Life on Koh Tao

While I’ve written dozens of posts about life in Koh Tao… diving, learning to drive, finding an apartment, I never feel like I wrote a post that summed up what it feels like to live there. In Koh Tao I often experienced moments that stayed with me, rolling around in my consciousness a day or a week later. I started making notes and writing about them, though I didn’t see how they went together or what they meant. Today I realize that those moments were me looking at my life through a lens and realizing the things that had become my normal. Those moments stand out to me because they had become normal little moments, my reality. This isn’t a traditional travel blog post, but I want to share it with you.

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I’m standing in 7-ll, Koh Tao’s one and only corporate presence and guaranteed source of air conditioning, waiting to by my weekly $3 of phone credit. 100 Baht 1-2 Call please, I ask. Kappun Ka. I start filming tomorrow before dawn so I’m headed home but as I type the code into my phone I feel the island’s pulse rising. Popular backpacker anthems pour out of the bars, cheap street food dinners sizzle on hot grills, and happy people fill the road.

Across the street from 7-11 is a local warm-up bar where I used to play Connect Four with the manager and take advantage of the 50 baht mixed drinks for locals. My friendly relationship with said manager deteriorated one night when our roles were reversed- I was behind the bar at another popular late night spot and he was a customer spitting mad about the pricing structure. In retribution, the next time I came in he denied me local prices in front of a crowd of expats. It wasn’t about the money. It was a power play, and he won.

I used to think of him as the neighborhood funny guy as he chased my motorbike down the street, trying to grab on to the back. We’ve replaced that playful exchange with steely glances ever since, and I now see him a little differently: as a bully.

Tonight I look over and see him standing still and quiet through the raucous crowded street, hands raised to his head in a wai, praying over a small shrine tucked next to an ATM. Eyes shut tight, hands wrapped around smoking incense, he leans down, forehead to the ground, and is still.

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It’s only 8am but a heavy heat is already settling into the valley where the Island Muay Thai gym sits. The trainers call when they see me: “Alek, Alek!” It’s a bastardized version of my name that I have come very much to enjoy.  None of them take me seriously but I don’t mind, I’m here to shed some of the rice-padding I’ve put on, not to master technique and fight. Thais always seem to think that I’m a) Scandinavian and b) 15 years old. They constantly demand to know where my family is, and delight in asking me over and over how old I am; dissolving in laughter as if it is the greatest joke they have ever heard.

This morning they are sitting around a plastic card table, reticent to start training. Its fight night, and piles of colorful baht resting on the table reveal that the bet taking has already begun. I notice two small black handguns laying casually next to the money. For a moment I wonder if they are fake.

I start my usual warm up: 300 skips with a skipping rope followed by stretching on the concrete around the ring. When I’m done I look at the group expectantly, willing one of my preferred trainers to come over. Today it works, and Pi Toon, the boss, walks over. He is easily bored yet fascinated by how high I can kick- he has me do it over and over, wide-eyed and laughing.

He starts to wrap my hands in the smelly wraps and I tell him that I’m leaving soon for a visit home. Where is home, he asks. New York, I answer, and for a brief moment I wonder if I’m being presumptuous in naming a city instead of the country.

He laughs but then turns serious. But New York is so big, and you are so small.

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I’m still dripping with seawater when I peel myself off the sand. “Time to go to work,” I announce, and by work I mean edit a few blog posts and answer some emails before dinner. I hop on my bike, buzzed on life and the banana daiquiri I was sipping on.

Driving has always been a quiet, reflective time for me. Today is no different. I look around at the mountains pushed up beside me to the right and to the left, the glittering ocean. A girl on a dirt bike glides past with a dog as her front passenger, paws on the handlebar, ears flapping in the wind. A family of four passes on one bright red scooter. I soak up the sun, and the bizarre scenes unfolding in front of me.

Soon I reach the most bizarre of all. Every Saturday the Thai men of Koh Tao gather in an open field with what looks like some jungle gym bars. They arrive from all over the tiny island, each with one hand on their motorbike handles and one hand holding a delicate bamboo bird cage.

When the cages are perfectly aligned, side-by-side, the men stand back a few feet in a line and they watch. They watch and they listen to tiny caged birds sing quiet little songs. I’ve been told it’s a kind of contest, or competition. I always wonder how they pick the winner.

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I don’t know the time, but I know that I’ve been dancing on the beach for hours and we are nearer to sunrise than we are from sunset. This night came from nowhere. One minute I was heading home early and the next I was barhopping, watching a ladyboy cabaret and doing laughing gas balloons in bean bag chairs on the sand. This night, a random Tuesday in which my friend Kat and I were the only two interested in getting into trouble, has so much to it. But there is so much more that is noticeable absent: expensive cab fares, painful stilettos, bouncers with attitude. We walk up the mountain back to our bungalows, sharing banana pancakes and laughter.

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Each and every morning that I film for this particular dive school, I wake up cursing. The boat leaves at 6am and that means drunk, happy people are walking home as I sleepily drive to work. I wonder how I ended up on the less-fun end of this equation. It is completely dark, save for the lights from my bike, the dive shop, and the 7-11.

An hour later I am on a boat headed to Chumphon, Koh Tao’s premiere dive site. I’ve filmed the journey to the boat, the equipment set up, and the dive briefing. I make my way to the top deck and am pleasantly surprised to find that I am alone. The only sound is the hum of the engine and the churning of the water below. I watch the cloudy sunrise over the island’s distinct humps, and I think to myself that maybe this isn’t such a bad gig after all.

The silence in soon broken as we arrive at the dive site and attempt to get a literal boatload of people into dive gear and into the ocean in a timely fashion. The current is strong and I feel winded by the time I’ve swam across the surface to the buoy line. I breathe a sigh of relief as I purge the air from my BCD and descend into the deep, with one quick glance back at the island… my island. I flip on my camera. Another day at the office.

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Thank you for everything, Koh Tao…