Koh Tao

After a few hours of an enjoyable ferry ride, we arrived on Koh Tao. We were a bit worried about the ferry ride at first because we read that people get sick on them regularly but apparently that only happens in bad weather which was thankfully not the case for our ride. We spent a total of almost three weeks on Koh Tao and ended up loving the place for all the activities and all the great and cheap restaurants it has to offer. During this time, we stayed the first seven nights at the Aiya Resort and the last 12 nights at the Living Chilled Ko Tao Hotel, which are both located at the north end of the Sairee beach on the west coast of the island. The main reason for staying this long was that after one week of good weather, it rained heavily for about five days straight and we just wanted to spend a second week with good weather on the island. And thanks to not planning and booking ahead much, we could easily just extend our stay in the second hotel.

Koh Tao is very well known for scuba diving and while we were there, we at least wanted to try it out as well. While you can spot a dive shop wherever you look on Koh Tao, we chose to have a chat with the folks at Scuba Shack because it had very good reviews and German speaking instructors, which could calm Marina’s nerves a bit. So on our second day on the island, we signed up for a “Discover Scuba Diving” session with Scuba Shack. However, before we could go, due to an answer in the required medical questions, Marina had to visit a doctor who did a hyper thorough 5min check of her blood pressure and ears to allow her to go diving. In the discovery session, we could first do a dive with some exercises and then dive around a bit and go down to 6m. We then both (yes, even the nervous Marina who would normally only go into the water if she can stand and see the sea floor) chose to do a second dive in a different location where we even went down to 9m.

We then gave it a few days for the experience to sink in and decide how we want to continue our diving careers. Marina decided to not continue diving for the time being and revisit it at a later point. Matthias went on to do his open water certificate, which just fit in before the rainy days started, and his advanced open water certificate after the rainy days. The open water course consisted of one evening, two full days, and one morning including many theory video sessions, a long pool session, and four open water dives to practice the required skills. With this certificate, one can go diving basically anywhere in the world down to 18m. The advanced open water course consisted of about half a day of reading theory and then five dives distributed over two days. These five distinct dives aimed to improve underwater navigation, buoyancy, learn to go up to 30m deep, dive around a ship wreck, and dive at night.

While Matthias was out diving, Marina used her time to do a lot of sports either in yoga sessions or a bootcamp where she went almost daily. She also took the time to visit some nice cafes, do some administrative work, or just chill and watch Netflix. She also joined the trip on the diving boat for the night dive to watch the sunset from the boat. In turn, Matthias joined her in the bootcamp a few times.

On non-diving days, we did many trips together to explore the island by scooter. This allowed us to easily see other parts of the island which we could not just reach by foot. By scooter we visited many beaches around the island, like the Chalok Bann Kao Beach, the Aow June Juea Beach, Tanote Beach, Freedom Beaches 1 and 2, Shark Bay, Sai Daeng Beach, and Aow Leuk, where we could swim with black tip reef sharks for the very first time. We also visited several viewpoints, like the Sun Suwan 360 Degrees View & Bar, HoriZon morn, John-Suwan Viewpoint or watched the sunset from beautiful places like the High Rock Viewpoint or the Secret Bar. Finally, we also used the opportunity to try breakfast places, restaurants, and bars which were a bit further away from our hotel and Marina even used the Matthias-scooter-taxi to join a morning yoga session in a beautiful but somewhat remote location at the "High the Moon".

One day, we took the taxi boat to the Nangyuan Island, which are private islands that can be visited. They feature a uniquely shaped beach in between the islands and a viewpoint that offers a great view onto the beaches. After visiting the viewpoint in the blistering heat, we got two beach chairs and cooled off in the water where we befriended a tiny fish. While in the water, we noticed a few fish that would always stay very close to us, either around our waist or even under our arm pits. One of those stood out in affection as it always wanted to swim onto our hands and rest there. We could let it go or even throw it in the water, put our open hand back into the water, and it would swim immediately back into our hand.

And of course, whenever the weather was good, we watched the sunset from the beach or a nice bar with a view. During the entire three weeks we enjoyed delicious breakfast and Thai food for dinner in various restaurants. During one of those dinners, we were approached by a Spanish couple who did not have enough cash to pay for their dinner. They asked us if we could help out and if they could send us the money through revolut. Since we don’t have that, and they were just a few Swiss Francs short, we just gave them the money and asked them to do someone else a favor in the future. Spoiler: we will benefit from such generosity in the future as well so that’s just how the endless chain of good deeds can help everyone.
During the rainy days, we only went out to do sports and eat and otherwise stayed at the hotel playing “Rummikub”, working on this blog, or watching Netflix.

Finally, our last day on the island arrived. We went to a last bootcamp session in the early morning, then checked out of our hotel, did the last laundry at a self-service laundromat, had breakfast, and then rode in the back of a pick-up truck to the ferry port from where we took a ferry to our next destination.

Good Restaurants, Cafes, and Bars:
- De’Coffee & Breakfast Kohtao + Pork Leg (One of our favorite restaurants on Koh Tao. They serve great breakfast and also very good dinner. For sure we visited this place around ten times, either for breakfast or for dinner. If you ever go there, order a papaya salad, a curry or pad thai. Everything is amazing!)
- Blue Shark (Nice little café with good food and drinks. It is a bit of a hipster place.)
- Morning View Café and Bistro (A lot of good breakfast options. Their coffee is not the best but the taste of the food is good. This spot is always full.)
- Summer Café (Nice and quiet place for a lovely breakfast.)
- Living Juices (Great bowls! Try their morning yoga.)
- Taoni (breakfast spot)
- Happy Land Café & Restaurant (They have good breakfast options. Here you find the best coffee and a delicious omelet. That’s why we went here several times. )
- SHAKA (We never ate there but they serve good and healthy drinks.)
- Munchies (They never have a lot of people but their breakfast is decent.)
- Croissant & Ko (They have very good coffee and breakfast.)
- The Factory Cafe (good breakfast)
- Lazy Coconut Cafe (breakfast spot)
- Cactus Café (cute café right at the beach)
- Nui Bakery (What a great bakery! We tried the Caprese salad with their selfmade bread. Wooooow!)
- Idjangs Kitchen (They make the best Khao Soi and Laarb salad. They also do cooking classes. Next time we are there, we will do one. )
- Charcoal Bay Wine & Grill (This is a BEAUTIFUL location during sunset time. The food is excellent but pricey.)
- Thaita (Delicious but expensive!)
- Mama Tam (One of the best Thai food places on Koh Tao!)
- House of Pad Thai (Here you eat Pad Thai of course. It’s good.)
- Oasis (They open early in the morning for breakfast. Their food is okay.)
- High on Chai (expensive, but good)
- Centrico Cafe and Mexican Restaurant (good Mexican food)
- Little India (They only serve Thali but for a good price.)
- Pud (small location but yummy Thai food)
- HoriZon morn (good views and drinks)
- Legend Thai and Burmese Food (Yummi Thai food!)
- La Pizzeria da Claudio (If you don't always want to eat Thai food, La Pizzeria da Claudio is a good option. The food is not perfect but good.)
- Samosa Thai Restaurant (Good Thai food!)
- Secret Bar (The BEST location for watching a wonderful sunset. We went there twice because Marina loved this place so much. Try the momos and the strawberry juice. Just yummi!)Read more