Day 69: Ko Samui

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We decided to go to ko samui even though it is still the "rainy season" on the east side of thailand. Ko phi phi was pretty darn hot, so rain sounded kind of nice. Also we knew it would be less crowded than if we went during the dry season.

When we first got to Ko Samui, I thought we were in for incessant rain. It was POURING. What made it worse is that we got there 3 hours later than the tour guide in phi phi said we would. Instead of getting there at 4 pm, while it was still light, we got there at 7 pm. Luckily we had booked a bungalow through hostelworld.com before we left, so at least we had a destination: Chaweng beach. Unfortunately chaweng is on the opposite side of the island from the pier, where we had arrived by boat.

We hopped on a songthaew (look it up) even though it cost twice as much as the lonely planet said it would. The driver probably knew that he could charge more, since we were already pretty soaked from being out in the rain. But at least we didn't get conned into paying 600 baht for a taxi (the songthaew was 100 baht). We rode the songthaew until everyone had already gotten off, and the driver shouted "Chaweng!" to us. Four sets of wrong directions later, we were finally walking in the right direction. Unfortunately there was a 200 ft long puddle blocking our path (Did I mention it was raining?). Steph tried to go around it on the sidewalks, but eventually we were both wading through. She was screaming the whole time. But we made it, and no leeches!

After that first night though, we were in for a miraculous week of no rain, with some very welcomed partially cloudy skies. The water was also several degrees cooler than it had been at Phi Phi (it was like a bathtub in the shallow waters of phi phi) which was also nice. Very pleasant. And with low season prices, we stayed at a bungalow literally 30 seconds from the beach, with aircon (!) for the same price we were paying for a crappy fan room as inland as you can get on phi phi (which is 5 minutes from the beach).

The rain storm had actually kicked up some waves, and I rented a surf board on the first day there. In retrospect I wish I had surfed the second day too, because after that it just kept getting smaller and smaller. Living in san diego turned me into a little bit of a surf snob at some point. But it doesn't matter that much - we enjoyed our time thoroughly.

One day we did a packaged "full day tour" that was a blast. It included a long list of activities and sights. The highlights for me were a cable ride (so-so compared to costa rica, but still fun) climbing up a waterfall (we saw "don't climb the waterfall!" signs after we already did it... whoops) and sitting on the roof of a 4x4 as we cruised along the mountain tops. There was also some good viewpoints, a buddha garden, a mummified monk, some other cool stuff... But the 4x4 thing especially was INSANE. They would never let that happen in the US. There are no seat belts, and the trees are low in some places so you're getting hit by branches, and some of the dips are huge and you would fly off if you weren't holding on for dear life... we thought we were gonna die at some points. But we persevered! And I took a video, here's a link:



One night we went to a genuine thai boxing match. Much different than the thai boxing ring they have in ko phi phi, where anyone can get up and fight. This one was legit. We saw three knock-outs. One of them was classic, the guy just flopped spread eagle in the middle of the ring, out cold. I hope those guys get paid a lot (for Thai standards, at least). It was kind of weird, but one time I went to the bathroom, and when I was washing my hands two bathroom attendants (the had uniforms, at least) gave me a 30 second chiropractic adjustment. My back popped so many times, it was amazing. And I felt great afterward! I gave them 100 baht (3 USD) for their efforts.

Yesterday was steph's birthday, so we went big. I found us a nice place on the beach, with a pool, breakfast buffet and a nice room. (I took a video of that too, ) We rented jetskis for half an hour, which was definitely enough time. So fun! So fun. but now I'm so sore from absorbing the swells while trying to keep the thing at full throttle the whole time. Later that day we got massages, which helped counteract some of the damage. Do you like how I managed to work myself into the birthday plans? At least I let her choose all the places to eat throughout the day. For some reason she still picked spring rolls for lunch, at the same place we'd eaten for the past 2 days. That evening the staff brought us a birthday pancake. I think she had a good day.

We've definitely enjoyed Samui - a nice island. Not too big, not too small. We only small a small part of it so I wouldn't mind coming back again. Our thailand visas are going to expire soon though, so we've decided to move on to cambodia, then vietnam. But I think we'll be back in thailand at least once more before this trip is done.

Here's some pictures from samui:

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Comments

[Matt Potterton]

Happy Birthday to you and Turkey!
Happy Turkey Day! Dude that birthday pancake is making me hungry.....