Returning to Thailand last year was momentous for me in more ways than one.
Thailand is the country where I fell in love with living overseas. The country that gave me my truest independence. The country that taught me that if I could learn their language, hell, I could do anything!
It’s a country that holds more fond memories than you could possibly imagine. A country that I will always feel connected to, no matter where I happen to be in the world.
You might think that because of this profound fondness, I had high expectations for my return. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I learned a hard lesson a few years ago about returning to a place you once called home. The main takeaway? To check your expectations at the door.
This is not to say that returning to a place you love isn’t still going to be great, but it won’t be the same. It can never be the same, and the sooner you free yourself of that perfect vision of “the way things were” the sooner you open yourself up to appreciating a place for what it has become in your absence.
And, in any case, Koh Tao–the island known for diving and parties, parties and diving–wasn’t exactly my perfect vision of Thailand. But we’ll get to Chiang Mai in another post.
Koh Tao belonged to the part of Thailand that remained somewhat foreign to me. After falling in love with the north, it was too difficult to tear myself away. I only made it to the islands on a handful of occasions, and to Koh Tao specifically just for a couple of days to ring in the New Year with one of my best friends, a dive instructor who calls the island home.
But even that visit was nothing special. It rained–a lot. We spent much of our time indoors when we weren’t dancing on the beach, and so I failed to do any real exploring or even diving, as I had intended.
This recent visit changed all that.
My gregarious blonde bud played hostess to me once again during my first week on the island. Her apartment sat on a hill overlooking one of the island’s main towns, Sairee, and gave a pretty amazing view of the gulf and the setting sun.
Eventually, I moved into a private room down the road so I could focus on getting work done and give her her own privacy back, but we still spent most days hanging out, if even just for a quick meal and some boxed wine.
This time around, we had plenty of time to check out some of the best spots on the island. We buzzed down to the south end of the bean-shaped rock one afternoon for some snorkeling at Ao Leuk, a small beach with brilliant blue waters and a couple of sleepy restaurants perched on the hillside above.
Most days, I wandered through the town of Sairee and walked along the eponymous Sairee Beach, the most easily accessible and heavily-touristed beach I visited. It’s lined with dive shops, resorts and restaurants, many of which offer open-air dining. At night, it becomes crowded with party-goers and fire shows. 
The weather turned quite windy at night so we only found ourselves at Fizz Beachlounge a few times for evening cocktails, but I imagine it to be lovely during high season.
The day eventually came for us to head out on the dive boat and off we went to Sail Rock, one of Koh Tao’s most popular and well-known dive sites. Addy’s an instructor at Sairee Cottage should you be on the island and looking for an awesome chick to take you out and show you the ropes!
I’m no pro diver and at that point had only logged about 6 dives in my lifetime, so Addy recommended I do a deep dive specialty in order to get the most out of the dive site. This allowed me to learn a few extra skills so that I could dive as deep as 30 meters without having to do an entire Advanced Open Water PADI course. With little time left on the island anyway, this option made the most sense, and it was a lot of fun.
In spite of the seasickness that overcame me en route to the dive site, I had an awesome day in the water and loved watching my best friend doing the thing she loves most. I didn’t manage to get many good sealife shots with my GoPro, and try as we may, we couldn’t get a good shot of the two of us together underwater either, so we opted for one on dry land instead.
In my final days on the island, I didn’t do much besides eat and work. Thankfully, there is a fantastic selection of restaurants in Sairee, and I tried just about all of them. Some of my standout favorites were Su Chilli, Portobello, Orange Shop, Mint Kitchen, Thaita Italian Kitchen, Fitness Cafe, and a bunch of others whose names I can’t remember.
The point is, you won’t be lacking for good food options in Sairee, whether you’re after delicious inexpensive Thai or a taste of western cuisine.
For my actual final day on the island, Addy took me to Mango Viewpoint for a staggeringly beautiful view of the entire island from above. The hike to get there was challenging (and you do have to pay a small fee to enter, which is kind of silly–50 baht per person I believe) but totally worth it.
My time in Thailand was off to an incredible start thanks to an incredible hostess and an unbelievably beautiful little rock called Koh Tao. Did I fall back in love with the country? Parts of it, maybe. But at least my expectations weren’t shattered, because I had none to begin with.
Have you ever been disappointed with a place the second time around? Did it meet your expectations, or did you throw those out beforehand?
