Tanote Bay, Koh Tao

After finishing our scuba diving course, we headed to the other side of Koh Tao to spend our last two days on the island relaxing at Tanote Bay.

The entire island of Koh Tao is known having absolutely horrible roads, and, since there’s almost nothing in the interior, the few people who leave the Sairee Beach area get around the island by taking boats from beach to beach.  Since the water had been extremely rough that week and I’d gotten seasick on our other boat rides, I wasn’t willing to get back on another boat.  And our diving instructor talked us out of the idea of driving our rented motorcycle over the highest point of the island’s interior to get to Tanote Bay, convincing us that the road was essentially impassable.  Fortunately, the hotel we were staying at there, the Montalay Beach Resort, picked us up in a truck in Sairee Beach to take us over to Tanote Bay.  While in the truck, we looked at the supposedly horrible road and realized that Ryan is more than experienced enough to have driven a motorcycle there.  Like in most of Southeast Asia, though, lots of visitors to Koh Tao rent motorcycles even if they don’t really know how to ride them, and those people get in into a lot of trouble in the interior of Koh Tao.  In the end, though, the ride was free, so that was a plus.

The Montalay ended up being my favorite hotel of the entire trip, with gorgeous “jungle bungalows” set in a really lush garden for $20/night.  The landscape around the hotel was beautiful and so peaceful, and the rooms themselves were super cozy.  It was an amazing value, even for Thailand.

We did very little in Tanote Bay other than lounge in the bungalow, hang out on the patio of one of the two restaurants in town, walk along the beach, lay on the sand, swim, and relax in a hammock.  It was a wonderful place to chill after the relative strenuousness of diving – and the rowdiness of Sairee Beach.  So many divers stay at hotels in Sairee beach, do some dives, and then leave Koh Tao without ever seeing what else is there, but I would definitely recommend saving a couple days for seeing more rural parts of the island, especially if you’re looking for something a little more tranquil, or more private.