2025 did not end in the way I thought it would. Not even close.
In the days leading up to New Year’s Eve, I found myself on a (semi) deserted island somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand, wild camping with three Germans and a Dutchie who, over the past few months, have become my second family.
We’ve seen the best and worst of each other… group hugs while watching the most beautiful sunsets, working together to cook simple but bountiful dinners over the campfire. And fights too, like when everyone is tired and it’s raining and nobody knows who drank the last beer.
Camping on a deserted island started as an idea tossed around one night in a bar, leaning over a pool table in Koh Tao. We wanted to go full on Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. We wanted to find an island no tourist had ever set foot on. Something so off the grid we’d have to convince a local sea captain to take us there, maybe sweeten the deal with a pack of cigarettes alongside the 2,000 baht.
As it turns out, in 2025 there aren’t many such islands left. So we took the best we could find… a small island about a thirty-minute boat ride from Koh Samui, called Koh Taen. On the entire island there’s one homestay, one restaurant run by local fishermen, and a crumbling road that leads to an abandoned resort and a Buddha statue at the highest peak, serenely overseeing it all. Beyond that, there is nothing.
We camped on the eastern tip of the island, as far from these faint markers of civilisation as we could get. For four days we fished and snorkelled, collected shells and coconuts and pineapples. We made fires and argued about who made the best fire. We let our skin bronze under the relentless tropical sun and took long naps in the shade of the palm trees. I didn’t turn my phone on once.
Our final evening arrived wrapped in light. We watched the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. I was filled with a sense of awe I hadn’t felt since childhood. Everywhere I looked, things felt new, as though I were seeing the world for the first time.
That afternoon, for no reason at all really, I found myself crying a few times. I felt raw, unguarded, open to the world. I cried at the beauty around us. I cried for the fish we had to eat to survive. I cried out of gratitude for the earth and for these incredible humans sharing this time with me. And I cried for something else too, something unnameable. A kind of grief, or energy, that needed to move through me.
I felt connected to everything, yet tethered to nothing. As though nothing and no one in the world belonged to me, and yet everything was there for me to experience.
Later, as we wound our way down the hill and the last auburn light slipped into the ocean, we returned to our little campsite once more. We made a fire. Chopped vegetables. And at some point, without planning it, we all ran into the sea. Five bodies, weightless and ageless, falling into the warm, silky water, laughter bubbling out of us.
Then, right before our very eyes, the dark water started glowing neon blue.
My whole body shone. My hair glimmered. The water around my hands transformed into the magic of a Disney movie.
It was bioluminescent plankton. And SO much of it.
We couldn’t believe it. We laughed and screamed and whooped, splashing and jumping and colliding with one another. It was easily the most incredible experience of my life. It felt like the universe was offering us a gift, briefly letting us see how much magic it’s capable of holding. Perhaps even a reward for dragging our backpacks and camping gear into this remote corner of the jungle.
I wish I had captured it on camera, but we were too deep inside the moment. Everything else fell away. There was only our bodies and the water, lit up by these mysterious glowing sea creatures. We splashed each other’s faces and left one another covered in hundreds of tiny blue stars.
Something gathered there among us. Something holy. The universe leaned in, just for a moment, and watched us back. We were bathing in stardust. Five celestial bodies glowing in the dark waters of the Gulf of Thailand.
The next day, when we returned to civilisation, I turned my phone back on. So many missed calls. Messages of condolences flooding in.
My grandmother had died.
My grandmother had died.
It didn’t take long for me to realise that her death had occurred around the same time the water lit up around us. Also, on the same day I had cried so much without knowing why.
She has always been one of the most important people in my life. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that the only thing that comes close to the shining blue of her eyes is the colour of the bioluminescent plankton I saw on the night of her death.
She never did like leaving without saying goodbye.
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