Utopia: An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

According to the bible, God created the world in six days.   On the 7^th day, he rested, on the 8th day he devoted Himself to completely perfecting Koh Tao. 

At only 8 square miles, Koh Tao is a relatively small island.  1.5 miles wide East to West and roughly 5 miles North to South with a local population of just a few thousand permanent residents.  It was relatively uninhabited until the 1930's went it became used for Thai political prisoners for roughly 10 years until government pardoned them and it once again became vacant.  The island would lie empty for nearly half a century until tourists from Koh Samui discovered that it had amazing dive sites and slowly began setting up small shops.  When you look at photographs from 1991, 2001, and 2011, you are left in awe over how it’s potential hadn’t been unlocked sooner.

The island boasts over 700 dive instructors, 30 diving companies, and issues more dive certifications than any place in the world.  It's a dive heaven.

We departed Ko Samui on Wednesday the 9^th aboard a ferry destined for Koh Tao.  A relatively short 2 hour trip and $10 later and we arrived at the dock along with a plethora of others.  Stepping off the boat onto a rickety walkway we were greeted by locals all vying for our cash for taxis, accommodations, and a variety of activities.  Not two weeks prior to arriving in Koh Tao, I had only heard that it was a popular tourist destination for those interested in scuba diving and hadn’t even planned on making it part of my trip.  I had been perusing Facebook on the walk home from the bus stop in Seattle when I noticed a post by someone I hadn’t seen in at least 6 years.  Brendan Mulholland was an individual I’ve known since I was in grade school.  He was a year behind me in class but was friends with one of my close buddies so we constantly interacted.   He was one of those guys that whatever he did, he was the best at it, sports, school, girls, etc.  After high school, we didn’t speak much since I went to Washington State and he headed for the much more enjoyable climate in California attending Santa Clara University on a full academic scholarship.   Up until this point, I hadn’t known much that had gone on with his life post high school aside from times that he would come up in conversation when I was speaking to people back home.  I knew that he had graduated Suma Cum Laude from college and began traveling and at some point during his trip, met what would end up becoming his wife.

In the post on Facebook, he wrote that he was going to be in Koh Tao for awhile with his wife, taking a variety of dive classes.  I sent him a message saying I was going to be nearby in Ko Samui and thought it’d be great if I could catch up to him in Koh Tao and visit for a few days, he happily accepted. I had planned on getting to the island a day later and we had established a time and place to meet.  Since I was coming early, I just assumed I would be able to find him.  He had recommended a particular dive shop to go to as a meeting spot and if were to have any interest in diving, this was the best place on the island to work with.  When we arrived on the island, I jumped in the back of a pickup truck and got a ride from the ferry dock to the center of town along Sairhee Beach.  I walked into the main office of Bans Diving Resort and began speaking with the staff.  I could stay at the hotel in a nice room for about $15 a night or if I took one of the dive certification courses, they would toss in several nights for free.  After discussing packages I ended up signing up for the Advanced Open Water course beginning the following morning.  I was fortunate enough to take the basic certication for diving during my last semester at WSU (yes, that is a course they offer) which would legally allow me to go down to about 60 ft.  With the advanced course, I would be trained for a few hours in the classroom, then taken out on a series of 5 dives over 2 days and would now be certified to go up to 110 ft of depth. 

After I finished all the paperwork and checked into my room, I headed down towards a local beach bar to have a drink.   While I was sitting there people watching, I noticed a small boat offloading a group of people I assumed had just went diving.  Luckily, I spotted someone I recognized and quickly scurried over to greet him.  “What‘s up!” I said to  brief look of confusing on his face as to who I was.  Nearly 7 years had passed since I last saw Brendan and he looked exactly the same.  He told that me he was heading over to another beachside restaurant to have dinner with his wife and invited me to join.  A few minutes later we sat down on bean bags out on the deck of this quaint little restaurant nestled mere feet from the sparkly blue water. 

