Day 130! Wow, what an amazing two weeks with my cousins. It comes to a close today and then I set off for Koh Tao, where it’s time to find a hostel to volunteer at! This proved to be a bit of an adventure… but luckily it worked itself out!

We all woke up this morning at 9am! Sadly, today the cousins and my last day together. And since I was heading out on a ferry at 12:30pm, we got up earlier to make sure we had time to eat and hang out some before we parted ways.

So we took one more walking to breakfast selfie and headed out to find food.

We walked all the way to the restaurant we ate at yesterday (the one that had no power the first day)… and it was closed. So we started walking back to a restaurant near our bungalow and found some smoothies on the way!

We drank our refreshing smoothies and finished our walk to the restaurant where Ben, Sam, and I all got green curry fried rice! Mina had this the other day and it was exceptional.

This was another last, our last meal together in Thailand. We ate and reminisced on our favorite parts of the trip. All of us found this time together very beneficial and rewarding and we’re glad this trip was able to happen!

(And for Ben and I, FINALLY happen!!)

11:30am rolled around and we were still at the restaurant. So we quickly paid and made our way back to the bungalow. As we arrived, I asked our receptionist if they could book me a taxi and it was cheaper than grab. So I booked one for 11:45am.

It was time for me to part ways with my cousins. As I’ve said countless times already… this was an amazing 2 weeks. I’m so glad I could show them this special place and to hear that they felt the same about it and SE Asia as a whole! Sounds like they’ll be back around the area sometime in the future.

My taxi arrived and I was about to pull up to my ferry in style! I had a whole van to myself.

I got to the pier just after 12pm and went to check in. They told me to wait around till 12:20pm for boarding.

When I got in line to board, I met some people from Israel and they asked me, surprise surprise, if I was Israeli too. I of course said I was not, but this turned into a nice chit chat while we waited to board the ferry.

Unfortunately, we got separated as I realized I wasn’t given my ferry ticket at the check in counter. So I got out of line to go get it. But as I was walking to the counter I felt in my pocket and I had thought the ticket was trash! It had a sticker on one side for my bag and I hadn’t realized the other side was my ticket.

I got back in line and boarded the ferry for my 1 hour and 45 minute ride to the beautiful island of Koh Tao!

The ride ended up taking closer to 2 hours, but I had arrived safe and sound.

Now for the challenging part of my day. My plan for Koh Tao is to volunteer at a hostel for around a month! I really want to explore more of the island while also doing it for relatively cheap.

So now I needed to go door to door and ask some hostels if they needed a volunteer. The first one on my list was a hostel close to the pier called Echo Hostel, which was suggested by my friend Elise.

I went inside and started chatting with the volunteers behind the bar. The owner wasn’t around at the moment, but the volunteers told me that they were full for the next few weeks unfortunately. Determined, I stuck around and got to know them while I waited for the owner to come back.

One of the volunteers, Josh from England, had motorbiked Vietnam as well! So we quickly bonded over that and dove into a long chat. The owner, Joelle, arrived and unfortunately confirmed what the other volunteers had said. But I asked if she had anywhere else I should look and she suggested a couple places.

So on I went, rejection number one!

I walked down the block to another hostel, that Joelle recommended, called Tiki Tribe… the inside was pretty dead and the owners, even with the Joelle name drop, had no need for a volunteer. To be honest, it didn’t really look like a hostel I wanted to stay at for a month.

With rejection number two in the book, I pressed on!

Just a few doors down was another hostel and one of their volunteers was outside! This hostel was called the islander. And they too… had no need for a volunteer at this moment. So 3 rejections in, I decided to hire a motorbike taxi and head to the side of the island I stayed last time, Sairee Beach.

I love this part of the island and was glad my volunteer seeking was leading me over here. Lots of my friends had suggested a hostel called Taco Shack… so this one had been high on my list. But it was a popular one, so my expectations were very low.

I stepped inside and was immediately pointed in the direction of the owner. And by some stroke of luck, they actually needed a volunteer! I was super pumped, but still needed to impress the owner.

