Day 135! Sheesh, I’m exhausted… but it was another very nice day on Koh Tao! The island life is treating me very well and today I even got to play one of my favorite sports that I’ve been missing!

After a VERY late night, it was time to sleep in… well, as much as I could.

I still had to work in the morning. So after very little sleep, I woke up and got to the Taco Shack lobby right at 11am.

As I have been doing all this week. I started my morning off with a muesli bowl! While eating, I chatted with some of the diving instructors who were up early too.

There were also a number of new arrivals and I chatted with them as well. It’s very fun hearing where people are coming from and their travel plans. Gives me ideas and chances to pick peoples brains for my future plans too.

The morning actually flew by and my friend Jaz came by to play some pool to end off my shift.

Jaz just started volunteering at a hostel nearby and has been coming by to hangout at Taco Shack the past couple of nights (her hostel is a bit more chill). It’s nice meeting another traveler who’s also volunteering and bond over our new roles!

I finished my shift and decided to split a quesadilla with Jaz (because of my discount).

I was very tired. And instead of going to my dorm room to take a nap, a nap on the beach sounded much better. Luckily, my friends were already at a beach! So I hopped on my motorbike and Jaz got on the back and we went to meet up with them.

There was a group of 10 of us at the beech. For the most part, I was in the water while everyone else was lying in the sun. But eventually I joined them and took a little nap.

We were at the beach for a few hours, but 7pm was quickly approaching. So we headed back towards Taco Shack.

I was supposed to work today. But I got asked to play in a small sand volleyball tournament. I was pretty excited for the opportunity to play some sand volleyball, so I asked my manager Yi if it’d be okay if I played instead. And he said yes!

But before volleyball, Jaz and I hit up a favorite Koh Tao restaurant of mine, 995 Duck! This is a restaurant I actually went to last year when I was on the island.

The food was just as good as I remembered. But I had to hustle to drop off Jas and get to my dorm to get ready for the active evening.

The volleyball match was at The Jungle Hostel… which funnily enough is where Jas is volunteering!

The tournament was 100 Baht to enter and the winning team got the money from the entry fee. There ended up being 6 teams for 5 and it made for a fun night of sand volleyball.

It wasn’t as competitive as I’d usually play, but I had a blast nonetheless. There was a wide range of skills, but it didn’t really matter since all of us were having a great time.

My team ended up losing the first game, winning the second game, and then losing the third game. But we tried our best.

Right after we finished I darted back to my hostel for some much needed sleep. But… almost everyone in my dorm was back at the same time, so we ended up chatting for an hour about last night and other things about traveling and the hostel.

It was a really nice way to end the night and this is the camaraderie and community I look forward to from traveling.

Hopefully the people in my room will always be this great!

– Elie