There isn’t a real University of Koh Tao, not that I am aware of anyway. But Sairee Beach has so many resemblances to a college campus, I thought the name was apt.

Most people seem to be here to study. Study scuba, that is. You initially try to schedule your classes/dives in the afternoon, so you can sleep late, but then you realize that the best classes/dives are in the morning, so you suck it up and enroll in the program for which you must arise at 6 am. Some people are clearly here to learn, then get out to the big wide world of Other Dive Sites. Others start learning here, decide to stay, and eventually become instructors or part of the infrastructure. Town/gown relations seem to be good; the ladies who work reception at our bungalows seem to like us, as do the Thai folks at the various places we go, and the Thai folks on staff at our dive school (all of the support staff, from the boat captain to reception to the guys who fill the tanks).

Of course, there are the occasional irks of college life. I missed hearing Phil Hartnoll of Orbital and a bunch of other good djs play the other night because I had a big test our first deep water dive that morning. Well, I sort of missed it. I wasn’t there. But I actually woke up at 4:30 am thinking, oh my god that’s beautiful music… The party was still raging, and loud enough that I could hear it halfway down the beach. It was lovely to lie there and listen for a while, and then get an extra hour of sleep before the deep dives.

I missed the party, but I did take a great extracurricular – I took a flying trapeze class. The owner of the shop, a pleasant woman, has a nice rig and her lesson down to a science. First, on a static trapeze, they show you how to go from hanging by your hands to hanging by your knees (you have to kick up at the very end of the swing, and not before!) Then you swing from your knees, stretching your arms like superman and arching your back. It is from this position that you make contact with the catcher – you grab each others arms and release the knees from your own bar! You are flying!

I also learned how to let go of the trapeze and do a full somersault before landing on the net. It was so much fun that I would have kept doing it every day were we not diving every day. As it is, I will definitely try it again in SF. Don’t worry, mom, in addition to the net there was also a belt with ropes attached to slow and control your fall. It was very safe; probably the most dangerous part was climbing the ladder.

If this is a university, the mascot would certainly be the Siamese cat. We have seen them elsewhere in Thailand, but never in such abundance as here. It appears to be a recessive coat color rather than a special breed, about as rare as tortoiseshell cats in the states.

– the private eye

Ps. diving has been amazing too, but the professor has written so much about that, I will skip it.