9/21/15
Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand → Ko Tao, Thailand
This was it. The night where my immune system held a press conference with the rest of my body to let it know we had defeated the norovirus. I awoke and glanced at my clock to see what time it was and figured it would be around 8:00 a.m. When I saw 11:15 staring back at me, I knew we had to move quickly. Our boat to Ko Tao was at 12:45 p.m. We threw everything haphazardly into our bags and started running to the village.
As we hurried to the pier (in the bed of a laundromat owner’s truck who agreed to take us for ten dollars), I was having vivid, lucid flashbacks of water rushing into our boat as we thrashed about in the sea. I couldn’t believe we were going to venture back into this water. But we didn’t have much of a choice; we couldn’t stay out in the middle of the gulf forever.
The clear skies and calm water gave us ideal cruising conditions. Other than an occasional bump, it was literally smooth sailing. This was good for my mental state. I couldn’t afford to lose that; my physical state had already deteriorated.
The sea looked like a scatterplot with no correlation as multicolored boats hunted fish in all directions. We waved to captains on boats that looked like Forrest Gump’s boat, Jenny. (I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that is my third reference to Forrest Gump. Somehow our trip reminded me a lot of that movie, and I couldn’t begin to tell you how, but I felt good about it.)
I felt the boat drop gear and slow down as we cruised toward Mae Haad Pier. I glanced over the edge of the railing and saw the clearest water yet; it looked like our boat was gliding on air. I could make out every single fish, rock, and piece of coral. This place felt unreal. I was glad that bartender in Antwerp had told us to come here. It looked like we had saved the best for last in Ko Tao (Turtle Island). Just how we’d planned it.
Our hosts, Alan and Heidi, were a British couple who had lived in Ko Tao for ten years. They seemed to be in their midforties or fifties, and were a rare combination of quirky, sweet, and smart. Alan used to be a financial advisor, and Heidi had been in customer service. They greeted us with the two-cheek kiss. This greeting seems like a distant memory.
We followed behind them to their small pickup truck, and Alan asked, “Do you want to ride the boring way or the dangerous way?”
That was like asking a person with an excruciating hangover if they wanted one ibuprofen or three.
We climbed onto the back of the pickup truck that had a handlebar above the cab. Ash and I stood on the bed and held on to the bar as Alan backed out of the pier parking lot. We laughed with excitement as we rode the truck like a roller coaster through the coconut groves. The tall palm trees grew to be forty to fifty feet tall here. Many still had a full chamber of coconuts. If we took one of those to the head. we’d be scre—
“I’m hit, Ash! I’m hit!” I screamed.
“You idiot, that was just a branch. Keep your head down when we pass the trees!” Ash responded while laughing with joy from the thrill of the ride.
In my defense, it had felt like a coconut. I kept my head on a swivel from that point forward.
We turned onto a dirt road that must have been the driveway to our place, the Star Villa. It was basically a mountain, and it took more power than I cared to use to keep my bag and myself from flying off the truck. I felt like I was doing a pull-up hold at the top of the bar as we climbed. We reached a point where I could feel Alan holding down the gas, and we barely made it over a lip before flattening out and stopping abruptly.
Once we got out of the truck, Alan led the way up steep steps and told us to have a seat on the rocking chairs at the top on the porch. I slid off my backpack and felt a surge of relief. Our view was unreal. We were on top of a mountain, looking down over the coconut grove and all the way out to sea.
Alan did a rundown of the swanky villa, from electronics to AC, to food and drinks. There were surround-sound speakers and a DVR system. We’d been lucky if we had a TV with English channels up to this point.
Even better than the place itself was the phone they provided. They gave us an old-school “burner” phone and told us that all the taxis and good restaurants were contacts in there. They also told us to call them twice a day to get a ride down to the village. Thank God, I thought. We were trying to figure out how we were going to get to and from this place.
We thanked them for the hospitality and took time to unwind. After four months of traveling, Ko Tao was our last real stop. Just writing those words made me sick to my stomach. Almost everything in Thailand made me sick to my stomach, but this was a different kind of nausea.