Koh Tao - Paradise for scuba diving

Our ship ride to Koh Tao takes about 2.5 hours. But as I meet nice guys from South Africa and three people from Bavaria, one of them speaking even Hungarian, time flies as we have a lot to talk about. When we arrive someone from my hostel - Carabao Dive Resort - already waits for us. There is another girl from Costa Rica together with me on the pickup truck taxi and last but not least a very friendly girl - Larissa from Berlin - jumps on our pick up as well. Good that Larissa is a nice girl, because it turns out that I will have to spend quite some time with her during the next days. 

As we enter the Carabao Dive Resort , the place, were we all are staying, Larissa and I sit down at the reception together and when one of the guys working there  checks my reservation in his computer I know right away that something is wrong. It turns out that they have not received my reservation (I also had paid already) and accuse my agency in Chiang Mai for this fault. Fact is, they have no room for me available as they are booked out and the manager just says - Oh, you can stay with Larissa. She has two beds. Whatever I say and ask and beg - there is no way. Larissa is laughing and says „of course you can stay with me“ and so I end up to spend the next two nights with a girl I just got to know half an hour ago on the transfer to the hostel.

Carabao Dive Resort is a hostel style resort with dorm rooms for 16 pax each, but also many cheap individual rooms. Mainly backpackers are staying here, but there are also a couple of young families with kids there. The resort is located in Chalok bay directly at the beach and if you do not expect too much comfort it is the perfect place to stay. It has its owns diving school as well as a restaurant and a bar and every evening a fire show takes place at the beach right in front of the restaurant. 

Larissa and I make friends very fast, despite she is only 23 years old, and we have lots to talk about. Even more than being a nice girl Larissa is a police woman and a bodyguard and I feel really safe being with her. 

We end up spending most of the time together. On the first day we take a swim in the beach and relax at the pool. In the evening we sit on cushions in the neighbour hotel and watch the fire show while I sip a mojito. 

On the second and third day we rent motorbikes, one each. We drive around the island, which is quite challenging for me as the street are sometimes very steep and it´s ok to go uphill, but not easy to go downhill. On the first day we drive to a view point called John Suwam. We stop our bikes there and have to walk quite a bit uphill. However it is more climbing than walking, lots of rocks, and I enjoy it tremendously, and reaching the top we are rewarded with a breathtaking view of a great part of the island with its stunning beaches. The climb downhill is also quite challenging and I do very well, however the moment we are almost down again I am not attentive any more and I slip and fall forward and I bark my shin which is bleeding like hell. 

But off we go with our bikes to shark beach. There we have some lunch and decide to go snorkeling. However, not even with my bleeding lower leg I can attract any sharks, and all what we see there are 5 different shoes :) The beach could be really nice, but it is not today as the wind is very strong, waves are high and probably due to the weather the beach is not that clean.

In the evening we attend a yoga class at „oceansound“ where we have a 90 minutes yin yoga class with Okay from Arkansas and I really enjoy this yoga class a lot. Afterwards we have dinner at Yin Yang restaurant, which happens to become my favorite restaurant there in lack of trying any others. Food and service and atmosphere was so superb that I had my dinner there every evening. In the evening we once again sit at the fire show and meet two nice guys from Bavaria.

On the next morning after breakfast we once again board our motorbikes heading for a private beach called Jansom Beach at Jansom Bay. There one had to pay a little entrance fee, however we had nice beach chairs we could use and only few people were on this small idyllic beach. We also went snorkeling there and in contrast to yesterday we saw many beautiful colorful fish of different sizes and shapes. 

In the evening we have a very special programm: together with the two girls of Costa Rica - who also stayed in our hotel and one of them we had met our transfer to our resort - we visit a Ladyboy show. The Ladyboys bar is located in Sairee Beach and starts at 10.30 pm. The place is called Queens Cabaret. As the name indicates already we enjoy there a wonderful cabaret programm, a fulminant show with beautiful and elegant women.

Ladyboys - Kathoey in Thai - consider themselves in Thailand as the third gender - different to guys and transgenders as we know it from our culture - as far as I could find out about it, I am not a specialist myself. In case you know better I will be glad to get more specific information on this subject. Kathoeys are born men, but identify themselves as women and usually live their lives as such and often undergo plastic surgery to make their transformation complete. Kathoey culture is not confined to urban centers, however they live just as often in small villages and remote island. Often they work in female dominated occupations such as retail, restaurants and salons, however also very often they find work in the entertainment industry, as both sex workers and as performers in cabaret shows. In Thailand there is quite a general tolerance shown to ladyboys. However, they still have their share of hardship and currently Kathoey activists are campaigning for a third sex to be added to official documents. Leaving the moral issue of working in the sex industry - which one could debate for hours - aside the ladyboys show in Koh Tao is one of the best shows I have ever seen.  The ladies are beautiful and dance wonderfully and the show is highly flirtatious and slightly salaciously as well - overall a great entertainment! After the show the girls decide to walk home. As I am not in the mood for walking for over one hour mostly uphill I fetch a motorbike taxi and reach home in a few minutes. 

For my last day I had booked a snorkeling tour. They pick me up at 9 and the only couple picked up together with me was a nice young German couple from Stuttgart, with whom I became friendly and we had a good time together. On the ship we were kind of segregated - two Chinese families, all together 10 people, were sitting in the basement, whereas we - all youngsters from Europe (mostly Germany; except me - the youngsters and the country I mean:) were sitting in upper part of the ship. As the wind was very strong we could not go to all the snorkeling spots were they usually go, but we went to 3 wonderful places and had a great time snorkeling there. For us it was interesting that none of the Chinese was able to swim, however the all had very good and modern snorkeling equipment. They also were wearing a special swimming dress with long pants and long sleeves. We also had watched that the Thais - no matter men or women - always go swimming completely dressed. When we asked our guide about it his answer was that Thai people are shy when it comes to showing their body.

During snorkeling at the different places - which are all wonderful in their own beauty - we saw many wonderful fish differing in shade and size. I even managed to see a baby shark!! It was not so babyish after all - about 2 meter!! As I was the only one to see a shark I am not sure it was really a shark or just a plain fish. No, I described it to our guide and it was a little shark for sure! Also the past beach is of extraordinary beauty - Mango Bay at Mango Beach. At the end we go to an island - or better two islands which are connected by a wonderful small sand stripe kind of beach - Koh Nangyuan - and there we stayed for 2 hours. When we get back to the pier a pick up taxi takes us back to our hotels. In front beside the driver on the left side a dog is sitting, which looks for us Austrians where we drive on the right, really funny.

As this is my last evening in Koh Tao I meet up with Larissa at the pool and we talk for quite a while and say our Goodbyes. A week ago we have not even known of each other’s existence and during these 5 days we became good friends and are both sad that we have to separate. 

On the next morning I am picked up very early and I am so happy to see Larissa once again, hug her once again and my eyes get wet when she is waving Good Bye as I leave for my last place, for Krabi.