THAILAND: KOH TAO AT CHRISTMAS

"Back to the island…"

When I first came to Thailand 4 years ago, Koh Tao was my favourite island so I was excited. On the boat from the mainland I got to watch the sunset behind a load of storm clouds with a front seat to the lighting show.

We finally arrived after a long ass day of travelling and got to our hotel to dump our bags, look and smell nice to go out for Christmas Eve!

The only similarity with this Christmas Eve was that I was very, very drunk! There was a lot of rain too, a lot like the UK. And boy did it rain! But I’m not going to be huddled under shelter unable to move. That was it. It took about 3 minutes until I was soaking wet through. Everyone else followed me into the rain as it wasn’t looking like it was going to stop and the rain in Asia is nice rain! And who said dancing in the rain was boring?

A few more buckets later, no idea how we got home, but it was Christmas Day and I had the worst hangover of life. I made an effort as it was Christmas Day and all that. We sat by the pool and ordered pizza. Then I didn’t know whether to be sick or go to sleep, definitely chose the latter. A few hours later we woke up fresher and headed down to the beach. Paddling in the sea, in the glorious sun on Christmas Day ey! That was a first. We had a corn on the cob cooked right in front of us where he lathered it in butter and sprinkled salt, just what I needed for this hangover, it was delicious! Me and Gabbie then stayed to watch the Christmas Day sunset and we were not disappointed, the colours and cloud formations were stunning.

Then it was time for Christmas dinner and what better way to end our non traditional Christmas Day with a curry!

Boxing Day was spent at NangYuan Island, a small island just 15 mins by long tail boat off Koh Tao. NangYuan is 3 islands connected by sand. I visited 4 years ago and it still looked just as beautiful but after comparing the photos the sand area had reduced in size. In just 4 years! The sea is beautifully clear and that perfect blue that everyone is always trying to reach! It really is beautiful and I felt privileged to have visited twice!

It started to rain again, but as the rain had moved on into the distance you could see the rain falling from the sky against the sun setting, this was cool to watch.

We ended our day at Sunset Bar which had beautiful views of the west coast of Koh Tao, even at night.

The next day was spent by the infinity pool. It turned out our hostel was on site of a reasonably nice hotel resort and we were allowed to use their facilities! Winning! Me and Gabbie walked around Chalok Bay to find somewhere for breakfast and stumbled upon this cute cafe/restaurant with decking overlooking the sea with comfy bean bag beds and a pool. We ordered eggs and smoked salmon with a fruit smoothie. As we left we saw a sign for yoga classes so of course we had to check it out. Turns out there was a sunset yoga class on the decking upstairs overlooking the sea. We put our names down.

After a nice chilled time at the pool it was time for yoga. The yoga teacher was South African and had a nice Hatha flow. It was slow but had many hip opening poses, which for me I really struggle with, but being able to gaze out towards the sea with the sun slowly setting creating beautiful colours in the sky was a major plus. After we came out of a nice, calm savasana, Gabbie turned to me and said imagine if this was your job? Oh I wish it was! With that class of 7 she earned 2,100 baht which is approx £42!

This led to a lot of reflection. I have met so many people out here already doing what I want to do, working and travelling and they have all told me that it’s the best thing they’ve ever done.

*mind went into planning mode*