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From the moment I stepped off the boat to Koh Tao and started to wander the beach, I fell in love with Koh Tao. Before coming many people told me that I had to go to Koh Tao because it was the best island in all of Thailand. I had this picture perfect place envisioned that was only real in my dreams....I was wrong. I enjoyed Koh Tao more than I ever expected. Before coming to Thailand I had this idealized idea of a country full of little bungalows, longtail boats lining the beaches, chill backpackers lounging at beach bars watching the sunset, fresh fish, cheap beer, and an absolute paradise. I guess I had been reading too many tourist books from the 80s and early 90s! Indeed the beauty of Thailand had surpassed anything I ever imagined, but the amount of tourism and westernization did surprise me. Yet Koh Tao....Koh Tao was what I imagined all of Thailand to be.
Koh Tao: Ideal Thailand Finally Found
Casey Lary2006-02-20 15:10:38
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From the moment I stepped off the boat to Koh Tao and started to wander the beach, I fell in love with Koh Tao. Before coming many people told me that I had to go to Koh Tao because it was the best island in all of Thailand. I had this picture perfect place envisioned that was only real in my dreams....I was wrong. I enjoyed Koh Tao more than I ever expected. Before coming to Thailand I had this idealized idea of a country full of little bungalows, longtail boats lining the beaches, chill backpackers lounging at beach bars watching the sunset, fresh fish, cheap beer, and an absolute paradise. I guess I had been reading too many tourist books from the 80s and early 90s! Indeed the beauty of Thailand had surpassed anything I ever imagined, but the amount of tourism and westernization did surprise me. Yet Koh Tao....Koh Tao was what I imagined all of Thailand to be.
We got off the boat and were taken to our bungalow, the Seashell Resort. As I mentioned in my previous entry, it seems the further one travels into remote islands the types of bungalows change too. When one hears the
Welcome to summer camp!word "resort," the westin or some huge hotel is envisioned. The best way to describe this resort on Koh Tao is that it felt like summer camp. We lived in the garden cottages that had "normal" temperature water (not hot nor cold!), fans, poor lighting, and for about an hour at night the generators turned off to conserve energy. I was perusing some of the other bungalows along the beach and well, they were the same standards as ours. All of Koh Tao felt like summer camp. I LOVE summer camp! It felt like home! I could have been back in Skylake ;-). The accomodations were fine, I just wanted to point out how loosely the word "resort" can be used in Thailand :-).
Koh Tao had the chill beaches (when the tide went down), the longtail boats, the chill backpackers, the chill divers from all over the world, the fresh fish, cheap
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See photographs from:
Thailand Gallery
