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Published: December 12th 2008
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To start off we decided to stay in a little guest house on the front of Mae Had called Beach Bay Villa. Nice little cheapie with breakfast thrown in. The plan was just to stay there for a few nights while we found somewhere a bit more permanent. Although, the first night we were there was a halloween party in a beach bar a couple of doors away until 6am. The lack of sleep didn't bode well for room hunting and then we got a little bit used to the free breakfasts...
But we did eventually get motivated (the lack of room cleaning helped) and looked around for monthly rental rooms in Mae Had. There weren't that many decent places (that we found) to chose from. The little apartment style room that we had found in Chalok had kind of spoiled us and there was only one place in Mae Had that came close. But luckily for quite a lot less money.
On the 6 November we eventually signed up to a month at the Blue Wave Guest House. The room was nice and quite big, it had a nice bathroom, large screen doors leading out to big balcony,
tv, air-con and fridge... All pretty plush really :-) However, when you sign up for a monthly rental deal the perks of being catered to are reduced - most notably the room only being cleaned once a week. Although there it was actually every 8 days. That led to a very interesting conversation with a girl who spoke very little
English about the difference between every week and 'after' 7 days !?!
Anyway - its hard to know what to write about a month of just kind of living... and biding our time. Just after we moved in to the Blue Wave the North East monsoon arrived so our lives became a routine of out to breakfast and dinner (in fetching blue ponchos) interspersed with reading, scrabble, cards and the odd tv movie in the room. We also had BBC world to help us keep up to date with the news (doom and gloom) and the Australian Network for bad soaps and English lessons (?)
The weather did eventually come good and we enjoyed quite a lot of sun on our balcony and on the odd sliver of beach. Mae Had doesn't really have much of
a beach so we mostly walked 20 minutes over to Sairee beach whenever we could (be bothered). There still isn't much of a beach over there (especially during monsoon season) but there are a couple of areas where bars have cleared an area above the tide mark to sit (if you buy a drink) and a couple of nice raised platforms with cushions.
Mae Had is classed as the main town on Koh Tao as the piers are there although its generally not as busy as the longer beach at Sairee. It consists of three piers on the front and three main roads that lead up the hill away from the front. There's the usual 7-11, travel shops and internet places, loads of clothes shops and a couple of bars and restaurants. The accommodation is partly above shops on one of the main roads (like ours was) and partly in resorts at either end of the beach.
Sairee is the main hub of the island, being the longest stretch of beach, with the most amount of resorts, bars, restaurants and a shopping plaza. It is also pricier than Mae Had for most things. The other main beach
is Chalok Baan Khao where we stayed last time we were there, but it isn't within walking distance and we never got round to hiring a moped so we didn't go this time apart from the one room finding mission.
The best thing about staying in one place for so long is the chance to get to know some people and places. Some of our highlights included:
* Discovering that the really nice roof bar, Sun and Moon, on the front of Mae Had had the cheapest white wine and tiger beer. Then meeting the lovely Som (said 'Sum') who we chatted many a night away with.
* Discovering the disgusting looking but lovely tasting Hong Thon at the Chill Out beach bar for 40 baht (60p). And again talking nonsense to the bar man Ass all night.
* The enormous measures of Sangsom and coke at Dirty Nellie's Irish bar with free pool during happy hour.
* Watching movies at Pranees restaurant with dinner on cushions - with very cheap food.
* 1/3 off all Thai food every Friday night in the Safety Stop (British theme)
pub - green curry for 70p. Oh and there oreo shakes mmmm.
* Going to an all night beach party (at our age!) at Moov on Sairee beach and listening to dance music that wasn't new when Lisa left school. And talking to the bar man, Daleck, from Safety Stop pub late in to the night (theme developing here).
* Breakfast at Cafe del Sol being served by little miss sunshine - we eventually managed to get her to smile after 4 weeks of being there!
* Meeting two Dutch girls, Geya and Neelcha, in the Chill Out bar and talking nonsense in to the wee hours...
* Discovering the Office Bar on Sairee beach (a shack on the side of the road) and listening to a German dive instructor, TC, playing guitar and singing Irish music. And a better Thai player, Wynne, singing cheesy hair rock.
* Getting radio 2 to play Paul Jones' blues show on the mobile phone, playing scrabble, swinging in the hammock and the odd drink on our balcony.
It was home for a while and whilst we (really) needed to leave in
Lisa n Som
At the start of our last night the end we will miss turtle rock and many of the people we met there...
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