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Published: March 20th 2008
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You'll be pleased to know that I've been back on my home territory: the beach! We've just had the best week on the island of Koh Samet which is one of the closest islands to Bangkok. We were afraid for this reason that it would be over-run with backpackers heading there but it was absolutely fine, quite quiet and serene even though we were based on the main beach on the island.
Our accomodation was conveniently located for the main bars/restaurants and most importantly the beach so we were really pleased. Most days were filled with sunbathing and going into the sea for a swim to cool off inbetween. We would have many people come and visit us whilst we were sunbathing to try and sell us things - and also try and get us to have a henna tatto. In the end most of us got one - I got a symbol on my wrist meaning 'good omen' and a butterfly on my ankle which I quite liked.
Oh and eating, we did plently of eating as the food was so nice! We got tokens to eat at a restaurant on the beach called Joes which provided us
with a nice mix of Thai and Western food and at breakfast we got 100 bhat to spend on whatever we wanted!! most mornings I had french toast (eggy bread as some of you know it) and over here they eat it as a sweet dish so they give you condensed milk to dip it into...sooo nice!! wouldn't help you much if you were trying to diet though I suppose. Every evening we sat out on traditional thai cushions laid out on mats on the beach and ate our dinner whilst watching the waves crash just a few yards away. It was so picturesque and much more chilled out than I had imagined, but I liked that. (by the way I have attempted to upload a video onto this blog of us sitting around one evening) After dinner, the majority of us would wander along the beach to a little stall where we visited the 'pancake man'. He made traditional thai 'Roti' pancakes which tasted even better than the ones you attempt to make on pancake day back at home and you can have almost any filling you want....needless to say, that diet, I'm glad I'm not on one and
missing out on all these things (just yet...) On our last night a few of us treated ourselves and went to a pizza restaurant, just for our junk food fix!!
A couple of evenings in the week we had a few 'beverages' including Thailands famous 'buckets' which are spirits and mixers but just supersized into a bucket and then you drink it through a straw and get very merry in the process! The evening would start off civilised with a pina colada or too and then end up with the buckets and drinking games! For the rest of the week I didn't drink and just enjoyed the coconut milkshakes I had discovered I liked and watched the fire show that was on every evening on the beach. There were a group of guys who had clubs and other instruments set alight and twirled them around in such a talented way - (Alex, I'll show you the videos on my return) It's not easy to get a photo to show you how amazing something was so you'll just have to take my word for it.
On the Tuesday a few of us decided to hire quad bikes for
the afternoon to explore the island (it's a tiny island about 7 km long, and 5 km wide) so we went after lunch and then arranged to return them after sunset (since the beach we were based on only saw sunrise we wanted to watch it somewhere else) There were an uneven number of us who wanted to go so I said I would go on my own and we haggled the price down so I only paid what the others had paid which I was quite glad of at the theory stage and it meant I could drive all the time instead of taking it in turns...when it came to actually doing it though, I was quite scared to begin with. Especially when I saw Afra and Wiz crash into a bush a few yards after we had set off! But once we had all got the hang of it we were fine - even though the roads were basically dirt tracks and some of them were quite hilly which meant relying on the breaks! We went and found a few lovely coves and beaches dotted around the island and then found the tip of the island before deciding
we didn't have long to find somewhere before the sun would set. We 'stumbled' accross a 5* resort 'sunset bar' and persuaded the security guy to let us in for a drink even though it was residents only and we were still damp from swimming in the sea earlier. Our first condition was to move our quad bikes off the grass we had parked them on...ooops. The sunset bar was amazing...it had lovely sofa cushions and all along the bar there were dotted small glass vases and in each one a tiny fish. The bar had its own jetty for boats to pull up on and a lovely pebbly cove. It was like something out of a magazine!! Needless to say it's drinks prices matched its surroundings but we had to order something. We all opted for a small beer which cost about 3 pounds equivalent!! expensive for a backpacker!! About half way through my drink which I was savouring every mouthful of whilst watching the sun set, I decided to visit the ladies room. As I got up I somehow caught the corner of my table and in slow motion my drink came smashing to the floor!!!! This was
gutting but also embarrassing in the posh bar and as I was crouching down with some of the others to pick up all the glass, I managed somehow to knock over Charlie's drink too - which also smashed into tiny pieces on the floor! I'm so clumsy sometimes! All this was witnessed by many rich residents turning their noses up at us!!!!! After much apologising we left and rode our quad bikes back with our little head lights on which was great fun in the dark!
On the Wednesday we had a boat trip included. This was to be a day out with snorkelling, fishing and lunch on board, to return about 4pm in the afternoon. It all started out well, some of us managed to get a deck chair up on top deck and therefore top up our tans. We also got to see from the boat, many of the coves and beaches we had visited the day before on our quad bikes so we could form a better picture of the island. As we had gone around to the other side of the island, we anchored up to do our first activity: fishing. Noone caught anything but
about half the group got sea sick as we were quite rocky on our little boat...as time went on, so sea sick in fact that they wanted to go back to land. So we all had to go and we didn't get our lunch or our chance to snorkel which was a bit gutting - still, I've got plenty of time on my trip to figure snorkelling in somewhere else!!!
So all in all a fantastic beach week, good food and a few more nice experiences to tick off that I've done!!!
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Debbie Pickersgill
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Great Trip
Really enjoying following your trip. It looks like you are all having a fantastic time. We all had a WHITE Easter can you believe it!! hope you get to go snorkelling soon. Take Care love Debsx