In 1947, then Khun A-Paiwong, Thailand's Prime Minister at the time, requested and received a royal pardon for Koh Tao's prisoners and with thanks to a gracious act by His Majesty the King.
Attracted by the beautiful coral reefs surrounding the island, and the quick growth in sport diving, a number of companies have set up diving businesses on Koh Tao, these companies in turn designed resortsfor their customers, and over the years several of these resortshave become quite plush.
Strange, but true, from 1933 until 1947 Koh Tao was home to political prisoners. Being located about 65 km from the mainland meant it was very hard to escape from! Alcatraz...piece of cake.
Fascinated by the beautiful coral reefs around Koh Tao, and the growth in recreational scuba diving, a quantity of enterprises started a scuba diving businesses on Koh Tao. These companies in turn built resorts for their customers, and after a while several of these resorts changed into a quite plush.
Arrivals & departures were on the local coconut boats, and even then delays of several days were common place, so back to the hammock and a world of dreams, the boat will come another day.
A culture shock to most people, but generally the islandreacted with a passion to these new visitors, over the following months much change had taken place, new resorts, with more facilities, a new array of eating establishments offering different food from all over the globe.
There is a wide range of Guesthouses and Bungalowson Ko Tao for every kind of budget, availible to book online provided by PhanganIsland.com.
Ko Tao islandis positioned about 70 km east of the coastline inbetween Suratthani and Chumporn in the Gulf of Thailand and is about 22 kilometer in size - so small but not too small.
Here they discovered some thing more then just a new island to explore and soon the back packer network was buzzing about the exiting newly found island paradise of KoTao.
In ore by the pure white sandy beaches, the back of beyond aura, and of course the cheap living, back packers soon arrived in droves. |