Koh Tao
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2008
1
46
Trip End
May 28, 2008
Ko Tao, Thailand
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Isn't it funny how sometimes you can see fate unravelling her plan before you? On our bus and then boat from Chumphon to Koh Tao Island all you could hear was this one blokes voice like a cockney foghorn blaring non-stop! We both thought "this guy is a complete tosser" and couldn't wait to get out of a shared space with him, but at the bottom of our hearts we knew he was going to be around a while longer.
We had chatted to a local guy on the boat and decided we wanted to stay at "Rocky Resort" as it seemed the best value accomodation on the island an wasn't in the main "tourist town". We got off the boat and sorted a ride over to the next bay and whose there to share the ride? The one person we can't wait to leave! "You goin' dan Wocky Wesort?!, I've bin ere free times, best place on the planet. You gonna love it!" At this point we got to meet his boys: a German guy that he likes to call "Jew" and a 70 year old bloke called Bunny that they call Grandad. We also got our first (of many!) lecture on his favourite subject, The Saxons! Since we didn't manage to shake these characters te whole time we wer in Koh Tao it's probably best we describe them:
The main bloke, Mark (or Loudmouth Soup as we always privately referred to him) is early forties, short and wirey, smokes so much he has no range left in his voice box and so just shouts at an incredible volume! Let him start talking about Saxons. WW2 or animals that kill and you will never get away .
Bunny (Grandad) shuffles around in a daze like his shoe laces are tied together but this is due to him falling off the roof of a car showroom 30 years ago. He talks like Michael Caine and you could easily believe he use to be a gangster hanging around with the Krays, but since his accident he has brain damage and now just seems like a cuddly Grandad (Apart from when he told us he's slept with 4 Thai whores since being here!) Oh Grandad!
Stef (the German) seems to hate Mark but has a soft spot for Grandad, we have no idea what he's doing with them!
Anyway, so as we got out of the taxi we walked through a huge palm tree grove that le down to a secured cove called "Shark Bay". It is perfect, turquoise lagoon, golden sands, a couple of tiny thatched roof bars and Rocky Resort, sitting half at sea and half on the rocks. This looked like the paradise we'd hoped we would find.
As Grandads shuffling was holdig the others up we got to the reception first. To begin with the lady showed us a couple of crummy bungalows but in the en she let us into a real beauty with a balcony perched just above the sea and the mot amazing view. We were just about to make a deal on the orice when Mark comes jumping across the rocks below and climbs up the stilts and swings himself onto the balcony like a crazed gibbon. Apparantly this was the bungalow he had 12 years ago when he was last here and he must have it again. He wouldn't shut up about it so we let him take it or we knew we'd never hear the end of it!
We still managed to get a great little bungalow for just over four pounds a night and a view better that most 5* Hotels (and Marks view!). Settling into island life was easy, sunbathing on the nearly empty beach, cooling off in the still blue/green ocean, beers on the balcony and yummy food cooked by the lady that loved us and hated loudouth soup.
The whole place was nearly deserted and we probably had more contact with dogs than humans. Dogs would follow us from town when we went to get beers and keep us compay all the way back. But the best utts were the packs that hung around on the beach and chased the ghost crabs as they ran around our feet. Our ususal companions were named Dingo, Bino and Red and would follow us right up to our bungalow door and settle down by our feet as we ate dnner.
We only got around to snorkelling on our last day as Gem had had a cold and sore throat. But thankfully we had received lots of schooling from Loudmouth soup by this point. Everyday he would corner us and even sit down at our table as we were about to eat and tell us about the art of snorkelling, more saxon stuff, shark attacks and genocide.
The crazy fish we saw in our reef were amazing with colours you could never imagine seeing on land. At one point we actually had to swim through a blanket of these exotic creatures as they surrounded us in 360degrees.
