After lazing around for a few days now I am excited that my friend from home, Adam is coming out to Koh Tao as he is also on the backpacker trail. It will be so nice to have a piece of back home here with me especially a northern lad who is not afraid of a bit of banter and drinking!
We decide the best way to see this amazing island is to hire motor bikes, well they are more like granny scooters but without the wire bucket at the front, but this is how everyone gets around. You don’t even need to have a driving licence to hire one of these but luckily Adam has a full uk motorbike licence and I’m stubborn enough to make sure I wear a dorky helmet that I feel safe.
We drive off and once out of the beach side town of Sairee where I have been staying the island looks more like a jungle with the odd road thrown in. Even though I dissed the granny bike she can definitely get her speed up and we are soon at ‘Shark Bay’, this beautiful private cove where you have to go down this almost vertical drop and rocky steps to get to. Once there the sand is much coarser and full of washed up shells and broken coral, we don our very fetching snorkelling gear and dive in.
*embarrassing truth* I have never snorkelled before. I don’t like the feeling of my face and head completely submerged but then you can still breathe. It’s not natural! But chomping on the salty plastic mouth piece I give it a go. Once I get past the weird feeling it is actually pretty amazing. I wasn’t prepared for all the fish you could see without having to go full on scuba diving. Bright yellow, rainbow colours, electric blue and shimmering silver fish all danced past. I didn’t get out of the water until my whole body was like a prune as it was fascinating just watching them go about whatever they were wanting to do. I wonder if they have a to do list from when they wake up with chores and people to see that day? Finding nemo has a lot to answer for.
On our way back from the bay our stomachs were telling us its time for food so we stopped by this restaurant high in the hills. The guy outside said ‘oh we have a swimming pool here that you can use as well’, fantastic as we were covered in sweat and sea water. Err that dude didn’t tell us that the pool was an infinity pool over looking the ocean! We were like giddy children desperate to belly flop straight in but as there were some very rich people around (this was part of a posh hotel) we had to return to the reserved British we are and daintily dip our feet in. Opportunity wasted but the view still made up for it!
Snorkel style!
Penelope pit stop eat your heart out
Just a normal swimming pool?!
