Scooter
Scooters are cool. Or not.
Before the trip I asked Inna if she'd like to rent a scooter or a motorbike and she only laughed at me. But things change it seems! On Ko Tao Inna decided that renting a scooter might be a good idea and after finding out that it was ridiculously cheap (150 B / 24 h) too, the decision was easy. At around 9 am we had our ugly 125 cc scooter ready for action.
The only problem in renting a vehicle in Thailand is that they don't offer any insurance. Everyone has to sign a paper telling that the client will pay for any damaged part. Normally this wouldn't be such a huge problem but stories tell that sometimes you are asked to pay extra even if you haven't caused any damage.
The paradise island
We decided to take the risk and our first destination was a laundry service nearby. We left our laundry there and wondered if we'd get everything back since we didn't get any receipt. We'd find out later we thought and started driving again. Our plan was to snorkel but before that we wanted to see if we could find skin suits (a suit which protects you from jellyfish stings) and water shoes. In the center we found a few diving shops and none of them had skin suits, only short and long-sleeved shirts for the same purpose. The shirts were over-priced in our opinion so we decided to buy just the shoes.
The traffic on Ko Tao was nothing short of relaxing and we really enjoyed cruising around the island. The only nuisance was my burning skin! In the afternoon we headed for a shore in the far north-west of the island. The roads weren't too bad and the island is small so it was only a 20-minute drive. We left the scooter to a parking lot of some kind and walked to the shore through a fancy hotel. We wondered if we could snorkel there but a waitress in the hotel told us that it's perfectly ok.
The view from our snorkeling spot
Quickly we hid our stuff somewhere behind rocks and went to water. The sea was still amazingly warm and soon I was snorkeling around the beautiful coral reefs. Many colorful fish joined me and I felt like I could be there forever. Inna didn't feel so safe in the sea because of sharks, jellyfish and waves but soon she followed me and we had a lot of fun together. All in all we spent maybe two or three hours there in the sea, enjoying everything we could find. Unfortunately it wasn't the shark season so I didn't see any of those but otherwise it was great :). At some point I was snorkeling and diving alone and when I came back I saw Inna feeding small fish with pineapple. The fish weren't afraid of her at all and ate it from her fingers!
On the way back we faced an unpleasant surprise: the tide had arrived and our stuff was wet with salty sea water, including Inna's phone. I quickly asked the staff in the hotel if I could use their fresh water but it was too late. RIP Nokia. Inna's travel insurance papers were in the water too but we were able to save them.
In the evening we continued exploring the beautiful island with our scooter and bought a nice big papaya before returning to the bungalow. Before sleeping we decided to go for a relaxing night swim and enjoy the big, orange fruit we had just bought. Without the incident with Inna's phone it would have been almost a perfect day!
This restaurant had the best yellow rice on the island!
Our papaya
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