Night Boat to Koh Tao

All aboard the night boat

We booked to go to Koh Tao with our hostel who hadn't even heard of Koh Tao. The receptionist rang up her travel agent and got us a 'nice price' through her friend, telling us that we would be taking a boat from Krabi to Koh Tao at 4pm and that it would go directly there. It wasn't until we got a map out and showed her the geography, and explained that it wasn't geographically possible to traverse Thailand by boat, that she conceded there must also be some bus travel involved. She didn't tell us when or how we'd get there, which worried us a little, but as I've said before, in Thailand you just have to put your faith in the travel agent that plans the route for you and hope for the best. We got up late on the morning we were leaving and hung around the hostel till 4. We went out for a late lunch at a Thai restaurant around the corner and went on the internet for a little while. The bus (truck) came to pick us up, as we have now become accustomed to, about 15 mins earlier than stated, the driver stuck a sticker on us saying Tao and dropped us off at another travel agents down the road. We waited there for a bit, before another truck came and bundled us off to another travel agents, where we boarded our final minibus, with around 12 other westerners all packed in. The journey took about 5 hours and there were some really annoying English girls on there showing off their scars where they had fallen off mopeds. They were adamant that they were getting their boat at 7pm at a different port from us but Jemma and I knew this was not the case and that the whole bus would be getting on the 11.00 ferry at a port further north (Chumpon). Sure enough, the mouthy English girls were proved wrong and we made it to Chumpon around 10.30pm, after a hairy journey in the dark, involving the driver being stopped and fined for speeding, and several horror stories being passed around amongst travellers about travellers that have died on buses and boats in Thailand. We got to the night ferry port and were greeted by a Welsh man from Port Talbot, who gave us all a ticket and told us to go onto the boat and choose a bed. It was a lot better than I had expected! I had read that it would be a glorified cargo ship with everybody sleeping on wooden planks on the floor, but actually, we all had bunk beds with a pillow and it wasn't too bad after all. We made friends with two Ozzie girls and sat outside with them on the deck under the stars as the boat chugged along towards Koh Tao.

Sat out on deck

I went to bed about midnight and woke up needing the toilet about 3am, with the boat rocking violently. I had all sorts of morbid images going through my mind and couldn't see life vests anywhere (no safety briefings given on Thai boats). This was made worse thanks to the story one person had told on the bus earlier about some travellers who drowned on a longboat in the middle of the sea between two islands because nobody knew it had gone out. I didn't want to risk going out on deck to the toilet with the boat rocking so violently, so I tried to drift back to sleep, but didn't really sleep again for the rest of the night. At 5.30 am I heard a cat miaow and looked across to see one sat on the bed next to me. There was also a resident dog on board. By now the boat had docked in Koh Tao but the Welsh man had told us all to stay on the boat until 7 because nothing would be open in the town until then. I got up at this point to go to the toilet and watch the sunrise, which was not that spectacular, but it was amazing to see Koh Tao for the first time. At 7.00 we got off the boat and wandered around a bit, before finding a taxi driver who took us to a remote part of the island that is meant to be good for snorkelling. He dropped us off at some bungalows on the beach (probably his friends) and I went to ask how much they were. Not content with paying £5 each for our own bungalow with sea view, I hunted around for a bit to find a better deal, but in the end we decided to just take the first offer as it was right next to a good snorkelling spot.

View from our first hotel