Sidebar in Koh Tao
Koh Tao is kind of like Pai, if a little more greedy. The abundance of rich tourists coming from beach resorts or for diving certificates or anything else is pretty extreme. Apparently the island is also owned by a few Mafia families that pool power over the tourist hotspot. [Read the end for a tip to avoid these people. TL;DR? Rent beat up scooters]
But otherwise the locals are friendly and kind. One night, I fifth wheel Roy and Chantal and a Austrian punk rock couple as we attend the Queen’s Cabaret show in the Sairee bar strip. It definitely wasn’t drag. However, it was surprisingly well done. Though be warned, the speakers are a little screechy. I had to sit outside for a cig to rest my ear drums.
The bars are backpacker fun, with some interesting things like trivia night or fire spinning or simply being on the beach. Maya had a great house-tech-house DJ on the beach and paddles boards for use [including, very clever, as a table to hold beers while you drink and float in the water]. Chopper’s is a nice sports pub.
My Austrian friend got a razor shave that was done so quick and professional he fell asleep twice.
We had a great meal at Babaloo and then some.
There’s an excellent bar [Jim’s Bar] atop Mango View Point, very nice view and cool people.
But the reason I left the Pai-radise of Northern Thailand, and what has brought flocks of people to Koh Tao, is scuba diving. Specifically, I came with the intention to get an Advance diving license. I have always had a deep connection with the water from summers at the beach and fishing to the 20 years I spend swimming competitively. My parents have taken us scuba diving in Greece back in the early 2000s. Both my brother and I wanted to complete a license, but we simply didn’t have the days. Instead we always promised to get certified to buddy check each other on future explorations.
Koh Tao is exactly the place to do it as upon arriving from the Ferry, you are assaulted by dive schools up the main strip. Going north or south will lead to more schools. They dot the island more densely then… I literally can’t think of a comparison. There are a lot
-
Getting to Koh Tao:
[So I paid 1300 Baht or about 35$ to get a combined bus and ferry ticket to Koh Tao. I took the Lompraya service, slightly more expensive but the times are nicer. It’s an 7-8hr trip all told. You arrive to Chumpon at 5/6am, just in time for the sunrise. It was very foggy when I arrived so there wasn’t a sun, but I bummed on the little beach for a nap. They stop at a bus stop for food and snacks and the ferry port has food, but I would recommend just bringing enough 7/11 for 8 hours and waiting until getting on the island for a meal. The ferry leaves at 7am and you arrive on Ko Tao at 8:30am]
I shop around my dive school for a little but all the prices are pretty standardized and I no longer have the freedom of time [I have literally left 6 days on my visa because Paihole] and don’t really care about negotiating a few dollars after finding a 3$ hostel to stay the entire week.
But Ocean Republic’s Jonathan was very kind to me and they were fairly empty. Good for me as I wanted the individual attention over the group activity. The diving instructors were super fun and welcoming so I felt like family. I could bum around the shop whenever, get a coffee or tea or some cookies and shoot the shit. Or take naps on the couch upstairs. That feel really made my experience in Koh Tao.
-
-
We did 12 dives over 5 days to make my certification. The feel of the water is something I’ll never get tired of. Something about discarding gravity also discards responsibility and stress. I remember it must have been day 3, I was getting tired from all the learning and lessons, as well as trying to cram my eyes into every single thing to maximize my underwater experiences, craning to see the Big animals like whale sharks or sea turtles or moray eels. Suddenly, I just surrendered and beyond was the incredible experience of simply being a dozen meters underwater, tourist to a world unlike anything else on the planet.
The sea life is as vibrant as land life if not more so. Coral reefs are metropolises of fish and wildlife. It’s such a novel experience to be slowly descending in to the depths, where a strange weightlessness gives way to a motionlessness gives way to the majestic, alien world outside of you.
I took note of the garbage and trash on the seafloor and how destructive it is as a thing. Pouring liquid brown sludge from a beer can underwater really changed my perspective on cigarette butts. Picking up errant plastic bits and bags change how I thought about our poor attempts to recycle and our even less effective attempts to reduce. And picking up champagne bottles and beer cans changed how I thought about casual littering and where that ends up.
What it came down to is I had an excellent life. Boat rides were excuses to tan or nap or eat fruit and crackers as the waves rolled you into the next diving spot. A new world to discover.
The Japanese garden was cool, with artistic artificial reefs. Big statues and creations were home to hundreds of fish and invertebrates.
White rock was a ridiculous natural structure and the sea life there was very diverse. I saw a lion fish and multiple moral eels and fleets of silver barracuda swarms with their big dead eyes. Mantis shrimp and stingrays and grouper and giant oysters.
Chumpon Point was the deepest point and the swim through was really fun but it visibility became shit after 25 meters. Apparently water conditions change that far down and make it unreliable.
Though Koh Tao diving was excellent, and exploring the island was fun, food was sadly lacking. Most establishments were huge, expensive, vacation restaurants and none of the food I ate compared to anything else in Mainland Thailand [Babaloo being an exception. And I hear Barracuda is great too.] But it was all expensive. I paid 200 baht for 3 tacos. Terrible deal! If I hadn’t wanted tacos so bad!
Another. I got fucked out of 300$. During a trek up to the Mango View Point, I slip on the extreme slope, scratching myself and the bike. My knee turned purple and bloody, much worse than the little scratch on the bike. Having given up my passport as collateral, I had no choice but pay exorbitant fix up costs. This was the stupidest mistake I made while abroad and thinking about it makes my collar hot. I knew something was weird when the bike I rented was like new. The bikes in Pai are veterans of scraps and falls. But these were freshly painted traps, especially given the road conditions.
Overall, I’d say Koh Tao was nice, definitely worth the diving, but not much else besides. Too touristy. Too expensive. Not as much culture. Northern Thailand, best Thailand.
