Koh Tao, Thailand
After the madness that is Bangkok, we grabbed a 45 minute flight on Bangkok Airways to the airport in Koh Samui (the largest island of the chain of three, which is now extremely built-up and Euro touristy). Making haste to get the hell out of Samui, we hopped on the Lomprayah Catamaran straight to Koh Tao aka "Turtle Island".
When you stumble off the boat at the island's port of Mae Haad Bay, you are instantly accosted by cabbies ready to take you to your destination, via open-back pickup truck.
Using the power of The World Wide InterWeb, we had called ahead and made reservations at Viewpoint Resort which is on the outskirts of Chalok Baan Kao. These beautiful bungalows are located at the end of the bay, situating them well away from the fisty "dive scene" which is crucial. When you hit the beach, you have to get to the right side of the bay, then make your way down a sketchy boardwalk, through a restaurant (where you have to take your sandals off as you pass through, typical when entering anywhere indoors in Thailand) then proceed down the narrowing beach, making your way up through the jungle-ish hillside to Viewpoint. How's that for a run-on sentence?
Unsurprisingly, the family-run bungalow operation was super chill and boasted a banging restaurant. As a reference, we stayed there 4 nights, eating and drinking heavily the whole time. You pay your bill at the end which was somewhere around 8000 baht or $250 US dollars. Divide this by 3 people and that comes out to around $85 per person which definately equals GoodTimes.
Assorted photos with possible commentary after the jump...
This was taken en route to Koh Tao, and...
Half in the bag from drinking beers on the boat, my man, Matt (aka "Tall Matt") looks on in disbelief.
I like boats. Some are for fishing, and some for diving, (and sometimes the same boat serves for both). Often, your destination is more easily accessible via water, so you can take a Longtail to your destination instead of a taxi, like these champs here. You better know how to swim, cause these babies aren't necessarily passing any safety inspections if you know what I'm saying. And yes, they are outfitted with a 4-cylander auto engine as a motor.
This is a typical view from the back of your open-back pickup truck taxi.
This is that sketch boardwalk I was talking about, you could easily take a drunken tumble off the side.
It looks like this as you make your way to Viewpoint...
...then you finally find it and it looks like this.
They have a party patio.
And a banging restaurant...
...with this as a view.
We're trying to figure out what the hell to eat, and if we'll survive today's dive.
This is the walk up the cliff to our bungalow.
Which had a dope deck.
And sunsets that look like this. Holy shit.