July 31st, 2019
Today Brendan had a break from his rescue course, and we rented a scooter to explore the island. We had planned to get a bike from the beginning but since the rescue course had us on different schedules we really didn’t have time to explore the other areas except where we are staying on Sairee Beach. I wanted to find a different hotel today on another beach, but again it didn’t work out. We had to check out of our room by 11am and we didn’t get an early enough start to rent a scooter to find a new hotel by driving around, then make two trips back and forth with all the luggage before checkout.
Our first stop was Freedom Beach. There was a lookout we could walk to and had no idea that is was going to be such a scramble to get up there. It was steep and slippery, and I had a broken flip flop I was climbing in. Luckily they had a rope in most sections we had to use in order to get up. Once we got to the top it was worth it, and the view was beautiful. We could see Freedom Beach and Chalok Baan Kao Bay to the left, and Shark Bay on the right.
It cost us a 100 baht ($3.25) each to get into this area where we could go to the view point and Freedom Beach. Once at Freedom Beach we could use their lounge chairs, kayaks, and inner tubes to float. However, the tide was out so there was really no place to use these things. So, we walked around the beaches and bay and hung around the lounge chairs. When I laid in the chair I saw the coolest rainbow that circled the sun. I have never seen this before and I thought it was so amazing.
We got back on our hog (or what Brendan wishes was a hog) and found some lunch. Shark Bay looked so pretty from the viewpoint we decided to go there next. It’s a little hard to know how to get to all these beaches as it seems like some of them only have private entrances through resorts. We ended up walking through a resort and some private bungalows to find the beach. I do have to say the beach looked more appealing than it actually was. Most of the sand here is super abrasive because of all the dead coral. It’s really sad. With the tide being out, the water on the beach was so shallow and very warm. It really wasn’t a good place to swim or cool off, so we moved along pretty quick.
Next stop was Tanote Bay. This was a good area for snorkeling and a pretty beach but once again really rough sand with all the dead coral pieces. The water seemed cooler here, so we blew up the air pad and floated around for quite a while. We ran into our new friends from last night and sat on the beach with them.
As the sun was starting to go down we hopped back on the scooter and went to another view point called Love Koh Tao. It was really pretty. We ordered a strawberry lassi which is a smoothie with yogurt and sat on a swinging deck. Since the sun was going down the temperature was finally comfortable, and we enjoyed the nice breeze with the good view.
Looks beautiful, even if rough corral. Where did you sleep? Love, Nanny
Ugh… we ended up staying in the same terrible hotel but has the nice pool and convenient location. Our second room doesn’t smell as bad but I still don’t like it and think it is over priced comparatively speaking. With B in the rescue course logistically it has been complicated to try to move to a different beach. So here we are :/
Hope by now you have found a better hotel and B doing well with rescue stuff. I thought I was a traveler with Lira, Francs, Marks, Pounds, Pesos, maybe there was the odd Baht thrown in and I didn’t notice! Love you.
Love you! Yes, we just got to a new hotel finally and B finished his rescue course 🙂
It sounds like a great day inspite of the adversities!!