I took my suitcase to work. It fit neatly under my desk, but I kept kicking it during the day. A solid reminder that I was going straight to the airport to spend Easter in Thailand on the island of Koh Tao with my best friends. It would be a reunion, with expert local guidance from a friend who’s been working as a diving instructor.
After work, I changed into a tourist and headed to the airport. Sailing through the streets and subway of Hong Kong, trailing my suitcase behind me, I was struck by the freedom of living in Hong Kong where you can fly to so many places in a short time.
Shortly after taking my seat on the plane, a woman dressed head-to-toe in a baby pink tracksuit sweetly said, ‘Excuse me,’ and sat down next to me. She pulled out a pink smartphone from her pink handbag and motioned to get my attention. Looking up, I saw my face in the screen selfie-style, with a filter effect that made my eyes cartoon-large. She took a photo, looked at it, and said ‘So pretty!’ then put her phone away. I laughed and found out her name was Ya-ya, but we didn’t speak again for the rest of the flight.
I arrived in Bangkok at midnight and checked into an airport hotel. Early the next morning my best friend arrived from Berlin. After a brief, but deep sleep, we checked out and started the journey to Koh Tao, which by bus and ferry takes around 12 hours. To pick up our bus tickets, we travelled through the Bangkok subway towards the centre of town with our suitcases. Most people had their smartphones in waterproof cases hung around their necks, and we followed suit. It was Songkran festival, Thai New Year, which is often summed up as: ‘the biggest water fight in the world.’
For the final part of our Bangkok journey, we hired a tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw). It wasn’t long before the streets of empty shops revealed small groups of people of all different ages ready to drench any passerby, with a particular focus on any open tuk-tuks, like the one we were in. By the third group of people, we were stuck in traffic and sitting ducks. A small boy pointed us out to his group. I have never seen someone laugh so hard as the man holding a bucket full of water as we pleaded with him, inching closer to him as the traffic moved, until with perfect aim he drenched both me and my suitcase and made our driver double over laughing.
We arrived at the notorious Khao San Road. To pick up our tickets, there was no way but to go directly through the street. That meant making our way through a party full of people with water weapons and no mercy. Finally picking up our tickets, we walked out and moved to the palace grounds.
The mood was completely different, as this is still a time of mourning, to grieve the death of the King of Thailand. The palace was closed, but we walked around the beautiful buildings, drying off in the heat before our overnight bus ride.
After a poor sleep on the bus, we arrived at 4.20 a.m. at the pier for the 7 a.m. ferry to Koh Tao. It was warm and humid, but here at the beach, there was a cool breeze. We watched the clear sunrise despite being foggy with fatigue. We fell asleep through the ferry ride.
Koh Tao is beautiful. Mostly uninhabited before 1948, the island is now full of tourists. Most of the workers are not Thai, but Burmese. Picturesque, but like most of Thailand, incredibly busy. It was easy to travel around.
Over breakfast, we were joined by more friends catching up on news and travel. Later that morning we were joined by our friend who lives on the island. She took us up the road, through a bar, down some steps, under a barbed wire fence, over rocks and into a small beach alcove. We spent the afternoon snorkelling, reading, catching up and played a makeshift game of volleyball. We ended the day watching the sunset from a bar overlooking Shark Bay.
I was on holiday, far away in more than distance, from the office in Hong Kong.
Pindrop Adelaide 