Day 140! Closing in on one hundred and fifty days of traveling… that’s pretty crazy to say. I’ve enjoyed every day of it (minus food poisoning days) and I’m REALLY enjoying my days on Koh Tao. Today was no exception. I had a blast throughout it all!

I stayed in bed this morning watching a number of episodes of Bleach, the TV show I’ve been devouring. It’s getting really intense and really good… but I don’t have many people to talk about it with, so hopefully I’ll find some people soon.

Today started off as usual! I got myself a muesli bowl, played pool, and chatted with travelers that had just arrived from long travel days and nights.

One of the dive masters and I have been playing pool, pretty much every morning. And the past few days I’ve been kicking his butt! Currently it’s 5 – 0 over the past 2 days… now he’s probably beaten me way more than that, but I’ll start the running tally now.

I also had some lovely conversations with the owner of the hostel. We (along with some other travelers I was chatting with) talked about how time works weirdly out here, what is considered a condiment… it was all over the place. But it was a very solid morning.

Lunchtime rolled around and I decided to try something on the Taco Shack menu I had yet to try. I got a sweet and sour chicken with rice.

It was really tasty! I’m not sure how Thai of a dish this is, since I haven’t really seen it elsewhere. But I enjoyed it and will probably have it again while I’m at Taco Shack.

As my shift wrapped up, my friends were starting to head to Aow Leuk beach, one of my favorites on the island. So I told them I’d meet them there as I needed to finish eating.

Also in this time, I met a traveler Deda, from the Netherlands, who had no plans so I told her to tag along and I’d drive us to the beach!

I enjoy being able to help include people and introduce them to other good, cool people.

It was another great day on Aow Leuk beach. We had a solid crew of about 10 of us and we just swam, chatted, and bathed in the sun.

We also met a cute little furry friend who was obsessed with belly rubs. I unwillingly met another critter friend in the water… as I was digging around for rocks and shells, I felt something latch onto my finger so I quickly shook my hand and it let go. But as it floated back to the bottom of the ocean, I saw that it was a small crab! Whoops!

Unfortunately, almost 2 hours later, these very ominous looking clouds started to roll in… VERY fast.

I turned to Deda and asked her if it was okay if we headed out, she of course said yes. Most of my friends decided to stay… but my intuition told me that the storm was going to be a big one, and I didn’t want to ride in the rain (I did that enough in Vietnam)…

Fortunately, my intuition was spot on! Just as we pulled into the hostel and got off the motorbike, the rain started.

The rain quickly turned into a solid tropical storm that instantly flooded the streets. I decided to put my things in a dry place, take off my shirt, and go run around in the rain.

I was already going to go take a shower… so what did it matter if I got a little more wet! Also how often do you get to just play around in the rain anymore.

The Taco Shack staff thought I was super goofy and all the locals driving by did too. But I met some other people (locals and tourists) nearby that had the same thought as me. Why not enjoy the rain instead of letting it damper the mood.

Now unfortunately, just after I finished dancing in the rain and taking a real shower… the power went out. So I just watched a few more episodes of Bleach as I waited for it to come back on. I was really hoping it would come on again, because tonight was karaoke night!

A couple episodes later the power came back on and we resumed our night as normal. I also had a nice tofu burrito for dinner. But just as we were starting karaoke, the power went back out all across the island.

But this didn’t stop us from busting out a portable speaker and keeping the singing and dancing alive! This power outage took almost an hour to come back on but once the power came back, karaoke was back in business!

I ended up singing a ton of songs tonight. There weren’t as many people around and a lot of the people were only willing to sing if someone sang with them. BUT after their first song they were hooked and a number of them were super excited to keep singing afterwards.

It honestly really warms my heart seeing even the tiniest bit of transformation from being reserved to breaking out of their shell. A lot of people don’t have the “I don’t care if I embarrass myself” mentality, and I understand. But this is one of the many joys of solo traveling… if you make a fool out of yourself… who cares! You’ll probably never see these people again. I also think this is a great outlook to have when everyone goes back home or wherever they are in life.

After 11pm rolled around, almost everyone that was in the lobby hanging out headed out to Choppers for the night. I completely lost track of the day of the week and it turned out it was Tuesday! Which meant it was jam night.

I had told myself the next jam night that I’d get on the microphone and sing (I’m not as confident in my guitar skills to jam). But instead of diving headfirst, I eased my way in and got the first opportunity I could to play the most important instrument of the jam, the cowbell.

It ended up being a fun and goofy night! The lady running the jam session recognized me from last week and asked if there was a song I wanted to sing. But the bar had to close early so I didn’t get the chance… but next week I will!!

Now, the bar had to close early because tomorrow is a Buddha Day. This means all across Thailand, there is no sale of alcohol, no loud music, etc. It’s a day of respect. I was actually in Thailand last year during one as well.

But this also means, I get the day off! I’m not sure how I’ll spend it yet, but most likely relaxing and checking off some todos I’ve been putting off.

– Elie