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The characters change, once again, while this drama, that we have begun to unfold, over the past five months slowly takes shape. Rochelle, the slip in, slip out, see ya when I get there, "queen" decided, as we, by this time, well knew, "...two weeks is not enough time to see Vietnam." When we left with Josh to go back to Bangkok, she stayed.

We arrived in Bangkok International for our third time since leaving Minnesota. Thirteen hours later, Josh left the New Siam Guest House at 4 am to go to the airport for his third departure. Josh left for Bali, and if you check the Timezone7 homepage you shall have no fear "The Josher" will be heard from and seen again on this website!

The same evening of the morning Josh left, the third mattress in the New Siam attic, which appears to have been constructed and assembled between the time we asked, "Do you have a three bed room?" and, "We have your room ready!", was filled by Robbie Saeks, our childhood mate. Rob was visiting Thailand from his home in LA, to do some diving and vacationing. Being gentleman we escorted Robert to Ko San Road on his arrival for late night antics and street food snacks the moment he arrived (11:43 p.m.). We decided jet lag would not be allowed to catch up with Robbie until we were on our way to our next destination - Phuket!

A large, hot, Mecca of tourist hell, the island of Phuket is connected to Thailand's mainland by bridge and is surrounded by beautiful white sand beaches and crystal clear turquoise water. Throughout the islands innards are thick, deep, jungle greens. The people were warm and gentle, generally well fed, happy and busy. The beaches were either full of European, tour-packaged tourists or completely desolate. Cruise ships would pull into the port, and hordes of polyester clad, pale skins, would buy thousands of items, from fake Ray Ban sunglasses to bootleg copies of the latest video games for their children's Sony Playstations.

Besides beaches, go-go bars, tee shirts and trinkets, the main attraction in Phuket is scuba diving. Every corner is bound to have at least two dive shops, a money exchange counter, and a Kodak development shop. We wanted to dive at the Similan Islands, located off the west coast of Phuket, in the Andaman Sea, alleged to be one of the best diving spots on the planet. The best way to do this seemed to be a much out of our budget, live-aboard boat trip, for five days. Upon arrival, after searching for hours to find a room for the three of us costing less then 1500 bhat($40), we wondered randomly from dive shop to dive shop inquiring about prices for a live-aboard trip. As usual, the best deal was found in the shop was right around our corner.

When Oliver, at Pioneer Dive Asia, told us of the Similan Island - Whale Shark Expedition-lasting 5 days and nights, we thought, "Why not!?". Whale sharks are the worlds largest fish and there was a quasi-guarantee to see a Whale Shark on the flyer we were shown. The trip was in the Similans, which was where we wanted to go anyway, and it was the best price we had found; so we went with it.