Day 251! Wow wow wow… the day is finally here. My last day on Koh Tao! It’s been an incredible 4 months on this amazing island that I can now call home. What’s crazy, is it’s the 4th longest I’ve ever lived anywhere, soon to be 5th after Australia! This island will forever hold a special place in my heart and I’ll definitely be coming back soon. But we still have one more day left to enjoy!

I had no diving today and had full intentions on sleeping in… but that didn’t happen. My body woke me up around 6am and then every hour till 8:30am when I decided to just finally get up.

I wasn’t diving because you need 24 hours between a dive and a flight and my flight would cut it very close.

I did have a number of to-dos left that I needed to wrap up before leaving the island. One of them being packing up my room!

I didn’t have much to pack up but I needed to go through a couple bags, throw some things out, and repack everything much better. My next leg of this adventure is a very long travel day, so I wanted to make sure my checked bag was all good to go!

Also having the addition of my waterproof backpack made packing a breeze! I won’t have to carry around plastic garbage bags anymore to carry my laptop and lithium batteries!

I also started my morning FaceTiming my friend Ryan while I packed! It was great to catch up with him!

I had a few other things to do as well. The first being giving my slate to Taco Shack. It was a cheap one from Lazada so I didn’t feel the need to sell it, but I’ll be keeping my SMB, compass, torch, and mask. I thought these would come in handy in Australia.

I hung it up for someone to take it and my friend Tom snagged it so he could use it while he learns how to navigate the dive sites!

I then met up with my new friend Sol from Denmark, my refresher from yesterday. Her friend was diving and so were mine, so we decided to spend the day on the island together.

We started out with dinner at Mama Tam’s, where I of course got my favorite fried chicken on the island. They were surprised when I said I didn’t want a mango smoothie, but I had had a muesli bowl not long before it.

I then popped back to my apartment, put all of Gracie’s dive gear in her bag and put it, myself, and Sol onto my motorbike.

I’m so fortunate that Gracie let me use her gear for free these past couple of weeks. It saved me a ton of money and headache, with not having to buy and resell gear.

But I had to drop it off at the dive shop of the person buying her gear! They texted me a week ago and I thought I was going to have to do it then… but then I never heard from them. Since I was finally done, I made more of an effort to get in contact with them. I drove us to Hang Loose dive shop and dropped the bag off to Marga, one of the owners.

Now it was finally time to go fully enjoy the day!

Sol hadn’t seen much of the island yet, so I took her to one of my favorite beaches, Sai Thong.

The weather was perfect, the water was nice and chill, and the company was great! We spent a number of hours just chatting in and out of the water and relaxing in the shade of the little cushioned hut we were in.

I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my afternoon on my last day.

It started getting close to 4pm and I had a few more errands to run, so I took us back to Taco Shack.

The first errand was getting the deposit back from my apartment. I needed to pay for the last bit of electricity and water used, so I got a little less than 3,000 baht back. The next errand was getting my last “paycheck” from Iris. But she was busy in a meeting so I got it later in the day.

The final errand I needed to run was returning my motorbike to the place I’ve been renting it from the last 4 months. Unfortunately there was a crack in my mirror from when someone accidentally toppled my bike over while it was parked. And I guess I neglected to pay about a month of having the scooter. So I used the deposit to pay for both.

My friend Chelsea graciously offered to pick me up from the rental place AND take me to the pier in the morning. So I sat and waited for her and the motorbike owner was kind and gave me some of their food they were eating. I declined at first but she kept on insisting they had too much so I caved.

She wasn’t the only one to give me free food tonight though, I love this island and the amazing people on it.

I went back to Taco with Chelsea to meet up with my diving crew. Once we were all ready, we set off for a dinner at my relatively new favorite restaurant on Koh Tao, Buddy restaurant.

When Bee realized it was my last night, she brought out a big plate of meat skewers for us. It was very very sweet! Very reminiscent of the first day I decided to eat here. Somehow Bee and I formed a tight bond over the last number of weeks and it truly boiled down to just being a nice person and of course loving her food.

Something was exceptionally tasty about today’s yellow curry. I’m assuming she made it with a little extra love to remind me to come back as soon as I can.

The night was far from over… as almost all send offs have gone for me and my friends, it has to end with a Karaoke night!

It was a great karaoke night, full of singing, dancing, and a lot more singing.

My friends Tom and Chris threw on a couple songs about goodbyes and then out of nowhere Yi put up a picture that made me a bit emotional. It had a cutout of my face with a taco and heart emoji and it read “we’ll miss you.”

(Again, you’ll have to wait till I receive the picture myself)

And along with it, one of my favorite Karaoke songs, Country Roads. I was definitely holding back some tears.

This night ended up being a proper Taco Shack send off and I had a blast spending it with most of my diving friends from Taco who are still on the island.

The night still wasn’t over yet! It just so happened there was a jungle party tonight. And Tom, Chris, and I decided to go boogie our butts off one last time together.

I called it a night around 1am and Tom and I walked back to our apartments together. My ferry leaves at 7am so I wanted a few hours of sleep before then!

I can’t get over that it’s already time to head to Australia. It felt like such a distant thought and dream back in September when I got my visa and even in January when I started my travels!

To everyone that made my time special on Koh Tao, I appreciate each and every one of you. From hostel volunteering to becoming a freaking dive master, it’s been an incredible 4 months here.

I cannot wait to come back to the island to, most likely, do my instructor course! But at the very least come spend more time on this amazing amazing island! I’m sad to be leaving, but I’m ready to push myself way out of my comfort zone again and take on a new country!

Here’s to the next leg of the travel adventures!

AUSTRALIA!!!

– Elie