Soon, Brendan’s wife Helena joined us and I couldn’t have been more excited to meet her and catch up on the last 3 years of their life since meeting them.  To preface their story, I have to just say the words incredible, inspiring, envious, and thrilling come to the forefront of my mind.  Helena was born and raised in Norway near Oslow.  She completed her undergraduate studies near the south of France before moving to Medellin, Columbia, where Pablo Escobar once called home, to finish up her masters degree and complete her thesis when she had a off chance encounter with an American boy.   Brendan and a friend of his moved to Columbia after they graduated from college in order to do a 3 month Spanish immersion program with the goal of becoming fluent.  While in the program, Brendan and his friend would also teach classes in English to foreigners and they were told to select a small group of students from a large list to work with.  Naturally, as 22 year olds, they would obtain the large lists of students, enter their names in Facebook and select the most attractive girls from the list.  One of them happened to be a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl from Norway. 

Helena says she didn’t find him attractive for quite some time after they met but his unrelenting pursuit of her eventually proved effective.  Within a few months, a serious relationship developed as they both found that their views on life, travel, and goals were perfectly in line with one another.  They decided to travel together and for the next 3 years, that’s exactly what they did eventually leading them to Koh Tao where our paths crossed.  They lived in Buenos Ares for 7 months, Norway for 8 months, Patagonia for a time, ventured all through the amazon, with stops in the US for their wedding just 6 months ago on Sucia Island in the San Juan Islands up in Washington.

I have spent 7 full days with them as of this post being written and I can without question say to you they are the happiest, most in love, most emotionally connected couple I have ever met in my life.  I hope to one day have what they have, truly remarkable.

After dinner, we went out for drinks at another beach bar where Brendan and Helena introduced me to a barrage of people they had made friends with during their two and half months on the island.  Everyone was extremely outgoing and eager to listen to my story, my interest in diving and my travel plans.  The vast majority of the people we met that night were fellow classmates of Brendan's, all learning to become dive instructors.  They were from various countries including Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Australia to name a few, each with their own interesting and unique accent and ways of saying certain things.  I visited, drank, and danced with everyone for several hours before calling it a night at a moderate hour, still exhausted from the Full Moon Party and lack of sleep from the night before.

I awoke at 8 AM the following morning and headed down to the beach for breakfast before my dive class began at 9:30.   Brendan and Helena were able to sit in on my class and also come with me on my dives that day for free since they were in their Dive Master Training course. After a quick 1 hour class session going over some refreshers and speaking about the risks involved with diving deeper, we headed out to the beach to get fitted for the necessary gear.  Even though the ocean water nears 90 degrees, you still need a wetsuit as it is up to 10 degrees colder 100ft below the surface.

Gear in hand, we were loaded into a long boat and shuttled out to these large, brightly colored boats that resembled an open air houseboat outfitted exclusively for diving.  The boats were anchored 500 yards offshore and never actually came to the island.  The employees on the boats are Burmese (From Burma/Myanmar) and don’t have Thai visas allowing them to touch ground, so they live on them.

The boat made the ten minute trek to one of the dives sights where we put on our gear and plunged below the surface.  Each dive last from 35 minutes to nearly an hour depending on your depth and how much air you are using.  There are endless varieties of fish, in all shapes, sizes, and every color of the rainbow.  We were able to see giant schools of Barracuda, Tuna, and even stingrays on the following 4 dives for a total of 5 over the course of two days.

My favorite dives were one where I was able to see an old US Navy battleship, sunk intentionally to create an artificial reef.  We had apparently donated it to the Thai Navy years ago, then once they decommissioned it, it was laid to rest 90 feet below the surface just this past year.  Many sea creatures had already started to call this place home.

The second favorite one was a night dive.  We leapt into the water after dusk with flashlights in hand and were fortunate enough to see creatures that normally aren’t around during the day as they hunt at night.  At one particular point in the dive, 100 feet below the surface, a small group of us are instructed to turn our flash lights off, rendering complete and utter darkness.  After a moment, our instructor began moving his hand which ignited a fire of bright neon green light under the water call phosphorescence, for the next 10 minutes, I just swam around, surrounded by this green glow, complete silence, it was one of the most surreal moments I can ever remember having.  So unique, so peaceful, something I hope everyone will get a chance to experience at least once in his or her lives.

