Christmas Eve in Koh Tao - Thailand

2013 would be our first Christmas away from home. It was quite weird and both of us were feeling very homesick. We decided to rent a moped from a place down the road for 200TB + 50TB for petrol. This is roughly the same price around the island, so don't bother trying to find a place that does it cheaper. We rode to the other side of the island; towards Shark Bay (famous for sightings of black tipped sharks hence the name). Unfortunately, we didn't actually do our research before hand since we found out that the best way to visit shark bay is by boat. The roads are waaaay too steep the drive down on a moped (unless you're an experienced driver with a death wish), and are too far and steep to walk down/up (we were more concerned about walking back under the blistering sun). 

We drove back to Sairee beach where we went swimming in the sea. The sea is cystal clear which starts off turquoise and gradually turns deep blue the further out you go. Fish swim in between your legs and you don't need to go out far to see some amazing marine life whilst snorkelling. We grabbed a coconut and some munch at a bar called "Wind Resort", while the sun started to dip behind the horizon. This bar has a swimming pool with a pool bar which the public can use all day for the price of 200TB. It plays good music, chilled out stuff in the day and house at night (non of that commercial bollocks). We headed back to the supermarket to pick up some champagne for Christmas Day and some Thai whiskey for the evening - I'm not the one to usually drink whiskey but Thai whiskey is actually really nice. 

Christmas Eve in Koh Tao was absolutely mad. It's just one massive beach party. We started off sharing a bucket at the Wind resort for 250TB. Like I said, the musics really good and they have a pool table and these Thai cushions to sit on. We met some guys - Lloyd and Ben in the queue for the toilets and stuck with them for the most of the night. The next bar we headed to had a fire show and fire limbo but the music was more like Carly Rae Jepsen. The beach was lit up by candles and the fire limbo was placed in the middle.  Oh Tiger LOVES her fire limbo. Well she did until some guy drops the lit bar and it flips onto her legs, leaving a bit juicy burn her thigh. Once the clock hit midnight, fireworks started going off and the general atmosphere was amazing. While we walked along the beach we came across a group of 3 Thais with a guitar and had a sing song with them, it was so, so cute. 

A few bars later, we end up at Cacuns which seemed to be where everyone ended up. When I went to go order some balloons from the bar, the bar tender turned round and BOOOOM I was in shock. He was an old school friend of mine which I'd known since reception but hadn't seen in around 7 years. Fuck me, I was bloody speechless. So yeah, that happened and still I don't think I've come to terms with it. However, knowing the guy behind the bar has it advantages as we got discounted balloons all night - yay! It came to around 4am and Tiger decides to go for a night swim in the resorts swimming pool. Some guy dived in and hit the bottom, loosing his tooth. More and more people join us in the pool which was a laugh. 

We headed home after leaving a 12 year old boy who became the new dj. He was actually really good but by 5am we decided to call it a night. Still, it was the best Christmas Eve.