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Published: March 19th 2007
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Albulm Cover Shot!
The guys eagerly wait to board the boat for our night out on Koh Pan Nagn. It had always been the plan to return to Samui in January. This was the main designation for Ben and Carl's holiday. However Ben had flown into Phuket so he could also get to see another area of the country. Also my parents were coming out to met us in Samui at the end of the month before we carried on towards Malaysia.
We got picked up in the early morning from the hotel. When booking the tickets the night before, the lady had insisted it would be one mini van taking us all the way to the boat which would then go on to Samui. I thought, that's cool, nice and easy and probably quicker that going on a big bus. However, as we have come to learn in Thailand, what they say and what happens often differs. The mini van came to pick us up and after 45 mins on the road we ended up in Phuket Towns central bus station. It turned out that we did have to change and get on one of the government buses. This was all fine in terms of cleanliness, but is was so slow to get anyway. Unlike the one that
When only a truck will do...
Our second truck in Samui. Pretty pointless having an ordinary car, you'd only be able to use half the roads on the Island! took us straight from A to B last time, this one proceeded to stop at just about every street corner picking people up before finally getting on the highway, where i think it must of maxed out at roughly 45mph! This resulted in the journey being over twice as long as before. The ferry was leaving at 5 pm, and we had been forewarned that there my be a bit of a wait at the pier, as we would probably be dropped of a good couple of hours before. In the end we actually made to to the boat with roughly 5 minutes to spare.
Arriving back at the villa was good. Almost felt like arriving home in some ways. It was nice to know where everything was and to know it was finally worth actually unpacking my bag properly, hanging stuff up rather than just living out of it as I seem to do most of the time!
We picked Carl up the following day and spent much of the next two weeks as if it were a normal holiday. During the days we showed them the sights of Samui. We went elephant trekking and found water falls
The departure lounge at Samui Airport..
Slightly different to what we are used to at Heathrow! inland. And some times we simply chilled out by the pool. In the evenings we normally headed out to Chewang Beach for our nights out which often ended pretty late. You can pretty much double your daily expenditure by going out drinking whist travelling so doing this was a bit of a treat for us.
During our the time in Samui, we also went over to Koh Pha Nagn for a night. This was easy to do, the crossing is only half hour and you can see the island from the villa providing the weather is clear. We simply chucked a couple of things into over night bags and headed off one morning.
I have to say it was so nice to be able to travel without a huge back strapped to my back! When we got to Hat Rin, which is the main beach area, that hosts the full moon parties, Ben and I went of looking for somewhere to stay leaving the others to grab a drink in a bar. We got the idea pretty quickly that as there was no full moon party for a little while, most places had rooms and all were really cheap. We
Ben happily getting to grips with his first veture out on a motorbike
And the lady had looked so scared that her bike wouldn't be back in once peice. When handing the keys to him, Ben proceeded to nearly wipeout the shop window on the opposite side of the road! ended up with and a room on the beach for what equated to about 2.50 each.
We spent the afternoon on the beach and in the sea and then looking around the small streets in Hat Rin. It's a definately a cool place, with an atmosphere feeling more laid back and relaxed compared to that of Samui.
Even though there was no full moon party on, it was still a lively night. The beach doesn't really get busy till around midnight, which was fine for us as our meal didn't finish to half eleven. We ended up having a good night, in fact Rob commented the next day that Ben had come up to him halfway through the evening saying "this is the best night out of my life" and then proceeded to run off and dive through the ring of fire hoop that everyone was jumping through on the beach.
On the second weekend, the last in January, the guys flew back to the UK. I ended up doing three separate trips to the airport over the weekend. First to drop Carl of Saturday morning, then Ben in the afternoon, then back again Sunday morning to pick
up my parents.
Seeing my Mum and Dad again was nice, as when leaving the UK I hadn't expected to see them till arriving back in the Summer. They had decided it would be a good time to come out and meet us and had booked the flights in early January. We spent five days with them, which again seemed to fly by rather quickly. On the Friday we were due to leave for Malaysia. Which was just as well really as it was only then that I noticed that our 60 day visa was about to expire a couple of days later anyway!
After spending two months in Thailand I feel we have got to know the place pretty well. The people are generally very nice and welcoming, and day to day expenditure goes a long way. I would like to have visited the North of Thailand but as we had various people to meet on the trip, the logistics of this were complicated. Hopefully I will be able to get the chance to visit that area on a holiday another year.
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