Ban Hat Sai Khao

Woke up at 5.30am to a tremendous downpour & saw that our drying sarongs & a few clothes which we were due to pack, were saturated on the balcony. My mood was improved when I checked the sports news & discovered that United had thrashed Brentford 3-1. My mood then dipped again, when I went to the bathroom, caught my reflection in the mirror & saw that I had a big bald patch above my right ear. It looks like I now have alopechia!

We spent the morning packing the clothes we needed for our holiday to Koh Tao into one rucksack & what we didn’t into the other. At 10.45am, we took all our luggage down to reception & had a breakfast of cheese baguettes, iced coffee & a mango shake.

At 11.50am the waiter informed us that our taxi had arrived. We left Pat with half our luggage & boarded our taxi van. It was the most terrifying ride of our lives. The driver drove like an absolute lunatic, way to fast for the road conditions. It was like being on a rollercoaster as the taxi swung violently left & right around corners & up & down steep gradients. Unlike a rollercoaster, we weren’t strapped in & we had to cling to the roll bar & hang on for dear life. Jackie admitted the taxi ride actually frightened her.

Funnily enough, we arrived at the pier earlier than expected & after collecting our tickets, we waited under an awning whilst being serenaded by a one man band. When our catamaran arrived we immediately spotted the British chavs up on deck, he stripped to the waist & her sporting a homemade boob tube to show off the tattoos. Typically we ended sitting immediately behind them & they actually turned out to be alright & we swapped travel tips.

Upon arrival at Koh Tao, just over an hour, later we disembarked on to the pier & we were required to produce an array of documentation that the immigration girl clearly had no idea what she was looking at, but eventually just waved us through anyway.

Once on terra firma we walked up the road from the pier & about 400 metres later we located our budget accommodation, The Miracle Guesthouse & Diving. No one was around when we arrived, but after 5 minutes a young lady arrived by scooter & introduced herself to us as (Silly) Ninny. She was a bubbly excitable lady who told us she was the Yemen.

Silly Ninny showed us to our room, that was an upgrade on what we booked. Apparently it had just been refurbished & eventually even Jackie agreed that it suited our purposes perfectly. Instead of a balcony, we had a lounge.

I enquired with Silly Ninny about the possibility of hiring a scooter & before I knew it, ‘her friend’ arrived with a 125cc scooter just 10 minutes later. I told him that I didn’t actually want it until the morning & he seemed a bit upset, but we agreed that he should return at 9am. He left in a huff.

Jackie & I then went out for an explore & to visit Sairee Beach, but we got caught up in a downpour & abandoned that idea. Instead we found a sandwich restaurant & supped a few beers, whilst the divers returned from their trips.

After a shower we had a stroll around & ended up choosing a restaurant less than 50 yards from our Guesthouse. It was busy with divers & I noted that everyone in the restaurant was only drinking the free water. We got a large Chang out of the fridge & ordered crispy pork with kale & a Massaman chicken curry. It was absolutely superb & cost less than £6. I felt obliged to give them a healthy tip.

We stopped at a Rasta Bar for a nightcap on the way home. We ended up sharing a large Leo & calling it a night. Back at the guesthouse, we struggled to open the door until eventually we realised that we were trying to open the wrong door.

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