Thailand, Koh Tao: Our Brush With Jaws

Our next to last island destination in Thailand, on our 12-month round the world (or at least visit to a good portion of the world) trip, was the island of Koh Tao. Luckily, we invested a good amount of time exploring the possibility of spending an extra day in Koh Tao without losing time on the island of Koh Samui or in Thailand's capital, Bangkok. As mentioned in our Koh Samui travel journal, we found a travel company which does same-day trips to Bangkok from Koh Tao, using a fast catamaran and large air-conditioned bus. We were not due to arrive in Bangkok until the 1st of March and using the same-day option instead of overnight travel meant we would gain an extra day in Koh Tao and only miss out on part of a day in Bangkok.

Despite a stop at Koh Phangan, the boat trip from Koh Samui to Koh Tao took less than two hours and in no time, we were on our second island off the eastern coast of Thailand. Koh Tao was the first place we visited where we had no accommodation pre-booked. Upon arrival at the pier, we were overwhelmed with attention; there were loads of taxi drivers around us, all shouting at once and offering us places to stay. We liked what the guys promoting Tanote Family Bay Resort had to say, as they reassured us that we could find a bungalow for 300 Baht per night (£4.50 or $8 USD). A couple of French women passed by at this time and said they had just stayed at Tanote Bay for a few days and that the bay was very beautiful. Our decision was made right at that moment.

It was only the next morning when we realised that there was a HUGE gecko living in the bungalow with us

We ended up arriving at Tanote Bay after a (very!) bumpy ride sitting on benches in the back of a 4WD truck - the "taxi". The roads on Koh Tao are very steep, very bumpy and mostly made of dirt, so you can imagine what condition the roads would be in when heavy rains hit the island. Luckily it had not been raining lately, but there was still much damage in the way of large grooves carved in the roads from water gushing downhill during the rainy season. The Tanote Family Bay Resort offered us a bungalow for 600 Baht, but we were dead set on finding one for 300 Baht, so we inquired about cheaper places to stay. They informed us that the other side of the bay had bungalows in our price range, and since the bay was very small, we hiked across the beach and rocks to find somewhere cheaper. Even though we were very hot and sandy, we were not disappointed when we arrived at Poseidon Bungalows as they immediately showed us a bungalow on the cliffside which overlooked the bay and would only cost us 300 Baht.

We were checked into our bungalow and ready to explore Tanote Bay by noon. Before having lunch, we decided to do some snorkelling first and build up our appetites, so we rented equipment and hit the water. An immediate realisation hit us, that it was a great decision to add Koh Tao to our trip itinerary. The visibility in the water was amazing, we could see for several metres and there were such amazing sights underwater! After about an hour's worth of snorkelling, we decided to have some lunch at Poseidon. We don't remember what we ate for lunch, but the food at Poseidon was good, and it was convenient that Poseidon was right on the beach, only a few feet from the water.

One of the women working at Poseidon mentioned to us that we might be able to see some sharks (exciting! scary!) in the late afternoon around the corner from Tanote Bay, as it was their feeding time. We decided to take her advice and venture further out into the Gulf of Thailand to see what we could see. It took a lot of coaxing from Kyle to convince Dan to snorkel around the corner from the safety of enclosed Tanote Bay as the water was quite choppy at this time of the day due to some wind that had picked up. Since the water visibility was so good, it made snorkelling a really long distance easier as we could always see the bottom of the sea and corals. It must have been at least 20 metres deep in some areas! The funny thing about this little snorkelling adventure of ours is that even though we saw a lot of really cool fish, a large moray eel and many bright corals, we saw no sharks and later realised that (a) we were about 30 minutes too early for their feeding time and (b) we snorkelled about 2km (45 minutes) too far! Yep, we completely misunderstood what the woman at Poseidon told us about the sharks and found out the next day that you can see them just 5 minutes around the corner from the bay.

That evening, we ate in one of the other restaurants in Tanote Bay (there are only 4 total) and were served by a friendly young guy from Myanmar, who was living the dream working in a Thai island resort. We had assumed everyone working on the islands in Thailand was Thai, but since then we have also met a Cambodian worker among many others from other countries. After dinner, we walked the long two-minute journey next door to Poseidon and had a couple of beers before calling it a day at the early time of 9:00pm. We were really knackered ("tired" to the Americans reading this) after the early morning start from Koh Samui and all the excessive swimming when snorkelling. Early morning starts, by the way, have come to haunt us since the early start to get from Koh Samui to Koh Tao. At the time of writing this journal entry, we think there has been at least a week of early starts after the one in Koh Samui, where we have woken up before or just as the sun was rising!

