver, so I got a cabin to myself, and they gave me a discount to $500 for the trip: 4 nights and 3 days; 4 dives a day. It worked out like this: you wake up at about 7 a.m. and do your first dive at 8. Then you have breakfast while the boat is motoring to the next dive site. Second dive is at about 11:30 to noon. Lunch follows, as you go to the next site. Third dive is at about 3:30 and then dinner is served. (The food, by the way, was plentiful and great--Thai and German). Then, if you want, the night dive is at around 7 p.m. Before this liveaboard cruise, I had just come from Koh Tao, where I was very disappointed in the poor visibility. On the first morning of this cruise, I was waiting on the surface of the ocean for the last of the divers to make their entry from the boat. I defogged my mask and then took a 'sneak peek' at the bottom below to check the visibility. I still vividly remember thinking "Holy S***!!" when I saw how clear the water was. I have never dived in water that clear before, or since. During this trip, we hit seven different dive sites. The best one was Koh Tachai because of three large manta rays that came in and hovered over our group. We were supposed to hit other dive sites that day, but we all voted to stay at that same site to keep seeing the mantas. By our third dive, word had gotten out over the radio and many dive boats in the area converged on that spot. Before that, we were usually the only dive group in the area. This site also had a very beautiful coral garden with a gentle current sweeping over it, so you could just hover and slowly drift over. There were many, many fish at all the dive sites--in my logbook, I kept noting 'became surrounded by school of fish'. There are parrotfish, flute fish, lion fish, lots of triggers, groupers, barracuda, moray eels, big rays, and occasional sharks (whitetip and leopard), sea snakes and turtles. The coral at these sites was in great health--very beautiful. One site in particular--Christmas Point had two very scenic swimthroughs where the sunlight came down in shafts through the jumble of rocks overhead. I don't have a single favorite dive site: the Similian Islands shares this distinction with Sipidan, in Malaysia, described below. KOH PHI PHI: There is good diving just 5-10 minutes away from the beach, so I'd recommend staying at one of the many resorts/smaller hotels on the island instead of taking the 30-40 minute dive boat from Phuket. I dove here in January 2003, one year before the tsunami hit. I haven't been back since, not because of the big wave, but just because I went elsewhere. On many dives, I was surprised by the variety of marine life I saw on just one dive. There were many different species of reef fish plus turtles, schools of squid, cuttlefish, lion fish, and moray eels. On one dive, I swam around a coral outcropping to intercept a 5-foot long leopard shark, and came face to face with it. We both slowed to a stop just a few feet from each other, then instead of taking off to the deep blue, it slowly turned toward the coral reef and swam through the rest of the divers in the group! I would recommend Koh Phi Phi as a dive destination, but it can get a bit overcrowded on the island. KOH TAO: Koa Tao has been described as a 'mecca' for divers, but I have no idea why. I've been there twice, and will probably never go back. Hordes of tourists, most of whom have never dived before, descend on this island in droves. Koh Tao is more like a factory, churning out newly certified divers at mass production rates. This is probably due to the fact that open water certification can be gotten here for cheap--typically around $US 250 for the full course (2005 prices--before PADI started requiring all open water students to buy the textbook.) However, I wouldn't recommend doing open water certification here simply because, as with almost all tourist-related things in Thailand, the shop/agency tries to cram as many tourists as possible into whatever event is going on. The usual ratio of students to instructor for dive training in confined or open water is 8 to one, but this can be increased with divemaster assistants. This means very little personal attention as the instructor tries to cram the skills into as little time as possible so the other 7-9 students don't get bored waiting around for others to finish their skill. In my personal experience, I think having groups of 4 in the pool is quite enough. Otherwise, the other students may get bored if one student needs to practice the skills a bit longer than normal. Air consumption becomes a factor. If two students are struggling with the skills, these concerns start to snowball. Anyway, if you are interested in doing a divemaster or instructor's course, then Koh Tao is a great choice--you'll get lots of experience. But if you're just starting out and would like to get personal attention during your training, I'd stay away from Koh Tao.