Aside from diving, Caleb and I rented motorbikes for a few days and traveled every road on the island and visited each beach and all the high hills in the more jungle like areas.  95% of the island uses motorbikes as transportation.  The roads are narrow and all but maybe a few stretches make it nearly impossible to operate an actual car.  Through renting the motorbikes however, we have now learned their process for making a ton of money at it and frankly, it’s pretty clever,  When you walk up to one of the countless motorbike rental shops, you’re initial reaction is to think that it is so unbelievably cheap to rent, around $6 US for a 24 period, less than a couple of drinks at the bar.  I wondered that it would take them 6 solid months of rentals to recoup the cost of the bike, let alone make a profit or have enough for repairs. You tell them you wish to rent and they make a phone call.  Soon, another man comes zipping up on a brand new, not a knick in sight, motorbike.  They reiterate that this is brand new, go over the bike meticulously and point out that there is zero wrong with it.  Upon acquiring the bike, you realize the fuel tank is completely empty.  You swing by the gas station and have them fill up the tank with $15 worth of fuel.  You finish riding the motorbike and realize that they use almost no gas, almost 80 MPG, and then the renter proceeds to syphon the gas back out of the tank that you paid for, place them in 1 liter glass bottles, then sell them for $2 a piece to the next person.  Also, not getting a scratch on them is literally impossible.  Upon returning the bike, there was literally a SCUFF the size of a quarter on the fender, somebody may have bumped into me, or perhaps the guy just pays another guy to walk around and scratch these up.  He tells me the damage is $60 but he’s willing to cut me a deal for $30 because I’ve got a pretty face, I argue, he laughs and reassures me that he holds my passport, he wins, I pay, and walk away feeling defeated.  I am the lucky one however as I spoke to plenty others who laid down the bikes, were forced to pay hundreds of dollars and it’s not as if these bikes are being fixed when damaged, the owner pockets the money.  For future reference, whenever you rent a motorbike in Asia, make sure you ask for the absolute shittiest one you can possible find that still runs, it’ll be worth it.

The nightlife in Koh Tao is incredible.  The island seems frozen in time, the mood and attitude of the tourists is what I imagine the late 1960’s California scene to be like.  The age demographic is made up almost entirely of early to late twenties men and women who all share the common interests of traveling and diving.  Everyone loves to talk to everyone and learn about differences in each others cultures.  I found it fascinating just hearing new peoples stories of where the came from, what they did, and how they got to where they were at. 

One evening while out at a beach bar, I struck up a conversation with a group of 3 Norwegian girls my age and eventually, decided the next day the four us would go relax on the beach together at a nearby small island.  I didn’t make it to sleep until just before dawn and my alarm was soon going off with 10 minutes to spare before meeting back up with them.  The 4 of us grabbed a quick breakfast, walked to the beach and hired a longboat to whisk us off the to the secluded beach.  Once there, we lied out our towels on the sand and began conversing on what life was like in America, what my family life was, how people typically grew up, university life in the states, peoples views on money and social status, etc.  There were endless questions for me and I for them about life in Norway.  We spent roughly six hours together before I had to leave and head back to Koh Tao to get ready to depart back to mainland Thailand.  We exchanged contact information, connected on Facebook and wished each other safe travels and mutually agreed to contact one another if our travels brought us near in the future.  I hope to have this exact interaction dozens of times throughout this trip, I absolutely LOVE learning about people and creating a more global network friends.  The fact that they we’re really attractive and shared a common interest in partying was a welcomed bonus as well J

In closing of this post, I want to reiterate that by far, this island, is the most incredible, most beautiful place  I have ever visited.  The lifestyle, the general happiness of the people who call this place home, is literally incomparable to anything I've yet to witness.  I hope some of you will be able to visit and experience what I've experienced, this is but the first of many times I will come to enjoy the island of Koh Tao!!!