Enjoying Simple Island Living in Koh Tao, Thailand
There’s a sense of community and antiquity on the small, secluded island Koh Tao. Life is simple, from a day spent lounging on the uncluttered beach outside your bungalow, to an everlasting nightlife of hammocks, mellow beats, conversation, and lanterns swinging from a canopy of trees overhead. Koh Tao is a community of shoestring travelers, local entrepreneurs, and expats living their dream—all jury-rigging Sairee Beach to make sanuk (the Thai philosophy of “fun”) happen. The ocean will serve your scuba-diving needs, but the beach and open, smiling people will serve your soul.
Startled awake in the dead of night, I look down to find a death grip around my arm and my travel partner rummaging through her backpack with a fear across her face like I’ve never seen. We’ve been on this rickety ferry — jam-packed with locals, on the floor and with assigned numbers — to the island of Koh Tao for nearly four hours. The water is rough, and after one particularly rocky wave, Andrea is now gathering her belongings in case we capsize. The trek from the Andaman Sea Coast to the Gulf of Thailand has not been easy; a tuk-tuk, two taxis, a coach bus and an overnight ferry. Rubbing my eyes of sleep, shadows of bodies hanging overboard match the sounds of vomit as we continue to rock up and down, from side to side. Finally, after four more sleepless hours later, the sun begins to rise as we make landfall on one of the most beautiful islands Thailand has to offer.
Forty feet under water off the coast of the Thai island of Koh Tao, my dive instructor signaled an O.K. to touch sign to me and pointed to a low lying, off-white coral. I reached for it and my fingers slipped around an Aloe Vera-like surface. Gently kicking my feet, I floated over the bed of soft coral, then took a deep breath through my air regulator and rolled onto my back. Silence and tranquility were mine. My air bubbles floated toward the surface of the water against a backdrop of ripples of gentle waves bleached white by the hot Thai sun. Rolling back on my stomach, I kicked forward and felt a pocket of warm water brush my skin as a school of small Barracuda glided past, lit silver and yellow by the sun’s penetrating light.
There’s a sense of community and antiquity on the small, secluded island Koh Tao. Life is simple, from a day spent lounging on the uncluttered beach outside your bungalow, to an everlasting nightlife of hammocks, mellow beats, conversation, and lanterns swinging from a canopy of trees overhead. Koh Tao is a community of shoestring travelers, local entrepreneurs, and expats living their dream—all jury-rigging Sairee Beach to make sanuk (the Thai philosophy of “fun”) happen. The ocean will serve your scuba-diving needs, but the beach and open, smiling people will serve your soul.
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