Day 139! Another great day working as a volunteer in Koh Tao! I’m a big fan of this island and today was a prime example of why… I get to meet amazing people, eat great food, enjoy pretty beaches, and host fun events! Life’s pretty good right now!

I stayed up… very late again. But as always, no time to sleep in as I wanted to wake up early to chat with my parents over FaceTime!

We chat every week and even though they follow along with the blog, it’s nice to update them “face to face.” The call was a very nice way to start the morning and as always, it was great talking and hearing what’s going on with them as well.

After wrapping up the FaceTime, I headed over to the hostel lobby for a muesli bowl and more chatter with travelers.

It was a very beautiful and hot day out! There also were plenty of new people coming to the hostel. But most of our patrons were still asleep from another fun jungle party.

I made my rounds meeting people and then played a number of pool games against one of the dive masters in training, Albert.

Albert usually kicks my butt, but usually points out good shots and how to make them. But the student became the teacher today and I beat home 4 times over the course of the morning and he didn’t beat me once!

Lunch time rolled around and I got a chicken with basil and chili. It was another great meal at the hostel and the chili definitely got my digestive system working.

It’s super nice having the hostel food around. It’s convenient and very well priced with my discount from volunteering.

Some of my OG friends from when I arrived were hanging out in the lobby. I hung out with them for a bit before deciding not to take a nap and to head to the gym!

I had a really good push day workout and even ran into a number of travelers I knew in the gym. It made it much more enjoyable having them to chat with in between sets.

I’m really hoping I’ll be able to stick with working out after Koh Tao… but for now, I’m very thankful I have it back in my routine.

After my workout, I walked back to the hostel lobby and saw my friends were there. But one of the older Thai hostel workers asked me to play him in a game of pool… and I almost won that too! He was really good, but I only had one ball left when he beat me.

It had only been 3 hours since lunch… but my workout made me extremely hungry. So I joined my friend Willem, from the Netherlands, and ate some chicken fried rice with him.

My goal of the afternoon was to go to another beach. I tried seeing if my friend Jaz wanted to hang out but she was busy at her hostel. So I just walked to Sairee to enjoy some alone time on the beach and maybe read some more of The Hobbit.

After sitting in the water for a while, my plans were shattered as I ran into Tua and Isabella, who are staying at Taco Shack. I had met them last night getting ready for the jungle party.

I didn’t end up reading any of the hobbit… But we had a fun time playing UNO in the sand and watching the sun set! There were so many people out watching too and juggling soccer (football) balls.

I watched the entire sunset while we played… but I needed to be back at the hostel by 7pm to start my night shift. So I headed back around 6:30pm to shower and get ready.

I got to the hostel a minute before 7pm and immediately started chatting up the new faces I had met this morning.

Tonight was our trivia night, so I was gauging how many people were going to hang around for it. There was a lot of positive responses which got me really excited to host my second trivia night!

But first, I needed one more meal to round out the day.

The pub quiz started just before 9pm. We ended up having 5 teams which consisted of just under 30 people! This trivia was much harder dealing with geographical questions, random knowledge, naming cartoon characters, and identifying the right song and artist. But in the end, two teams ended up victorious with 31 points out of 40 points!

This was quite impressive since I found the questions quite hard… I’m planning on making my own set of questions soon because a lot of the longer term travelers can’t play since they’ve done all the quizzes!

Everyone really enjoyed the trivia night and it made my second one a big success. I really enjoy hosting them, so I’m looking forward to more to come.

After finishing up, I chatted with some new friends and then made my way to my bed for a much needed full night of sleep!

It was a really good day as a volunteer at Taco Shack! As always, I’m always excited to see where it goes and what I do! Tomorrow will be another night of karaoke, so I’m excited to bust out the singing voice again and encourage others to join as well!

– Elie