Part 1 - Into the biking!
With notions of grand adventure carrying my heels I set off on my recently purchased Yamaha DT 200 the following day. The bike was a heavy piece of metal though, it sounded rough, had no YPVS (Yamaha Power Valve System - vital for getting the 2-strokes power exerted fully) and starting it was hit and miss. I'd overlooked these faults with the 'kudos' of riding one of the few dirt-bikes on the island (typically back then only instructors were able to ride scramblers and off-road bikes). Eager to join 'The Club' I forked out 12500 baht and bought it. No papers, no plates, nothing legal but on Koh Tao the thai style attitude is 'no rules, they belong on the mainland' and this to a greater extent wears off on the farang too.
So off I rode, up from Chalok ban Khao and then hanging a left at the gas pumps towards the main island generator. Here the concrete road ended and the fun really began! Dips, holes and craters were all over the place. There was no agility to this beast I was riding, it may of only been 200cc but it was underpowered and cumbersome so it was a case of make a line for the nearest clear patch and take it from there, and so on. Hitting the bumps and rough wasn't too much of a problem either as it was designed for the rough. 'Yeah this is cool' I mused, thinking that once I've got through this patch the rest is easy.
Wrong! After passing the place where the half-moon parties get held (every half-moon) I followed Jimbobs 'easy-to-get-to' directions and climbed a hill to it's summit. Nothing there but a coconut farmer wondering what a farang is doing in the middle of nowhere!
'Oh well!' I'll try the next hill. Nothing, the next one. Still nothing. No sign of this elusive bungalow on the cheap! Finally I attempt to take the one remaining route further into the heart of Koh Tao.
The route was uphill again but as I rounded a corner and instead of the usual ruts and potholes it was great heavy boulders and slab-like rocks. They formed a tough path uphill and around to the right (towards Tanote Bay). By this point I'd only encountered heavy suspension rigged pick-ups and should of picked up on the warning signs there and then, but onward I went.
Koh Tao Trail, they get worse than this!!
Without pausing I hammered the bike on full throttle and bounced up the hill like a mad pogo biker. Once at the top it was plain to see I was in the middle of nowhere. The path now descended again sharply and was now loose gravel track instead of the mount Olympus boulders of before. There was not a bungalow in sight! Just the eastern coast of Koh Tao and the coastal settlements there which the downhill track led too. I realised that even if I found the 'hallowed bungalow' Jimbob preached about there was no chance of me wanting to make a daily commute up and down the hellish track every day. Not least for riding home in pitch-black conditions. I took a look at where the descending trail turned left towards the coastal settlements after 300 yards and though 'What the hell, lets see what's down there!'
No sooner had I eased the bike downhill then I realised I'd become undone. Even with the bike in 1st gear the angle of descent was way too sharp and the gravel too loose for a safe descent to the corner ahead. The speed, at best would mean I'd be carried over the corner and face a drop into god-knows-what and at worse collide with the occasional pick-up.
I touched the back brakes then the front ones that created a uncontrollable slide. With no other way out I was about to abandon bike and let it slide into oblivion when I spied a large,upright boulder off to one side. 'Fck it!'I swore and just steered the hunk of metal straight into the thing! The rock cracked, the gas tank came apart and down went the bike fuel pissing out like dying beast! Knowing it was going to take a long time to hike back to civilization I reluctantly worked on re-starting the beast. I finally turned it uphill, got it started and struggled back up the hill. It could barely power itself up the incline let alone grip the gravel so hardly in the spirit of biking I resigned myself to 'walking' the bike up the hill in 1st gear a near standstill, engine sounding ready to explode! So ended the Bungalow Quest!
How did I even end up in that mess? Well it's a long story and is from back when I was bitten by the diving and biking bug.
There's a few cool places in Thailand for scuba diving. Your mainstream choices are: Phuket (excellent nightlife, excellent diving but very expensive), Pattaya (good nightlife, affordable but the diving's pretty lousy) and Koh Tao (ultra cheap and good diving).
For biking it's quite good too, with some offroad areas for having a good scramble about on.
End of Part 1
Source: On The Road Thailand
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