Day 8 - That’s a bit more like it

12:00
We’re both awake at 09:00, fresh faced, bright eyed, bushy tailed. We head out for some breakfast at a funky little café called the Chunky Monkey. An inescapable trait of getting older for us is figuring out whereabouts we are on the age spectrum of somewhere we visit. At Chunky Monkey, we are comfortably in the top decile. As we eat our breakfast, some more folks turn up who happily drop us down (up?) the order. One of them seems to be a minor celebrity, as customers ask to have their photo taken with him. Either that, or he’s just the oldest person they’ve seen in a long while. It’s warming up by the time we’ve finished, and we retire to the bar deck at Sunrise to think about the rest of the day. We’re still not in a rush to do anything of much at all.

15:45
Refreshed, we head out to a nearby backpacker hostel, Echo, that has a rooftop bar. There’s some Latin / salsa style music playing, some very stoned people cackling with laughter, and just a hint of a breeze to cool us down. They’re out of Manao, but have an apparently appropriate substitute in Singha Lemon Soda. The barman really reminds us of an American actor, but we just can’t quite remember of whom. Gazing across the Gulf of Thailand on a baking hot day with a sharpener in hand is a really special way to pass the time.

We head up the road to Breeze for a snack lunch. They give me some excellent vegan Vietnamese Summer Rolls, and Vicks demolishes her fish finger sandwich. She’s feeling her way back gradually on the food front. She risks a glass of wine, declaring this is likely to be what really indicates how her stomach’s feeling.

Dark grey clouds are beginning to gather. One of the weather apps I use reckons there’ll be storms later. Wouldn’t mind that to be honest. Not only do I love thunderstorms (who doesn’t?) but it might just freshen up the humidity a little. I have some boring Dadmin to do, so we head back to Sunrise. The A/C is welcome, as (clearly) is the bed, as Vicki falls into a deep afternoon sleep. I entertain myself by writing this journal, having a beer, and catching up on last week’s episodes of Masterchef.

Rock and roll baby, rock and roll.

21:30
I leave Vicki to sleep for a good 90 minutes. She’ll wake up if she’s ready to. Around 17:00 I dare to wake her, and she actually responds pretty well. I think I’ve judged it perfectly.

I sit outside watching the sunset while Vicks showers and gets herself ready to go out. Some Scandinavian divers are playing a few games of Kubb. I don’t really understand the rules, but it’s fun to spectate. I accidentally cheer at one point, and am unsure whether it was to celebrate a very good throw, or basically to laugh at a poor one.

Although I could sit at this table for the duration, we need to get fed. We head to a well reviewed Thai place on one of the streets heading up from the beach. It is, frankly, average. Everything’s just a bit bland. Not what we’ve come to expect.

To console ourselves, we head to Breeze for a glass of rosé. We don’t know when we’ll see wine this nice again. I mean, it’s *probably* tomorrow, but you can’t take anything for granted.

Reflections on Koh Tao - a BRILLIANT place to kick back. This was always gonna be a lazy couple of days, and it’s worked out exactly that way, irrespective of Vicks’ sickliness. We’d definitely come back here - and happily expect to laze and relax, or be more active and adventurous. We’ve made it a grand total of about 300m from our guesthouse, and I get the sense there’s a whole island out there that we could and should explore.

Back at our room Vicki prevaricates in order to avoid having to pack. We catch up with some friends back in the UK, who are rapidly approaching their weekend. I guess, so are we - but we’re barely aware of what day it is. Bisto.もっと詳しく