La Rue Vibre !

Most people will say we have been in holidays for 7 months and we won’t contradict them. After all we sleep in “hotels” almost everyday.
However we would like to point out some style differences between long-haul travellers and tourist having few weeks off.

First of all the tourist has a more important budget and try to enjoy his free time in cultural or leisure activities. He is not necessarily interested in knowing the people of the foreign country he is travelling in. Most of the time his hotel has been booked many weeks before and he does not really have time to know if the bus price proposed by a tout is abusive or not. We cannot reproach him of enjoying his few weeks of holidays!
On the other hand the traveller is not necessarily “on holidays”, he does not “visit” a country: he is not a passive spectator et needs to get by alone (no travel agency). This implies to: learn the basic words (hello, goodbye, thank you, please, numbers) as a mark of respect, try to know the price of things (hotel room, bus, taxi, food, drinks), use public transport.
Since we have been travelling in South-East Asia we have learned to know how to find cheap accommodation and food more quickly. That gives us more time and more freedom which gives us more the feeling to be on holidays. And when we arrived on Koh Tao island we noticed we were on holidays of holidays of holidays!

We (almost) specially came here to meet our friends, Morgane and Kristoffer, having holidays for a few days. Thanks to them we could happily enjoy the coconut trees’ shadow, cocktail with view on the sunset and bungalow with sea view (TIP: J.P. Resort, bungalow with fan and private bathroom bargained 350B (low season)). Our friends made us a really really good surprise by bringing some “saucisson” and “macarons”. We could not be more happy of this! It was so delicious.

Koh Tao is not really famous for its beaches. Sairee, Chalok and Tien Ok beach are very nice (as on postcards!) but not really adapted to swimming. We are only knee-deep in water and the feet in mud or rocks.
To have swim we suggest you to go to Luek beach. You only have to walk a bit.

The island has been developed rapidly. Thus it is sometimes a bit dirty (though there is rubbish collection it is quite difficult to find a bin!) and houses have popped up like mushrooms, surrounded by frogs song…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

In fact the island is quite renowned for its very cheap diving formations. And dive sites around are really worth it! We made 4 incredible fun dives there. The visibility was incredible and we really swam in schools of fish. No need to go deep to observe corals, anemones, angel-fish, barracudas… It was wonderful!

Apart from that there is not a lot to do on the island. Just chill out and sunbath!