Day 137! Today was a great mixture of work, exploration, and play! It started off as a normal, chilled worked day. But it turned into a nice day on the island with a beautiful beach and finishing it off with great live music!

I woke up on the early side and cranked out a few more episodes of the TV show I’ve started watching again. The show is called Bleach and it’s getting to a very intense part of the show… so I’m struggling to put it down.

But once I did, I headed over to the Taco Shack lobby where I started my day with another muesli bowl.

I was also joined by my opportunistic, furry friend, Taco.

I had my usual morning of hanging out in the lobby of Taco Shack, playing pool, and socializing. I chatted with all the new travelers arriving today while also spending time with ones I’ve spent the past week with.

Socializing made me work up an appetite. So I ordered a chicken Pad See Ew from the hostel. It was delicious and a great second meal of the day.

I had been chatting with my friend Jaz this morning and we decided to go to a beach to spend the afternoon. She was currently hanging out at the Islander Hostel, where my friends Mabel and Sam are volunteering at.

So I went over to pick her up and say hi to my friends!

It was a short ride over to the Islander. I immediately ran into Mabel and then searched my way in the hostel for Sam.

I only had a second to chat with him, since he was working and helping to check people in. But Mabel invited Jaz and I to join them at the beach “Freedom Bar.” So we decided to do that.

Mabel had a crew from her hostel already at the beach, so we just joined them! They were all very nice people from mainly England and Australia.

We sat in the water for a bit and this was the first time the water was actually a cooler temperature. This was super nice!

While I was in the water, I had mentioned to one of the new people I met that I was from Illinois…

A guy nearby overhead it and said no way, I’m from Illinois too… and he said he was from Peoria! I responded, there’s no way. It was pretty crazy! His name is Brody and he went to Dunlap high school and actually knew some connections of mine that went there.

It was a crazy small world moment that really made my day!

The water was so crystal clear and a beautiful shade of blue. So much so I saw thousands of tiny schools of fish.

After a great time at the beach, Jaz and I headed back towards our hostels to grab dinner. We went to a new restaurant, for me, that was just down the road from my hostel and right next to 995 duck.

The food was incredibly good and I had one of the tastiest mango smoothies I have had In Thailand!

(I believe the restaurant is called POOH & Family kitchen original THAI food)

After a nice dinner, I hurried back to my room to shower and get ready for the evening. I only had a few spare minutes and I was able to only be a couple minutes late to the lobby

Tonight was karaoke night! It was definitely a bit more of a chill night. I was hoping that this karaoke night was going to be like the other two, packed and lively. But this one was fairly low energy and not a ton of people.

After a few drinks, everyone got out of their shell and were singing their butts off the rest of the night.

With another successful karaoke night in the books, I decided to go out for the night!

I’m very glad I did, because one of the diving instructors was playing the bongos in the band. Not only was he doing great, but the whole band was killing it!

We danced the night away, moving our hips and arms to the beat of the drums.

But before we went to bed, Jaz and I split a peanut butter, Nutella, banana roti!

This one was wayyyy better than the tuna and Cheese one that Jaz picked out the other night.

It was a very nice and long day! From running into a person from my hometown to hosting another successful karaoke night. Tomorrow however, is my day off!

I’ll probably work in the morning to make up for Thursday night. But outside of that, I will be relaxing for sure!

– Elie