Day 141! Well, it’s Buddha Day in Thailand! This actually happens multiple times a year. On Buddha Day, the sale of alcohol is forbidden. Because of this, the hostel gave me the day off, since we wouldn’t be putting on an event tonight! And I sure made the most of it!

I decided not to set an alarm this morning and I let myself wake up naturally. I ended up waking up around 9am because of the light coming into the room. But I seized the moment to watch some TV on my phone.

The show is getting super good and it honestly started the day on a bit of an emotional roller coaster.

But it’s nothing a fresh muesli bowl couldn’t fix!

I finished up eating my breakfast… and I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself this morning. So I made a list of todos of things I wanted to get done throughout the day. I only did two of them, but it ended being a great day nonetheless.

I played a couple games of pool, because how else should I start my day! And then I was asked to join a few friends for breakfast. I decided to join them, even though I already ate. Mainly because I was craving a Thai tea, but also to have people to spend some time with this morning.

Deda from the Netherlands, Georgia from England, Shelby and Emma from Canada, and I went to a restaurant down the road. They had a Thai tea smoothie, so I tried that out! It was super good and reminded me of a frozen hot chocolate.

We sat and chatted about Koh Tao, life, and the other usual travelled chatter. I also talked a lot about my time so far as a volunteer and they all had great things to say about how I’ve done which was really nice to hear!

As we wrapped up breakfast, I saw a guy with a cool Carhartt hat and complimented him. We got to chatting and his name is Sam and he’s from England. He was looking for a place to dive and wasn’t finding what he wanted, so I suggested Taco Shack. Turns out the pricing was cheaper than what he had found so it looks like he might be using the suggestion.

He also was a really nice guy, so we exchanged numbers and there’s a chance we hang out in the next couple of days!

I then took a walk back to Taco Shack to hang out and wait for my next move of the day.

I’ve been walking around barefoot a bunch more. I’m really embracing the island life and also preparing myself for Australia… where allegedly a lot of people don’t where shoes. Or at least the ones I’ve met while traveling.

When I got back, the hostel was unloading their shipment of food. It was pretty crazy how much goes into the running of a hostel kitchen! Especially when shipping to an island.

The hostel dog, Taco, was showing some great self restraint with all the meat close enough to him for him to nab some.

The time came for me to walk back down the street to meet up with some more friends!

I met a guy a month or so ago named Sam in Bangkok! It was also the same night I met Miri and Joya. We hit it off instantly but only spent a few hours together before parting ways… well I ran into him a few nights ago and had such a warm embrace! It was so cool to run into each other again.

We’ve been meaning to hang out more but are both volunteering at hostels so the timing hasn’t worked out.

But today was his last full day on the island, so we finally got the chance to hang!

We went to a restaurant near Taco Shack called Mama Tam, which I had a few days ago with my friend Jaz. It was just as good as the last time and even better because I got to share it with Sam and all of his friends he’s made on the island.

I had actually met some of these people the other day at Freedom Bar, but it was nice to get another chance to hang out with them more. One of these friends actually was someone I was SUPPOSED to meet, but I’ll explain that story in a bit.

It was really wonderful being surrounded by such down to earth and likeminded people. And also getting to catch up with Sam and make plans to meet back up in Melbourne, Australia, which is where he is from!

Our time all together wasn’t over yet, as we all made our way to Sairee beach to hang out some more.

We were thinking about going to Freedom Bar, but because of some ominous clouds, we decided to stay closer to our hostels. But… it never ended up raining.

We spent the next number of hours, relaxing, listening to music, chatting about a lot of deep conversations – the longest being about what meats should be eaten, floating in the water, and a lot of people ended up making some cool art with oil pastels in their notebooks.

It was wonderful just hanging out and enjoying each others company!

As the sun got close to setting, I saw some guys peppering a volleyball. So I hopped over to them and asked to join. This quickly turned into a volleyball net being set up and I was thrown into a 3 on 3 game of volleyball!

It started out with me, an Israeli, and a Dutch guy vs three Thai guys… I was getting a nice workout in playing 3v3 on a big court. Then halfway through the game, 2 more people joined to make it 4 on 4, so we reset the score to 0 – 0… after losing by a couple points, another 4 players came in. I thought I was done so I hopped into the ocean to rinse off after sweating a ton.

But… I was almost immediately pulled into a 6v6 match. Where we narrowly lost again. I thought for sure I’d be done this time… but some Israelis wanted me on their team as an “honor” Israeli since they wanted an all Israeli team to speak Hebrew to each other.

The games were very competitive, much more than Thursday night. Everyone could bump, set, and spike! It was exactly what I’ve been looking for out of sand volleyball and what I’ve been missing from home. The games got a little heated as the Thai guys liked to call our team out on random net violations. But I didn’t let myself get wrapped up in this, especially since it was just for fun, on an island, as we watched the sunset.

The last game we played got really dark and after we finished I packed up my things and headed back to the hostel to shower.

I got cleaned up and made my way over to the hostel lobby for dinner. As I ate a chicken, rice, and fried vegetables, I chatted with my hostel friends and caught up on each other’s days.

They also asked me to share my blog with them, so now they all can see what I’ve been saying about them… it’s all good things of course!

I decided to skip out on hanging out with them tonight though. I wanted to spend more time with Sam and crew before he left. So I hopped on my motorbike and made my way 5 minutes down the road to the Islander Hostel where they worked.

Now enter… Dylan (aka Dill).

While I was at lunch, I met Dill briefly. He was sitting at the other end of the table so I met him on the way out. But I could tell we definitely would get along if we hung out more… ask and yee shall receive, Dill came to the beach with us as well and it turned out he was in fact a really cool guy from England.

Out of nowhere while we were on the beach, Dill looks at me bug eyed with excitement and randomly says, “you know Seb and Shan!” It took me a second to process it… but then I go “NO WAY!”

Seb and Shannon were the two English people I met in Koh Phangan while taking a taxi to our hostel. Apparently, he’s been friends with Shannon for the past 10 years! Seb and Shannon told him to look out for a guy named Elie and described me to him because they thought we’d get along… AND they told me to look out for a guy named Dylan, but I took it with a grain of salt because what would be the odds I actually met the Dylan they were talking about.

It’s wild how the universe works… there was a night where Seb offered to pick me up to bring me to where they were hanging out. And if I had, I would’ve ran into Sam sooner AND met Dill as well… crazy!

When I arrived to the Islander, Dill and I dove into an intense game of Manacla. He ended up winning by 1 stone… but we went from frienemies to teammates as the hostel game of charades (with a twist) started.

This ended up being one of the most fun games of charades I have ever played.

After everyone wrote two charade prompts, there were 5 rounds.

• Round 1: Use any words but not the words on the prompt
• Round 2: Act out the prompt (no words)
• Round 3: Only use one word to describe the prompt
• Round 4: Only use sounds
• Round 5: No sounds, only allowed two individual poses

This may seem confusing, but you use the same prompts every round. So you have to memorize what they are to help you figure them out with the hysterically little you’re given each round. It was a ton of fun and ended the nights with lots of laughter.

I left around 10:30pm and said my see you later to Sam. It shouldn’t be too long till I see him next! But the next time won’t be SE Asia, it will be his home town of Melbourne.

I rode home and got a chicken sandwich from the sandwich and roti stands near my hostel. I devoured my sandwich and called it an early night to hopefully feel fully rested for more volunteering tomorrow!

It was another fantastic day on Koh Tao. Each day just gets better and better. It’s a bit sad Sam and I won’t get to hang out more now… but we had a great day with him and his friends and I’ll be seeing him in a couple months!

– Elie