Day 147! Well, today’s the day! It’s time to see what these visa runs are all about. I’m pretty excited to finally be doing it… and also step foot into Myanmar! I wish I could stay for longer but maybe sometime in the future. Also today I had to say see you later to some friends, which is never fun. But the universe works in strange ways, so I’m sure I’ll be seeing them again.

After an insanely late night, I begrudgingly got out of bed at 10:30am. I was tired and not feeling the most social… but I had to work!

So I went over to the hostel lobby and started socializing with everyone there.

I kick started my morning with a muesli bowl, which as always was delicious. My stomach wasn’t in the best shape, but I made it through it.

I then, over the next 3 hours, chatted with new travelers. I tried my best to be as upbeat and alert as possible, but plenty of the travelers staying at Taco Shack were in the same boat. So there was a lot of commiseration over the lack of sleep and how great the party was.

I then played some pool against my friend Albert… and won again 😉 I was pretty surprised that I won with how tired I was!

After the game I had a couple of very nice conversations. The first of which was with 3 travelers from England. We chatted for around 30 to 40 minutes about traveling, life, Koh Tao, etc. They also were eating lunch and only ate half of their quesadillas each, so they offered them to me! It was very nice having a free lunch and also not wasting any food. A nice perk of the job to be in these advantageous positions.

After that conversation, I chatted with the owner of the hostel about the hostels history and the effects of Covid on the island. Apparently, 11 years ago when the hostel was created, the street it was on didn’t have much going on. But since the hostel was there it boosted the foot traffic, allowing for a lot of small mom and pop style restaurants to spring up.

Also from the beginning, there were only 4 hostels. Taco Shack started originally as its name, a taco restaurant in a shack. Then it turned into a hostel, and now a dive center as well! Originally it was a party hostel. But so many travelers were just going elsewhere to scuba dive so Kai thought, why not just have a dive center here.

The hostel survived Covid, but the island turned into a ghost town for a while. But now everything is up and cooking again! Taco Shack plans on opening a new location down the road a bit that is more “luxurious” and can house 150-200 travelers! Maybe in the next couple of years I’ll come back and see the progress.

It was a really nice conversation and I enjoyed learning all about the island I love so much and the hostel I’m really enjoying spending my time at.

I was also asked this morning to come up with a new hostel activity for Friday nights. Apparently the management doesn’t really like music bingo… so we needed something new. They wanted the new activity by the end of the day so I suggested a general game night and on the day we could decide if it would be a drinking game night (flip cup, rage cage, Flunky Ball) or a casual game night (uno, charades with a twist, etc).

They liked the suggestion. And I guess we’ll see how it goes in a couple of days!

2pm rolled around and I immediately went right back to my dorm room and took a very solid power nap.

After I awoke, I felt really refreshed. So that meant it was time to go to the beach!

We Emma, Maud, and I hopped on my motorbike and made our way to Aow Leuk again. Our friends were already there so we were stopping by for a bit to hang with them. I spent most of my time chatting with Emma about life and enjoying some nice quality time as our time hanging out was coming to an end.

We didn’t stay at Aow Leuk super long this time and at 5pm Emma, Maud, and I went down the road to a beach called Shark Bay.

I really really wish I had a way to take a picture of what we saw at this beach. But we were told from around the hours of 5pm and 6pm, if you snorkeled at Shark Bay you’d be able to see some turtles.

Now I was expecting some regular small turtles or to not see any at all. But oh. my. goodness. We ended up seeing two different turtles that were easily 2 meters long if not wide as well. I’ve never seen anything like this in the wild.

The turtles were feasting on the dead coral (which the entire beach was filled with dead coral which was sad to see). But they had to resurface every now and then and when they did, their full size came into perspective. It was one of the most majestic things I’ve seen, especially on this trip!

After we finished, I was starting to get exhausted again. So we headed back to the hostel to shower and also get dinner.

Emma, Maud, Lucy, and I went to Pooh & Family Kitchen, which ended up being very good as always. But I mistimed this meal a bit.

At 8:30pm, I wanted to leave for the pier that would take me on the first leg of my visa run. But as time ticked on, I was getting a bit nervous I’d be late. My food didn’t come until 8:15 and I scarfed it down in a couple of minutes when it did.

This unfortunately rushed my see you laters with these three and my friends at the hostel who were leaving while I was going to be away.

But, I hopped on my motorbike, I drove myself and my friend Marie to the pier, and then boarded the ferry for a trip I have no idea what to expect from.

Now, as wild as this 16 hour round trip will be, I’m not alone! My friends Marie and Paulina are joining me for most of the journey. And there’s also a dive instructor, Kevin, joining us as well. So if for any reason, anything goes wrong, we’ll be in it together!

This sleeper ferry was set up a bit different than the one I took from Surat Thani last year… and it was quite toasty in the cabin as well (the AC wasn’t doing much).

But nonetheless, I was ready to pass out after such a long 24 hours filled with fun, swimming, amazing weather, and good friends!

Tomorrow I’ll be entering a new country and promptly leaving it (sadly). Someday I’ll explore Myanmar!

– Elie