Koh Tao
Trip Start
May 07, 2005
1
71
117
Trip End
Ongoing
Ko Tao,
Thailand
Friday, January 6, 2006
We just didn't get a good feeling on Ko Samui so we took the ferry to Ko Tau. It's a small island with some remote beaches that is mostly used for scuba diving. The main beach has a fair sized town where you can buy things. It's expensive (by Thai standards) because everything must be imported.
We foolishly picked Tanote Bay to stay on. The only way to get there is to take a 4 wheel drive taxi. It isn't very far but takes over half an hour because the "road" is so bad. The beach is about a quarter mile of coastline with nine resorts (bungalow operations) and two diving operations. The first bungalow we stayed at cost 250 Baht per night (about $6). It was very nice although it didn't have air conditioning. We got their just at the end of monsoon season and it rained quite a bit for the first few days. It was a welcome change from Egypt where we only saw clouds once and we enjoyed reading books in the hammock with the cooling rain around us.
After a few days we moved to bungalows farther down the beach to be closer to a dive shop. We splurged on a larger bungalow for 500 Baht per night with a western toilet
Dave in Hammock
. Dave took a diving class but mostly we just read books, walked, and swam. Someone showed Dave how to open coconuts so we had fun hunting for them and ate lots of them. After a week or so we got itchy for conveniences. It was a bumpy 30 minute ride just to go to the store. One place had internet but only after 7pm and it was slow, expensive, and only worked one third of the time. Each resort has a restaurant and ours had a pet otter. It was the cutest thing. They didn't know how old it was, they just saw an old man selling it so they snatched it up. It liked to bite and had sharp teeth.
Ko Tao was a lovely beach break a nice island experience. It is one of the best and cheapest places to scuba dive in Thailand and I'd recommend it for that.
