Expo this week offers great deals and great ideas for underwater adventurers

The Thailand Travel and Dive Expo, now in its seventh year, is proving quite buoyant despite all the current economic ballast. Returning on Thursday, it's packed with even more educational seminars and great bargains.

The beauty of Thailand's underwater territory draws divers from around the globe, but unlike treks on land, they invariably travel as a group when they venture beneath the waves, and diving trips need careful planning.

Among the interesting deals at this year's exposition are affordable travel fares and bonuses like Nok Air's willingness to haul 20 kilograms of luggage instead of 15 on being shown a diver ID.

Finding Nemo

The news media were recently treated to a junket to the Anantara Sikao Resort in Trang that included visits to dive sites off Si and Ya islands.

Equipped with compact Canon D10 cameras, some had a go at underwater photography, although visibility was poor off Koh Ya.

Nearby Koh Ma, popular among day-trippers and snorkellers, accommodated instead with plenty of photogenic Neptune's Cup sponges, lionfish, false clown anemone fish and nudibranchs.

The group was next taken to Tham Le Khao Kob in Huay Yod district, one of the province's best-known eco-adventure destinations. Hidden within a limestone mountain, the cave is a spelunker's Disneyland of magnificent stalagmites and stalactites.

You travel through by boat, lying low on the deck if you're smart, for about 350 metres through the cavern.

 FOLLOW THE BUBBLES

>> The Thailand Travel and Dive Expo runs from Thursday to Sunday at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.

>> It's open daily from 11 to 7.

>> Highlights include Sunday's workshop on underwater photography with award-winner Tony Wu of Antibes, France.

 >> On the Web: www.ThailandDiveExpo.com