So the owner, Yee, and I sat down on a couch and started chatting. He told me what the volunteering would entail, helping maintain the vibe of the hostel, hanging with the other travelers staying there, hosting events a couple times a week, etc. the usual hostel volunteering gig. And in exchange, I’d get a free place to stay, half off on food and drinks, and the opportunity to meet a ton of new faces and improve the travel experience for others (while getting to live for free on a freaking island)!

He also needed someone to help with Instagram reels and lucky for him, I know a thing or two about video editing and social media.

We both were sold, me on the hostel and him on me, so he offered me a week trial period to see how I fit in and if the hostel was the right fit for me! Unfortunately the hostel was fully booked tomorrow, but for tonight I had a free place to stay AND it was karaoke night so I would get to help with that as well.

Yee told me I’d be needed most days around 11-2 and 7pm-when people went out, but the times were flexible and he was very chill about there’s no “real set” hours. So I set my bag in my room, threw on my swim trunks and set out to eat and go to the beach until I was needed later in the evening.

I celebrated with one of my favorite Thai dishes, cashew chicken and a watermelon smoothie, at a restaurant down the road. I then stopped by 7-Eleven to buy deodorant since TSA took mine when I flew to Bangkok.

Then, I walked down a familiar path to Sairee Beach!

The tide was super far out, but the water was warm and inviting! I even made a scruffy furry friend while I sat in the sand.

I was leaving the beach after an hour plus in the sandy sun. And then I ran into two other people I had met while exiting my ferry ride.

Their names were Noah and Sarah, they are from Canada! They invited me to join them for a bit, so I sat and chatted for an hour, instead of going back to my hostel and taking a nap to get ready for my first hostel shift.

We dove into topics ranging from getting to know each other to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to what they enjoyed about their time in Australia. It was a really nice hour of chatter with some new people!

But as my first shift drew near I said see you later to my new friends and headed back to my dorm to shower and get ready for the night.

I couldn’t have asked for a better first night. I immediately met a guy from the Netherlands in my dorm, Willem. This led me into meeting a group of four people from the Netherlands, one of which unfortunately just had a motorbike accident and broke his ankle. Outside of that unfortunate story, we all chatted for awhile until Yee introduced me to my other volunteer, Paul (who goes by P).

I was curious who I’d be working with and P was going to be a hoot and a half to work with. He’s a spunky guy from the US, but born in Germany. He’s been all around the world through his military years and had a lot of wild stories to share. But he was super nice and very welcoming, which is all I could ask for.

Some of my new friends had too much food. So for dinner I had a full quesadilla for free! It showed me this hostel had great food… and I’d get to dive into eating some of my favorite meals, quesadillas, burritos, and tacos!

I fell into my volunteer duties right away, as I was asked to sign people up for karaoke. This is a tough job, as most people won’t sing unless they have a few drinks in them… so I wasn’t very successful. But I had fun meeting new people andddd getting rejected over and over.

Since karaoke wasn’t working out yet, P decided to switch to a game called smash ball. It’s a hectic game played around the pool table. So I gathered people for the game and I met even more people through this! I also created some semi enemies as i knocked out fellow travelers in the game.

After a bunch of fun rounds of smash ball, we tried karaoke again… and this time it was a huge success! The whole hostel was singing along to songs and having a blast.

I was able to sing a few songs and duets too which was super fun and people told me they were happy I was volunteering at the hostel! That was very nice to hear.

After an hour or two of karaoke, the hostel hit quiet hours and a large group of us made our way to the bars of Koh Tao!

It was a fun way to end the night and start my month-ish of volunteering! From the general feedback, I’d say my first day ever of volunteering was a big success! The job entails keeping the vibe of the hostel and meeting new people, which is something I’d say I’m pretty good at!

We’ll see how tomorrow goes though, as I’ll be waking up and starting a morning shift at 10:30am-ish (the hours are very lax). What a fun job!

– Elie