The first night's sleep in the bungalow was quite scary despite getting to sleep early. The bungalow we stayed in, which was really just a bit of bamboo and thatch, had all sorts of convenient creature-sized entrance holes in the walls, which we didn't think much of when we were in the bungalow earlier in the day. However, at around midnight we heard the loudest gecko noises (they really do sound like they are saying "geck-oh, geck-oh") either of us has ever heard, and it was only the next morning when we realised that there was a HUGE gecko living in the bungalow with us. We woke up and the bungalow was dimly lit, so Dan opened the door to let some sunlight into the hut. All of a sudden, the large thing scampered across the wall in front of us. Later that evening, Dan saw the big lizard again and confirmed that it was, indeed, almost two feet long. It's a good thing that geckos don't eat (human) meat!

With limited time on Koh Tao, we wanted to be sure to see as much around the island as possible, and since the island is really known for diving and snorkelling, we booked ourselves onto a snorkelling day trip. By the way, keep those donations coming for us to do some proper diving in the South Pacific or in Australia later this year. We appreciate the support so far and really would love to add this activity to our list of activities in latter part of the year. If you don't know what we are rambling on about, read our Koh Phi Phi travel journal where we first solicited our diving campaign, and if you are still one of the few people left who have NOT contributed, email us and we can tell you how to do so.

The company we booked our snorkel trip through was called Diamond Tours and they picked us early (early start!) at Poseidon to start the day. We joined other people on the tour and boarded a boat owned by a cocky, yet amusing, Thai guy named Mike. Our first stop was very exciting as we were able to spot at least 25 black-tip reef sharks swimming around Thian Og Bay. We know there were at least 25 because Dan counted a line of them swimming past him at one point. Also, we both experienced moments where we turned around and saw a shark or two heading right towards us, or extremely close to us. It is a good thing that these particular reef sharks are vegetarian because some of them were around 3-4 metres long and quite intimidating! Not everyone on the boat spotted the sharks, as we were some of the only people brave enough to swim quite far from the boat. Since we had an underwater digital camera case, we were able to capture some good photos and videos which generated a lot of interest when the boat left for its second snorkelling stop of the day.

We stopped to snorkel at Lighthouse Bay and Mango Bay, amongst others. We also visited the island Koh Nang Yuan, which is a lovely little island with three bays connected by a thin strip of beach and is a national park meaning the beach and bays are protected. The only drawback about going to the island was that we had to pay a national park entrance fee to step onto the island and we also had to pay double what we would normally pay for an orange shake.

After a full day of snorkelling, we were too waterlogged to try again to spot sharks around the corner from Tanote Bay. If we hadn't seen so many in the morning on our trip, we may have made an effort to try and see them. We were completely satisfied by the day's events and packed away the underwater camera case, and headed to the restaurant next door to Poseidon for another good dinner. After seeing so many cool fish during the day, the last thing you would think we wanted to eat would be fish, but neither of us had eaten a fish dish in a while, and we decided to share the BBQ fish meal, along with a curry. The only problem with the dish, as you will see in our photo album for this journal entry, was that they literally served the entire cooked fish, head and guts and all, to us on a large plate. Since the fish looked vaguely like one of the fish Kyle took a photo of earlier in the day, Kyle stopped after a couple of bites, really grossed out. Dan, however, had no qualms about eating it and devoured the fish, and he even tried to eat what we think was the stomach. He said it actually tasted really good despite being very soft and squidgy (Kyle still thinks it is gross).

On the taxi journey to Poseidon the day before, we met a couple of Germans who told us we should try a "bang lassi" at Poseidon. A lassi is a sweet Indian yoghurt drink and the bang in it was something very "herbal" which gives it a kick. We didn't really think it would amount to anything so we ordered a couple and discovered that they were very tasty. It wasn't until later that evening when we decided to call it a day that we acknowledged the "bang" in them. We both fell asleep almost immediately once in the bungalow and later that evening, Kyle experienced some vivid dreams while Dan remembers waking up in the middle of the night for a toilet break, but he wasn't able to walk properly due to a spinning head and very disorientated ("disoriented" to the Americans reading this) body.

Surprise, surprise, another early start (told ya) the next morning, and we found ourselves waiting with what seemed liked hundreds of other people to board a ferry or catamaran or another boat of some kind to leave the island. Koh Tao is a small island but the inhabitants should really sort out leaving times as everyone and their dog appeared to be leaving at the time we were scheduled to leave. This made what little space there was around the pier quite cramped and uncomfortable as the morning was heating up quickly. We finally got onto the boat, though, and reached the mainland pier at the town Chumphon. From there, we boarded a large air-conditioned bus and prepared ourselves for the 7-hour journey to Bangkok. Thank goodness we had plenty of reading material and mp3s to keep up entertained.