Day 142! Today was another great day in Koh Tao. I’m so glad everything is going smoothly and that working at a hostel has been such a joy so far. I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes me… but for now, it’s leading me to fun days on a beautiful island!

I started off my morning just like the past few, but this time I slept all the way till 10am! My throat was a bit sore from all the talking over the past few weeks… and also getting excited during charades last night.

But after showering and watching one episode of Bleach, I headed to the lobby of Taco Shack to get a muesli bowl and start another morning of socialization.

Over the next couple of hours, I chatted with travelers waiting around to check in. One of the couples I met that stood out were named Brook and Brooks from Canada. I thought it was pretty wild how they almost had the same name!

Also my friend Georgia started her diving course today, which is very exciting. It’s also slowly giving me the kick in the butt I need to start mine soon as well… probably after my visa run in a couple of days (but more on that in a later post).

I of course also played a few pool games. I played my friend Albert and ended up beating him 2 more times! I can definitely tell my game is getting much better.

Some of the long term Taco Shack crew showed up later on in my morning shift and I ate lunch with them. I finally tried the hostels pad Thai anddd it was okay. It didn’t fully taste like pad thai, but once I put my finger on that it tasted like spaghetti and meatballs… it ended up being a very enjoyable meal.

As it neared the end of my shift, one of the dive instructors, Paulina, asked us if we wanted to help her clean up Sairee Beach! My friend Lena, from the US, and I both said we were game, so we followed her down the road and started our cleanup.

We started our cleanup northwards, towards a part of the beach I usually don’t go to. As we walked, we immediately found loads of trash littered about. It was everything from broken fishing line, bottles, plastic bits, and styrofoam. The styrofoam proved to be the hardest to pick up because it was tiny pearl sized pieces.

We were just about to finish up one half of the beach when the wind started to pick up heavily. Then it started to rain. We made our way back to our things and headed back to the hostel, but it was a very rewarding 45 minutes.

I’m super glad I ended up helping and I look forward to doing it more. The beaches are too beautiful to have trash all over them. Also we just need to do a better job cleaning up after ourselves and taking care of the planet.

Since the cleanup ended earlier than expected, I decided to head straight to the gym.

I had a nice pull day and met a couple ginormous guys from Slovenia. I randomly got to chatting with them after asking if they were done with a piece of equipment. I complimented the guy on the weight he was repping and he said something along the lines of that it was “embarrassing.”

He apparently used to be able to do much more but had an injury and took a year off of the gym… this guy was leg pressing 8 plates on both sides… it was wild. It’s very interesting the pressures and judgments we put in ourselves sometimes. We had such different perspectives on the exact same thing

One of them also told me about his time as a celebrity body guard. He had guarded Paris Hilton, Nicholas Cage, Chris Hemsworth, and more. It was pretty cool to hear about!

My workout made me hungry, so when I got back to the hostel I ordered a chicken fried rice.

I was also joined by the hostel dog, Taco, who was very much interested in my food… and also some love.

Some of my friends returned while I was eating and told me that they had received some free cinnamon rolls and they wanted me to finish them… so after my meal, I ate 1.5 cinnamon rolls, which were fantastic! I haven’t had them in a long time.

We had talked about maybe going to a viewpoint to watch the sunset. But in the end decided against it since it was very cloudy. So Olly and I played a game of pool… which I won as well!

I also ended up chatting with people around the lobby, seeing what everyone was up to tonight. The hotel was VERY quiet since tonight was the full moon party on Koh Phangan.

This made my night very easy. Most of my friends went to play in the Thursday night volleyball tournament. Which only left a handful of people still around the hostel. I chatted with all of them about miscellaneous things and then around 9:15pm my manager, Yi, told me I could be done for the night.

So I popped on my shoes and walked down the street to see what restaurants would be open… yes I was hungry again even after all the eating I’d done today.

One of the restaurants I’d been to recently with Miri and Joya, POOH & Family Kitchen, which for some reason was still open. I also met a very friendly cat before enjoying a Thai cashew chicken with rice.

While eating, the power went out! Not just at the restaurant, but across the entire island again. I’m not sure what causes it this time, but it wasn’t rain.

I finished up my meal and walked back to the hostel. Even with the power outage, I was illuminated by the full moon as I made my way back.

I got back to the hostel, chatted with a few more people and then called it a night!

Words cannot accurately describe the amount of fun I’m having currently. But I’ll keep trying to convey it as the days on Koh Tao go on!

– Elie