Day 160! I guess yesterday marks 200 blog posts on Travelie! I’ve really enjoyed working on this blog and sharing my day to day and perspective on solo traveling. I’m looking forward to many more days of blog writing to come! I didn’t realize it this morning… but today was going to be my last day sleeping at Taco Shack… for now.

I woke up around 8am… for some strange reason. But with waking up at this time, I realized I could call my Zeidie (my grandpa) and wish him a happy birthday!

It might not have been his birthday yet, but it was in Thailand! So I gave my grandparents a call and sang happy birthday to him.

After a lovely call, it was time to go back to bed. I was pretty tired from all the diving, so I needed the sleep.

When I woke up, I headed over to the Taco Shack lobby. Here I played a ton of pool, as always. I started off playing the owner, Kai, and also playing a bunch of different travelers in 1 on 1 and 2 on 2.

I’ve talked about it a fair amount the last few weeks, but I’ve been really enjoying playing pool. It’s been fun to get better and better at it over the days.

While playing, I got a muesli bowl for breakfast.

In the middle of my shift, Albert (one of the dive masters in training) came over with a “gift.” It was my friend Immy’s shoes that she forgot on the boat last night.

I continued playing pool, mainly against my coworkers, but also some other travelers. Eventually I got hungry again so I ordered a pad see ew from the hostel.

My friend Rhys came in around this time and was going to go to the gym this afternoon. I was planning on it as well, so we went and I hit a push day.

It was a really nice workout and there weren’t many people at the gym either. My friend Ami was though! It was nice to chat with her in between repetitions.

After the gym, I had a few errands to run.

The first of which was getting a diving health certification. I showed up and was told to come back an hour later… so I went back to the hostel where I went next door to inquire about a living arrangement.

My manager, Yi, had told me that there were rooms next door to Taco for Rent for 8,000 Baht! So I thought I’d go check them out. The room wasn’t anything special. But for 8,000 Baht I was sold! I wanted to think on it first though, so I left for my next adventure of the day!

My friend Emma wanted to learn how to ride a motorbike. I had been bringing her around town on my motorbike, but it was time for her to learn. I was successful at teaching Immy, so I was hoping I’d be the same with her.

I drove us to the immigration offices parking lot, which was a perfect place to learn the ropes of motorbiking.

Emma was a natural and picked it up insanely quickly. After 30 minutes of explanation and trials, she was zipping around the parking lot like a champ.

We then made our way from the immigration office to a quiet street near Taco Shack. Here she killed it again, driving up and back on a tighter road. It wasn’t super packed, but it was a great way to start her motorbiking journey.

After an hour total of motorbike lessons, I felt like Emma’s next step was taking a bike on the road. But because she didn’t have her own bike yet, we didn’t take it that far yet.

Also I needed to drop her off at Taco Shack and head to the doctor’s dive checkup. This checkup is one of the three requirements to start my Dive Master! It was a pretty silly check up and I’m not sure what the doctor actually checked. But he signed off on a piece of paper confirming I was good to go!

I headed back towards the hostel, where I made a pit stop at the mini mart next to Taco Shack to ask more about the apartment.

I was able to talk them down to 7,500 Baht a month. Which is around $200 per month. It even has an AC and fan. The utilities aren’t included… the landlord said it would be 200 Baht for water per unit and 10 baht per unit of electricity used.

Is it the nicest place to live? No, but it’ll be nice being so close to Taco. Maybe if I don’t enjoy the spot, I can find a prettier place for the second month that I’m here! But for now, I’ll definitely roll with the cheaper place to stay.

They told me I’ll need to move in tomorrow and I paid a 3,000 baht deposit to confirm the transaction. And just like that, I was officially hanging around the island for the next 2 months!

I then found some travelers and Emma playing cards, so I joined them in a few hands of Shithead before going back to my room to get ready for the night.

When I came back to the hostel, it was time to have dinner. So I got a chicken quesadilla which I devoured. I then proceeded to play more pool against, pew and Nut who is an insanely good pool player (both are my Coworkers).

After pool and eating, I decided to mingle with the travelers and this is when I ran into someone from Overland Park, Kansas which is practically where I was working before coming traveling.

After mingling for a bit, it was time for another trivia night! There ended up being 9 teams and I got to do my trivia again! This time though, I changed round two to general knowledge since majority of people didn’t know me that well since I’ve been diving.

It ended up being another great trivia night! I wrapped up around 10pm and headed back to my room to relax and go to bed “on the early side.”

Tomorrow I’ll be heading into my new home for at least a month if not two. I’m really thankful Yi told me about this place, because it is sometimes really hard to find a place to stay in a short amount of time.

It’s pretty crazy my time as Taco Shack’s volunteer is coming to an end, but I absolutely enjoyed volunteering here! It was the perfect place for me and I’m looking forward to seeing what these next two months on this amazing island have in store for me!

– Elie