All posts tagged: Ko Tao

“The Road Not Taken”

Two days ago, on March 3, 2015, I watched Netanyahu’s controversial speech to the US Congress in which he tried to persuade America not to make a deal with Iran on its nuclear program.  Since I swore not to get into political discussions after last summer’s war with Hamas, I will criticize Netanyahu for only one thing: misquoting Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken.” “You don’t have to read Robert Frost to know, the difficult path is usually the one less traveled, but it will make all the difference for the future of my country,” Netanyahu said, having probably never read the poem in its entirety. Actually, it is usually recommended that one reads the text one wishes to use to make a case, before one quotes said text. He apparently skipped this important step, otherwise he would know that both paths Frost speaks of are “less traveled by,” and Frost does not refer to difficulty being a characteristic of either. In fact, both are the same: “And both that morning equally lay/ In leaves no step had trodden black.” …

Pictures, Memories, and Lots of Fish: Diving in Koh Tao

Last October I completed a diving course with ScubaShack in Koh Tao, Thailand. The four-day course which was offered for a bargain price of 8,500 Baht certified me as a PADI licensed Open Water Diver and equipped me with a lovely little booklet in which to record the colorful fish I shall get to see in my future dives. The last day of the course was of course the highlight: two 18-meter dives in Chumphon Pinnacle and Hin Pee Wee. In anticipation of our first dive that morning, my friends Levent and Seda, and our instructor Claus boarded the dive boat at the unbearable hour of 05:45 am, thinking: “Why this Thai torture? Aren’t we on vacation?” ScubaShack is one of the earliest risers among tens of diving schools on the island famous for licensing the highest number of new divers. They torment their students with a 05:00 am wake-up call so that they may relish the wondrous magic of underwater Koh Tao, undisturbed by the hundreds of other divers who arrive at the very late hour …