Koh Tao is a small island a few hours off the coast of south-eastern Thailand. It's full of falang (Thai for "foreigners") but mostly young, fit, friendly ones: this is one of the most popular places to learn to dive in the world.

This morning I stumbled groggy from my bungalow up to the common area, the one with a view of jungle and coastline that staggers the imagination, and pieced my wits together while listening to a crazy badass of a brit talking about living on refugee rice on the ... read more

Yesterday, we took a fantastic roller-coaster-ride speedboat to "Coral Island" for an afternoon snorkelling. I ran rock-hopping among the crabs and geckos until shaky, then swam, ate, and slept two hours sprawled in the sun, without any sunscreen. This morning I woke up happy, exhausted, sunburned from head to toe, and with a pus-filled blister on my foot where I failed to get all the dirt and sand out of a small cut.


When I'm at Burningman (another extreme environment where I thrive), I... read more

Dodie from Halifax, Shonali from Mumbai, John from San Francisco. All of us in Thailand for the first time, in a house together, swimming, working, laughing, enjoying one another's company.

Almost 3am, and we're back from the bar down the street, awake, clear still air. Our friends asleep nearby..all 9 of us together part of the same thing. Does this feed their soul, I wonder, as it does mine? I think so.

Pictures:
flickr.com/photos/couchsurfing (a shared set, sofar only some of mine)
flickr.com/photos/ottom...603434073361/ (Andrew's)

Lots more to come.

Morning: sitting by the open french doors in a shirt and sarong, Nescafe "3-in-1" instant coffee close at hand.

Two houses together, about 15 mins walk along a busy 1.75 lane road to the beach, scooters and motorcycles (some with open metal sidecars for transporting cargo) roaring back and forth, the sound not quite able to overpower the birds in the coconut trees around us. It's just now 8am, and I'm the only one up; Phuket sleeps in, like the tourists.

It's a struggle to describe bei... read more