Laid Back Living on Turtle Island

Out of all the amazing islands we've touched on our Asian adventure, Koh Tao, “Turtle Island,” just might be my favorite.

Getting here from Koh Lanta was another full day sitting in the back of a hot, crowded shuttle van and equally overcrowded catamaran fast boat.

Bates Motel

Once our boat docked at the pier at night, we faced another problem – finding somewhere to sleep. We tried booking on trusty Hostelworld that morning, but every hostel/guesthouse was full. We assumed once on land we'd have no problem, but no such luck.

After two hours of lugging our backpacks up and down Sairee Beach, we finally found a resort with an open bungalow. Even though it didn't have A/C and only one bed, it was better than the dusty streets. Or so we thought.

Once we made Jess and ferret (her pet neck pillow) a makeshift towel bed on the 'loft' area, we all gave into fatigue…until the most terrifyingly close mammal purr/call/grumble shocked us awake. Some unidentifiable creature was definitely living under the bed, in the walls or in the sheets with us.

We never technically saw anything, but we were not alone. After tearing our bungalow apart, we decided it went to sleep and so should we. About ten minutes into our slumber, fearless Jess felt something crawling on her. Once the lights were on, we discovered a massive flying maroon cockroach. Screams and fruitless swatting later, we lost this guy too.

The fear factor is our bugalow stayed at about a 20 for the rest of the sleepless night. Even with the lights on, we were all constantly spazzing and leaping out of bed over potential creepy crawlers and occasional howls from our mystery monster.

Once the sun rose, we regained our wits, got the heck out of there and moved into a beautiful beachfront hostel.

Beach Bliss

Sure the first night was a nightmare, but the beauty of this island more than made up for it.

Koh Tao is world famous for scuba diving and free diving, and it's incredibly cheap to get your open water, but we opted to stay on land.

Even though we technically didn't do anything besides enjoy the beach, noodles and nightlife, we had a great time and really felt like we were on a true holiday here.

I absolutely recommend Koh Tao to anyone traveling in Thailand.

 

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