Sailing early in the morning
We were catching a ferry to Koh Tao, early this morning…and I mean early. The pair of us were up at 5am, before the crack of dawn. Within a quarter of an hour, we were packed, suited, booted, and handing our key in to reception. Luckily, our reception area was the pickup point of the bus that will take us to the ferry that goes to Koh Tao. Said bus arrived at our reception at around 5:30am. It proceeded to take us around the town to pick up all the other passengers; I wouldn’t have thought there were so many backpackers in this small town.
Whilst we were at the dock waiting to board, sunrise broke, and everyone stood still, admiring the array of colours that split open on the horizon. After several minutes, we were ushered onto the ferry, stowing our main luggage in the centre of the ferry. We found our seats at the front of the ferry, and once everyone was on board, we began our journey to Koh Tao. It was said to be a 3-hour voyage, so Mat and I decided to get some kip if we could. This was not an easy feat as I was too long for the row of seats, so my feet were hanging over the edge. In addition to this, it seemed there was aircon at the front of the ferry bellowing out very cold air. Despite the odds, I did manage to get some sleep in somehow.
Scouting the island
After a few hours of voyaging on the ferry, we made it to land, in the shape of Koh Tao. Once we’d docked, we picked up our gear and promptly left the freezing seating area, and onto the baking beach. Our hostel was a mere 6-minute walk away from the pier, and it was called Moov Inn Garden Hostel. It was a nice place, with good facilities such as ping pong table, a dart board, great seating area, and also a PS4 with Netflix and other platforms available to watch. However, we couldn’t check in until 1pm, so we decided to scout the surrounding area.
Our primary objective was to find the scuba diving centre where we’ll be doing our Advanced Open Water course, starting tomorrow. The main hub of activity was fairly compact, and it only took us 10 minutes or so to get to the dive centre. Once we’d found it, we had some lunch at a restaurant about 20 metres away from the centre. I had another Thai curry, and again it was delicious and creamy, loving Thai food. After we had loitered long enough, we made our way back to the hostel to check in.
Admiring the view
Once we’d reached the hostel and checked in, we went to our rooms to check out our beds. However, we did get slightly side tracked. Venom was on the TV, so we decided to stick around and watch this for an hour or so. Mat and I also had a bit of fun playing darts in the recreation area. Once we’d exhausted our arms playing darts, we finally headed to the dorm to claim our beds. Now we were settled in, the next objective on the agenda was to visit a viewpoint along the southern coast.
The walk there wasn’t too interesting, it was around a 40-minute walk and most of it was along the road. It was interesting to see the islanders’ way of life though, the different shops, buildings, and stalls. To get into the viewpoint, it cost us 50 baht each; the upside was that we got a voucher for a free bottle of water once we got in. The walk, I must say, was baking hot the entire way. Within the confines of the viewpoint, there was a small tower which provided a 360-degree view of the island, ocean, and the coast. The view was extremely superb I must say. There was also a bar and bean bags within the little complex, so we settled in for a while and admired the view.
It turns out this wasn’t the viewpoint we were aiming for, but it was very nice and we weren’t disappointed at all.
Bane of my life
After some time, we decided to leave and get some food as it had been a while. We got some chicken skewers from some of the stalls we saw on the way here. They were delicious, and came smothered in a sauce…the dog didn’t take the hint that he couldn’t have any though! We found a small restaurant close to our hostel, so we chowed down here. The mosquitoes were back in force, and were sincerely annoying the hell out of Mat and I. The woman did try to help with some mosquito repellent, but these buggers were persistent.
To make things a bit better, her family member’s baby was here, and she was extremely cute, perhaps 2 or 3 years old. She had a balloon she was playing with, and it was adorable, she was so happy. After our dinner, we decided to turn in for the night, trying to contain our excitement for tomorrow’s scuba diving.
