July 28th, 2019
I got up early and walked around the nice Haad Rin Beach and Brendan took the opportunity to sleep in.
I got some food and brought it back to the room and we decided if we wanted to stay another night on Koh Phangan, or head to the next island Koh Tao. The pictures of Koh Tao looked really good and we were kind of excited to get there and check out the diving scene. We decided to take the ferry mid-day over to the next island. Traveling took a few hours and we arrived late afternoon. There was a representative from one of the dive shops on the boat who said we could get free transportation from the ferry pier to Sairee Beach if we check out their dive shop. So, we did and got some info on the diving around here. In Malay they called all the beach huts ‘chalets’ and in Thai, they call them ‘bungalows’. Both cute little words that sound better than what they actually are. Next to the dive shop they had a bungalow right on the beach for 500 baht (about $16). It was clean and a convenient location, so we took it even though it did not have AC. Prices in Koh Tao seem to be higher.
We checked into the bungalow. It was so hot in there we really didn’t have a reason to stay so we walked around town and compared dive shops and scooter rentals and looked for better accommodation for tomorrow. I feel ready to spend a week somewhere as we have been moving around a lot and thought Koh Tao would be a good place to chill for a minute. Brendan is also interested in doing his rescue dive certificate which would take about 3 days so we kind of scoped things out about where we might want to stay and who we should dive with.
We watched a great sunset on Sairee Beach and had some entertainment along with it as there was a guy kiteboarding in front of us and getting some pretty big air.
Once we went back to the bungalow we considered if we could stay here for the week because it was cheap and such a good location. I somewhat quickly decided we couldn’t as the room was so basic it didn’t even have a trash can. Not in the room, or the bathroom, or the outside patio. I guess if you have garbage you just throw it on the ground like the locals do. It was far from the worst place we have stayed but it was so hot even I couldn’t sleep, which is rare. I researched other places thinking if Brendan is going to do his rescue dive certification, I want someplace comfortable to spend time; on the beach with AC, and a pool.