Koh Tao – a soon to be lost paradise?

Unlike Rhodes (Greece), last summer, Koh Tao has managed to keep the masses out from its shores. It might be a result of the fact that there are many parts in Koh Tao’s roads which are not paved, ergo the people demanding maximum comfort do not find the island an attractive choice. It might also be the fact that there are literally tens of diving schools in the island, which, for an island of this small size, is if you ask me quite a lot. Diving then is the main attraction to come to Koh Tao. Personally, I find the island quite pleasing because there is a lot of space on the beach to bask in the sun. I.e. my ear drums can cope with the environment. Don’t get me wrong, Koh Tao is very lively with its hundred’ish restaurants, add a few clubs and pubs/bars and there’s lot of night life here. In another bar there is a full-on party while in the other there is a movie on display when the dusk is starting to take hold of the sky. For example, today a bar/restaurant shows “The Hurt Locker”, which has one some awards and is, in my mind, a very good movie.

Apparently there are more things on Koh Tao than we have explored here (which is not that much), but the main area definitely is the Sairee beach, which is lined with all of the main stuff: the restaurants, clubs, bars, bungalows, hostels, diving schools and their resorts, 7/11’s (why is it spread out to everywhere? :) ), ATMs, street vendors, clothes stores, Internet cafe’s, pharmacies.. whatever one would desire here. There are also lot of stores and places to go near the piers, but we have not hanged out there that much… Once we went there though for a breakfast with two Finnish girls I met on the ferry on the way here: Jonna & Hanna. Jonna is Koh Tao enthusiast apparently knowing some of the divers in the Koh Tao Divers (a Finnish diving school here, whose services I also utilized, more of that later) :). The breakfast was soo good with something closest to rye bread I have tasted on this trip (apart from Transmongolian train and Christmas), the bread had some gouda cheese in it plus pesto.. Silja, I think (she’s on the beach so no confirmation available) tasted Parma ham with her rye bread. So good.

On one day we walked a bit further from the centrum. We wanted to walk to a place called the view point. The view point was in the high grounds in the middlish of the island. We walked there by foot whilst the lazy westerners :) drove past us every minute with their enduro’s, scooters, mopeds, mönkijät or buggies. We concentrated on listening the sounds of the nature. In the jungle of Koh Tao we christened there to be amongst others two kinds of birds: rubber duck bird (kumiankkalelu), which made the squeeking sound the rubber thingies do when you squeeze them in the bath or wherever. The other bird or maybe it was an insect, was circular saw (sirkkeli) animal. It made a kind of an accelerating, uniform and then decelerating sounds which resembled completely the sound that is made by a circular saw. The beautiful views from the view point towards the Sairee beach and the piers were disrupted only by the talk of the people who kept up this view point bar up there with no customers and floors made out of half-broken planks. But the trip there and back – man it can get sweaty in this climate; it is hot and humid all the time. Fortunately it does not feel as hot as in Bangkok due to the ocean breeze and… well I don’t know. Maybe there are other factors like traffic emission fumes but it certainly feels better here.

The other day I took did scuba diving and it was awesome! The diving school Koh Tao Divers with Finnish people instructing (actually the whole island seems to be composed of Europeans, of which not so small amount are Finnish people. There are more Finnish people here than in any previous place we have visited on this trip, from youngsters to families to grannies/granpas) was in my mind a good idea to properly understand the diving procedure, if you will. Due to lack of time and money I only took a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving), which though is valid for one year’s time if I decided to do the PADI Open Water certification, which would grant me a life-time of scuba diving without an instructor (in certain limits of course). The most important thing I learned was a bit like in the hill-climbing in Vang Vieng: know how the components comprise the big picture and know how to operate them in a safe way. Knowing what is the underwater signaling, what to do in case of emergencies and most importantly, got to see some marine freaks. Definitely worth trying if you have not done it!

Today (27th) we went for a perfect trip. For 750 baht we got to snorkel around in various locations around Koh Tao and finally ending up to a small island beside Tao called Koh Nanguyan. It was semily as if from the movie “The Beach”, a true tropical paradise. The trip started at 9.00 a.m., included some snacks, water and tea, lunch and the gear. Only thing we did NOT see was rays or stingrays, which would have been awesome. I saw a shark and swam above it (maybe 0.5 m away), following it for some one minute. Don’t worry, the sharks there do not bite :). The reefs were beautiful with lot of funny looking fishes, of all sizes and colours. Especially beautiful was a fish that we christened to be “diskovalokala”, which roughly means “the fish with disco lights” – the colours on it were magnificent. Silja states having seen a sea urchin (merisiili) with 15 cm long spikes wrapping around them.

Other than that we have been laying at the beach, eating good food (once again there is good thai food here, but the länkkäriruoka is as well edible here, it is well-made and tasty. One funny thing about these cities/towns we have visited is that every one of them have had at least one organic café/restaurant. It is a good thing and I hope people would use these more and more to give a good sign for this type of service. I hope in Finland there are by now tens of these kinds of restaurants! There are, right?!

About the accommodation.. There are so nice-looking bungalows along the Sairee beach with hammocks and stuff on the porch, but I figure they would be quite expensive. So, now we are living in a semi-bungalow, from which – we heard – stuff has been stolen. Unaware of this I tried to search the accommodation with one prerequisite: it needs to have safety lockers. And yes we have. And we definitely are not leaving anything worth stealing to our room. In addition to a fan, shower, toilet and a bed for two, we have cockroaches running around. Even my OFF insect repellent did not do the trick. I poured a few drops on one of the bastards.. it just wringled its antennas for a while and then went away. Speaking of insects, my official, acknowledged and verified amount of mosquito bites is at the moment: 2. Once they got me here in a restaurant at the dawn of dusk. The other time was in my bed. And once more I may have been bitten but I did not feel anything even though the mosquito hanged out on me for a good while of time. Koh Tao is supposedly free of malaria but dengue fever is omnipresent at these latitudes, so if I get high fever in coupla weeks, I probably have it. And then I hope I will not get bitten again.


While Silja will continue her search for serenity (we have been reading a couple of Buddhist book/booklets with lot of good advices) here in Koh Tao, I will witness once more the stupidity of youth by attending the Full-Moon Party in Koh Pha Ngan on 1st of March. I will leave for Koh Pha Ngan (an island to south from Koh Tao) on the morning of 28th. I also heard the little island beside Pha Ngan is the place where they shot some of the scenes in the movie “The Beach” (I thought the views were magnificent and I thought I would really want to go there.. so now I may see them \o/). With Silja we will next collaborate in Koh Samui. I said she would have to accompany me for some bungee-jumping just for some mental support :).