Day 8 of The Big Adventure according to Sarah. 

We both woke up and headed down to the cafe for breakfast – granola and yoghurt – YUM. And decided today would be a good day for a beach and chill out day after all the excitement of the Eco nature tour. And then later in the afternoon we’d get a boat over to Koh Tao – the next island on our little adventure. 

 As for the beach day today, our hostel wasn’t really in walking  distance of any beaches so we’d have to find some form of transport to the nearest beach. We’d read in our lonely planet book that the beaches on the east coast were relatively secluded and beautiful so we thought we’d quite like to go and see them. So off we trotted to Big Boss Travel to see if they could tell us how to get there. ‘It will be 500baht per person to get over to the east coast beaches and then finding a taxi home will be virtually impossible’ was their answer. Oh good. So they suggested we just get a shared taxi from the pier to Haad Rin (the party centre of the island) where there were some nice beaches. That was their only real solution to our lack of beach problem so we went with it. We wandered to the pier and asked for a taxi to Haad Rin but because there was only 2 of us it was going to cost 300baht each. Boo. 

So we waited for the next boat to arrive and hoped that some of the passengers would be heading to Haad Rin. Thankfully after a 20 minute wait a small Asian family hopped in and we were on our way. 

The taxi dropped us right by the beach and we wandered down to find a spot on the pristine white sand.   

After a few dips in the ocean that was the same temperature as bath water and actually did very little to cool us down we decided to seek shade in a beach cafe and have some refreshments – enter fresh coconut. It was divine. 

We then decided to walk to one of the other beaches in Haad Rin – and accidentally ended up on a resorts private beach. Ooopsy. 

  
The sea was equally turquoise and warm and there were fish swimming so close to the shore. 

We had a little snooze here (Lauren had a closed-mouth snooze – she clearly wasn’t that tired) and then we had to head back to collect our bag (yes, just the one thank you for asking) to head to the pier to catch a boat to Koh Tao. 

The boat to Koh Tao took 2 hours but thankfully the boat had a ilot more structure and even indoor seating (what a luxury), so we settled in. 

We arrived at Koh Tao just as the sun was setting …

 
We found a shared taxi that was heading in the direction of our hostel and jumped in. This was even more minimal than the taxis in Koh Phanghan and was basically just a ute with us as the cargo.

We pulled up to our Jolly Guesthouse and checked in with the super friendly receptionist, Liam. He helped booked us onto a snorkelling tour of the island for the next day and gave us recommendations on where to have dinner. 

So off we wandered to La Pizzeria. Lauren had the most beaut asparagus and bacon risotto – in a portion large enough to feed the entirity of Africa – and I had a caprese salad, of course. 

Then we headed back to bed to get a good nights rest before our day of snorkelling fun.