Two weeks ago, we followed Sophie and Nick on their exciting journey to Koh Tao and discovering their dreams of opening up a cheese toastie stall. Now the conclusion...
It was by chance when we were buying our cheese, our quantity caught the attention of Rich, a fellow Canadian living on the island with his wife, managing a bar. He let us know that we could get smaller quantities of real deal cheddar down the street.
Obviously, he didn’t know our intentions and we kept hum about it, but we got to chatting and he invited us out to his bar.
Rich is one of those people who has truly lived, the guy is full of experience and stories to keep you on the edge of your seat. And he’s the kind of guy you know isn’t exaggerating one bit. One conversation led to the next, and we somehow got on the topic of Koh Tao’s mafia. The mafia, eh? I coolly mentioned (hypothetically, of course) the suggestion of foreigners opening a food stall for fun, and holy moly did we not like the answer.
“Influential people” run this island from A to Z, and the authorities have their hands tied behind their backs at their mercy. As do all shop owners, restaurateurs and, especially, the food stalls. Bar owners have the best hope at surviving, only because the mafiosos enjoy the liberty of free booze on demand.
Where we thought all of these food stalls were mini-entrepreneurs making bank off of tourists’ guilty pleasures, the truth is they’re probably making pennies by forwarding the rest to the six families that run the island. Interesting.
Rich went on to tell us many other compelling facts about the island mafia including but not limited to: all cab drivers carry guns with them, that our food stall would literally be fire-bombed if we mess with any Thai person whether a mafioso or not and that the owner of a popular diving resort on the island was gunned down during their opening day at one of our favourite shops.
Legend has it that his body is currently up on the mountain on ice, until his family gets revenge.
As if those fun facts weren’t enough, Rich had some serious evidence: he showed us a picture on his phone of his wife covered in blood with a big slice along her throat after a Thai tried to rape and kill her.
The reason? She asked the neighbour to try to keep the noise down because she was trying to sleep. If it weren’t for the hard photo evidence, I wouldn’t have believed a syllable of that story. Now the only question is “Why in the world did they not flee after that?!”
We were more than a little shaken up after that. I was happy to have a few ciders in me for the walk home. There was no debate, it wasn’t worth the risk… money might be the big obstacle in Canadian business, but I’d take monetary risk any day over losing my life.
We counted our losses and thanked chance that we met Rich at that grocery store buying cheese. He doesn’t know it, but he probably saved our lives, literally. The more I find out about the dark side of this island, the more grateful I am.
This just turned into a sad story real fast, didn’t it? We were bummed for a few days, but honestly nothing could put a damper on the pristine beaches and knowing that we almost couldn’t enjoy them with all of our limbs.
It’s all a little exciting. Near-death experience? Check. As much research as we did, we missed a big element: the personal stories. Noted.
On the plus-plus side of things, this has given me plenty of time to soak up some sun, finally get this blogging thing under-way, and keep my health bender at its peak: running on the beach, hill and strength workouts, home cooking meals, drinking casual and keeping fried foods at bay. I’ve also become fast friends with many of the neighbourhood dogs by never leaving the house without a hunk of cheese for them.
Hopefully we will be able to re-sell some of our supplies (we already pawned off our giant jug of ketchup to a local restaurant), but the cheese is a tough one. Nick and I now have a running joke and are sabotaging each others’ meals with mountains of cheese. Waking up to Nick serving me cheese-spiked coffee has got be one of my greatest fears these days. But besides that, it’s cheesy livin’ on Koh Tao, and my big business break will just have to wait!
The views expressed in this article do not necesarrily reflect those of Class Act Media. The author, Sophie Gibson is a Canadian citizen who has trotted around the Americas, Europe, India and Southeast Asia. You can follow her adventures on gibsongoesgulu.wordpress.com