P'Om was apprehensive about my weekend plans. It had rained heavily all afternoon and I was set to get the night ferry across the well trodden toursit path to Koh Tao. Arriving at the pier just before 11pm it was anything but well trodden; our boat filled with fresh foods from the mainland was smattered with well-worn looking tourists, but mainly locals heading to see family over the weekend.
Despite being a foot too long for the bunk bed I manage to snatch some sleep as we wander, dazed into the silence of the early morning port. This, it turns out is the quietest it gets. As skies brighten more and more tourists appear sleepily out of their beachside hostels.
It is undeniably beautiful. The white sands and turquoise seas are breathtaking. Committing our one precious day to snorkelling round the entire island proved that the underwater world of Koh Tao is as phenomenal. Rainbow fish, electric blue fish, tiger fish, citrus-yellow fish all darting in and out of the corals un-bothered by the unelegeant floudering humans above.
We stumbled across a water-taxi man who was happy to take us for a far more reasonable price than the tourist boats, and definitely a much better and more relaxed experience as long as your not too worried about time-keeping.
Koh Tao is the epitome of the stereotyped Thai traveller and the cornucopia of massage palours, harem pants, denim shorts and house music that beats through the humid air sums up the audience it has been trained to cater for after hours.
It's odd being surrounded by so much Western lifestyle and fluent English after a long week of understanding very little and constantly alert to your new cultural surroundings. It's comforting for a while, but it's also just a little bit too easy and too well known.
When we get off the ferry and manage to leave the other tourists to their sleek sleeper buses, there's a feeling of relief and successes that we can opt out of the normal travelling agendas and return to the less predictable, more challenging and more rewarding lives as ETAs.
Despite being a foot too long for the bunk bed I manage to snatch some sleep as we wander, dazed into the silence of the early morning port. This, it turns out is the quietest it gets. As skies brighten more and more tourists appear sleepily out of their beachside hostels.
It is undeniably beautiful. The white sands and turquoise seas are breathtaking. Committing our one precious day to snorkelling round the entire island proved that the underwater world of Koh Tao is as phenomenal. Rainbow fish, electric blue fish, tiger fish, citrus-yellow fish all darting in and out of the corals un-bothered by the unelegeant floudering humans above.
We stumbled across a water-taxi man who was happy to take us for a far more reasonable price than the tourist boats, and definitely a much better and more relaxed experience as long as your not too worried about time-keeping.
Koh Tao is the epitome of the stereotyped Thai traveller and the cornucopia of massage palours, harem pants, denim shorts and house music that beats through the humid air sums up the audience it has been trained to cater for after hours.
It's odd being surrounded by so much Western lifestyle and fluent English after a long week of understanding very little and constantly alert to your new cultural surroundings. It's comforting for a while, but it's also just a little bit too easy and too well known.
When we get off the ferry and manage to leave the other tourists to their sleek sleeper buses, there's a feeling of relief and successes that we can opt out of the normal travelling agendas and return to the less predictable, more challenging and more rewarding lives as ETAs.