Stormy Samui

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Ok, so last time we updated this we were in the sunny, paradise Phi Phi islands. How things have changed!

Both me and Vicki have been sending emails home to various people about how good the weather is knowing its cold back home, well the weather has now turned against us, I think this is probably what is referred to as Karma (what goes around comes around!).

After our last update we had a few more nights is Phuket then we headed off again to an island on the other side of Thailand called Koh Samui. We had both heard a lot about this place and were really looking forward to visiting the nearby islands of Ko Phag Ngan (World famous full moon party's) and Ko Tao (Apparently one of the best diving sites there is). But sadly we saw very little of it.

On arrival at Koh Samui the rain was torrential and we could hear thunder regularly. Not too dis-heartened (we arrived in Phuket to similar storms) we reached our beach hut accommodation and hoped the rain would clear up. After speaking to a few locals who said the rain had been falling for a fortnight we decided to check the forecast on the internet, an improvement wasn't coming soon. We therefore changed our travel plans and left Samui after only a few days.

Just to set the record straight neither of us are frightened of a little rain, we didn't come on this trip purely for a sun tan! The rain was actually a bit of a novelty at first but rain here is not like rain in England. The road network in Samui is in the main poorly surfaced tarmac or dirt tracks many of which were under a foot or more of water which meant even exploring the main island was difficult, with many roads only passable in 4x4's who charged us accordingly! One hotel was actually using a jet ski to transport guests from the hotel to the main road.

Anyway we did our best to see Koh Samui in the time available. We both think the island is really nice but it depends heavily on sunshine, if its not sunny there isn't a lot to do.

So we packed our bags and made an early escape to Singapore....

Paul & Vicki

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Photos

View point
Chewang beach is behind the rain clouds... honest

'Poo Resteraunt'
Resteraunt in Phuket... no we didn't try it

Bags packed and off again
Vicki was later sick in the hat she is wearing, too much Thai whisky (after laughing at me for being ill earlier in the week from it! :-))

A street vendor
Those things hanging up in front of him appear to be dried out jelly fish...yum

Phuket shooting range
Eyewitnesses said - "the paper target stood no chance"

Samui Aiport
The weirdest airport ever, its basically a group of wooden gazeebo's. An airport without walls! We were delayed here for about 3.5 hours, not fun.

Our beach hut
Dont be fooled... We took this photo early one morning during a rare break from the rain

View from our beach hut
It cost us about 20 pound a night, bargain if it was sunny!

Coconut monkey
This man has trained his monkey to climb tree's and knock coconuts down for him... clever stuff

Me and the mummified monk
Vicki reckons he looked better

Lady monk temple
She has many arms for shopping, cooking and cleaning ;-)