It’s the start of the monsoon in South Thailand and the heavy stormy afternoon are slowly replacing the nice sunny one. 

But it’s all good because Koh Tao’s vibes are warm enough to keep your smile on your face even when the sky is darken with black clouds. The island is full of people from Myanmar. So much that I started to say hi in this language instead of in Thai in the end. It was perfect for me who stupidly left the country with a bunch of bills that nobody wanted… I found friends who accepted to exchange this currency against bahts. I’ve been saved…!

Even if they stayed years and years in Thailand, people from Myanmar welcome you in their shop in more friendly way than Thai people. Don’t make me wrong: Thai people are adorable for most of them, but… You know… Myanmar strikes again!
  
    
    
  

Sairee Beach is a little heaven. Time stopped there and it’s for the best. If you don’t want to rent a scooter for the day but you have to go on the other side of the island, simply stay on the side of the road, your thumb up. Somebody will stop, generally after 5 minutes. On the way to the post office, I jumped in the back of a German dude’s scooter, on the way back, I rode with a Norwegian mum and her little baby (still on a scooter). Easy, quick, cheap and funny, I recommend hitch hiking there if you are not scared of falling… 

I spend nearly one week here, between some hip coffee shops and the beach. Doing nothing else than reading, swimming, diving and relaxing. Enjoying life and making friends. 

About diving. I couldn’t stop after my open water and because Koh Tao is the cheapest place in the world to pass diving exams, I decided to spend the rest of my budget in the open water diver advanced level diploma. This one was easier and actually really funny. The wreck dive was pretty incredible and I will ALWAYS remember my first deep water dive.

You have this thing, that they call neutrogene narcosis, that can happen if you dive under 25 meters. Not a lot of people are affected by it and it’s really easy to cancel the effect by going up a little bit. 

We slowly descend, equalizing meters after meters, until we reached the sandy bottom. Twenty seven meters. It hit me at twenty five. Bim! I looked at my fins and felt so depressed and tired that I was about to cry. I looked at my instructor and made the sign of neutrogene narcosis. I felt so helpless and ignorant about anything in my life that when he asked me to ascend a little bit, I just followed his instructions like a child. But I obviously did not ascend enough…

When I joined my buddy again, I felt a warm and uncontrollable happiness tingling my belly. I started to laugh and didn’t stop until the drive ended one hour later. It was one of the best and scariest experience ever. I was litterally DRUNK… It was like being connected to the Nature and being able to talk to the fish and see things for the first time. I couldn’t stop dancing and playing with the bubbles around. Numbers didn’t make sense anymore (20… Is it bigger or smaller than 0…?) and deep existential reflexions kept popping in my mind (does fish has neutrogene narcosis too?).
    
    

Koh Tao is more mature in a way than other places I visited in South Thailand and I felt like going out here was more my kind of night out.