We woke up to a beautiful morning, with my first real tropical beach sighting. (see prev. post for pics) As seemed to be a bit of a tradition, I awoke at about 6 am, and went for a stroll along the beach. Andrew got up around an hour later. We purchased our tickets for the ferry - which is really a high speed catamaran - and the van whisked us off to the gathering area at the dock. The ferry was a nice, smooth ride, first stopping at Koh Phangan - we'll return there in a few days - and then on to Koh Tao. The whole ride took about an hour and a half, and cast a whopping 200 Baht ($8).
Koh Tao is just a small island, which you can circumnavigate on foot in a single day. It was absolutely gorgeous. The entire permanent population of the island is about 8000, and there were at least 15 000 tourists. We got into the back of a pickup truck with benches - the only thing that resembles a cab - and for 50 Baht each were taken to the Sai Ri beach on the Western side of the island. Of course, we opted out of making reservations before our trip, so we found a bungalow for 400 Baht/night ($12) at the In Touch resort, which only had only real drawback - only one bed.... again. Unfortunately, this was the 3rd time this happened to us, and this time it was going to be for 3 nights. "What was the biggest upside?" you might ask.... besides the 13 second walk to the beachside restaurant, the spectacularly fine, white sand beaches and the amazing tropical atmosphere surrounding us, it would decidedly have to be the giant tree growing through our bathroom. Yep. not growing out of the floor, but the bathroom was actually built around the tree. Also, no roof in the bathroom. This was spectacular for showering in the rain. You might notice the bucket next to the toilet. This is because many toilets in Thailand are not what you might call "flush" toilets. Rather, you need to take a couple of scoops of water from the bucket and pour it in to flush everything through.
After we settled in and relaxed at the restaurant over the most amazing pad thai I have ever tasted, we explored the length of the beach (during high tide, so there the ocean actually touched the restaurants in places). Andrew attempted a phone call home, but with such little success that I didn't see it as a wise use of $10. All-in-all, we seemed to have found our tropical paradise.
At about 10 pm, Andrew and I realized that we hadn't eaten yet, and were in desperate need of a Christmas feast. I went for the traditional Christmas dinner of barbecued tuna. Andrew tried to make it an early night, since we had big plans for the next day, but I went for a walk along the now enormous beach, since the tide went back out, and the ocean is incredibly shallow, and to check out the nightlife of the beach. I thought I would try sleeping in the hammock on the porch... bad idea. The mosquitoes arrived and found every gap in the bug spray I had applied, and the hammock was not set up in a way that lent itself to getting sleep, but rather to be sitting virtually upright. After about 2 hours of this, I finally gave up, and went back inside to share the bed with Andrew.
A note about the restaurant: This became a great place to sit, while looking out over the beach and ocean, and get some reading done while sipping the constant supply of Chang Beer, an occasional Pina Colada (how can you not have one or two) or the spectacular shakes. The food, while we ate at a few other places, was so good, it was hard to go elsewhere. The banana fritters (while technically a dessert) made for a great breakfast. The fruit was as fresh as I have ever tasted, and almost every meal was seafood, since I could be reasonably certain that it was magnificently fresh.
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