Day 4 - Saturday 21 November 2015

Options........My second full day on Koh Tao is unscheduled. It’s a place you need to stay a while to get used to it. There are options for today. Take an ATV up into the mountains (2,000 baht), go fishing (1,650 baht per person), take a taxi boat for snorkeling, rent a motorbike (200 baht), yet there is one more option. Do nothing! After yesterday’s misfortune I need to rein back my budget but in doing so there’s no need for tears. After all I’m 50 metres from the beach. Let’s just sit back and laze around for today. After three days travel why not? It’s gone 11am before I make any attempt to go out.
Koh Tao third impression……..My first job for today is to secure ferry tickets for the return to Chumphon tomorrow. Surprisingly I get them for 450 baht instead of the normal 500. Now instead of taking the beach paths, I head up to the main road in a direction I’ve hardly explored. After lunch there, I wander along the road and suddenly I understand that staying near the pier wasn’t necessarily the best option. A recently build apartment block catches my eye. It’s not expensive, then, as I wander into a supermarket. I realize things are much cheaper than down at the beach. To rub salt into the wound, I see a better quality glass mask with snorkel for 750 baht. OK I’ve learnt something valuable today but there is a downside. You still need to get to the main road and that’s a stiff climb. That now explains why renting a motorbike is a good idea. Back at the room it’s siesta time.

Living to eat!.......By 4pm I take up the option to borrow a mask and snorkel from the guesthouse and head to Mae Haad beach. Here the water is not so clear and there are very few fish but its great all the same just being in the water and watching the comings and goings in the harbour with its brightly painted ferries, tour boats and smaller craft. I stay to watch the sunset then head back to clean up. Katoon wants to go out for dinner but I’m still in austerity mode and I don’t need anything special but she does. There is a phrase in Thai, ‘yoo per gin’. Literally translated it means stay for eat but it’s real meaning is live to eat as opposed to ‘gin per yoo’ which means eat to live. On this occasion if she wants her spicy salads and soups which she just picks at anyway, she can pay for it herself. 300 baht is daylight robbery but I’m happy. I’ve made some inroads into recovering some of that overspend yesterday. In contrast to the last two nights I force myself to stay awake for the FA Vase game, Hereford F.C. v Haughmond. It’s a struggle as I make it till half time but with the score 2 : 0, I figure the game is won and wrap things up for the day. Next Page.