Loose of Limits

My favorite part of a dive is when the descent is over, I'm perfectly buoyant and I take my first calm breath 20 meters down and look around at my underwater world for the next hour. For me, there's nothing else like it. Tom's favorite moment is when we're at the surface, excitement and expectation running high for the dive about to come. We look around, regulators in place, making eye contact with our group. "Is everyone ready?" we mentally ask. 'OK' signal is given by all, followed by a down-pointing thumb. And then the real fun begins. From the moment we got our PADI Open Water certification in November, 2010, I've been hooked. At least once a week, I dream about diving, and sometimes I'm even swimming along side whales. Tom had the genius  idea for us to board a dive boat to explore Thailand's Surin and Similan Islands and - no surprise here - it turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life. We booked our trip with Similan Divin...

One of the strange things about traveling for such a long time is that we come across certain places to where one nationality flocks. There is usually no known reason why this happens, it just does. There were the scantily-clad Russians in Goa , the hash-smoking, guitar-playing Israelis in Hampi  and, when we visited Koh Lanta, Thailand , after our 3.5 weeks in Burma (wrap-up coming soon), we were surrounded by over-tanned, blonde-haired Swedes. The main reason we went to Koh Lanta was to brush up on our diving skills before we set out on a dive boat for 5 days. Koh Lanta is a very long island so while there may be a lot of people on the island, there are so many beaches that it never gets too crowded. We stayed on a quiet stretch of Koh Lanta's Long Beach at Palm Beach Bungalows and our hut was only 50 meters from the sea. Long Beach, Koh Lanta, Thailand

Just a little eye candy for you today! This pic was taken on an uninhabited beach in the Similan Islands off Thailand. The sand on these islands is so fine it feels like baking flour. Unbelievable! (Spoiler Alert: We just spent 5 fantastic days and nights on a liveaboard SCUBA dive boat! Update coming soon!) Photo by Adam Slater

After 3.5 months in India (India Wrap-Up post coming soon), we were in serious need of some wind-down time. Our biggest goal was to do nothing and to do it in the sun, on the beach, with a cocktail in-hand. So, on January 26, we flew to Bangkok, where we spent a few days in Bangkok with our friend, Jerome, who's British but has lived there for several years. He lives in a great corporate apartment in Sukhomvit neighborhood and we LOVED having our own room, a kitchen, air conditioning, a pool on the roof for a few days of R&R, and Hangover 2 jokes. While in Bangkok, we ran several errands and ate super tasty food, slept in, and arranged for our Burmese visa. Near Jerome's apartment, there's a shopping center where each floor is based on a famous world city. There are 2 San Francisco floors, and it nearly broke my heart in half to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the cable cars.  Jerome and me The Swains at the GGB