Tchau Koh Tao

I have previously mentioned our only disappointing experience traveling with Maya, our trip to Koh Tao in Thailand. This is a short blog post on exactly why that is:

Firstly, we had really enjoyed ourselves in Koh Samui the previous week. We had found a Muay Thai personal trainer that we enjoyed training with, the food there was great and the beaches were amazing – especially for Maya. As already mentioned the water was super calm and shallow which allowed her to crawl around pretty independently at low tide.

Secondly, the weather was shit on the day we went to Tao, and because of that the trip was pretty horrible. The waves were bigger than usual, and people all around us were puking on board the boat. It was also impossible to move around in the boat, which made for a pretty unpleasant ride with Maya. Thinking about it, it would probably be way worse today, as she can walk and is not happy about being held onto someone’s lap for an extended period of time.

Thirdly, the hotel we had booked in Tao was one of the worst I have ever stayed at. The building felt like it wasn’t safely built and the room most definitely hadn’t been updated in the last 30 years. It was one of those places where you just don’t want to spend your time. Which is fine when you’re traveling without children, but when you’ve got a baby with you you know you’re going to spend some time in that room, and it just was so unappealing. We complained and tried to get a better room or some kind of compensation, but the staff was completely unhelpful, so we ended up leaving the following day without a refund for our prepaid week long booking.

Fourthly, the island just didn’t seem fit for such a small child. It’s very rocky which makes it difficult to walk around, and people seem to get around by scooters, something we definitely didn’t want to do with a one-year-old. Especially not when we saw countless scooter injuries around. We found out about some nice beaches, but they were very inaccessible, as you had to drive on dirt roads for extensive amounts of time or get a boat from the port, which was located about 10 kilometers away from our hotel.

Fifthly, I have never seen bigger and more aggressive mosquitoes. Not kidding.

And lastly, it just didn’t have that Thai charm that we had seen in other places. The restaurants were mainly European/American and the town just felt like one big dive shop. We were extremely disappointed. This was probably the lowest point of any of our trips, but we decided to make it a humorous one, and to this day we say “Tchau Koh Tao” when we don’t like something.