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Published: April 15th 2007
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Lamai beach
Lamai beach view from our hotel The boat trip to Koh Samui was much calmer than the last one. We decided to skip breakfast just in case. Got into our hotel early in the afternoon and went for a wander around the town to see what was in our resort. Koh Samui had a lot more to it than Koh Phangan and Koh Tao... more bars, restaurants, day trips, watersports, etc. We only had 4 days here but could easily have spent a week or 2 if we had more time. We decided to splash out on our first evening and went to really nice restaurant called the Cliff which had an amazing view over the bay between Lamai and Chaweng beach. Expensive by Thai standards (30 pounds including drinks... but well worth it.) If you ever go there just be careful if you order the piri piri chicken... it's very hot! At midnight it was the start of Thai New Year (Songkrat)... as part of the celebration all Thai people throw water and talc/powder over anyone that passes by. We went to a few bars after the restaurant and at the 'luver bar' we got soaked and covered in talc by the hostesses and some
Lamai beach 2
Lamai beach view from our hotel random kids. Another word of warning... the kids are sharks when it comes to playing games... especially connect 4. Sara was beaten by an 8 year old kid at connect 4 who then tried to charge her 40baht when he won.
Our 2nd day in Koh Samui was a bit of a nightmare! Barlcays have some stupid security rules which caused us a lot of bother. Whenever you use your debit card abroad they automatically freeze your account without any warning. Both our accounts were frozen and we had no money apart from a reserve of dollars we were keeping for emergencies. Sara's pin number also got locked even though she was using the right pin number and you can only unlock the pin number from a Barlcays machine in the UK... how stupid is that? After several phone calls to Barclays we now have one debit card that works. We didn't do much that evening as you can imagine we weren't in a good mood. However, we did find noodle soup man who made the best Thai noodle soup ever for 30 baht (50p). He only wore one shoe (but we weren't sure if he had a bad
foot or he was trying to make a fashion statement).
On the third day we went on a boat trip to An Thong National Marine Park made up of 42 islands. The scenery was absolutely stunning. To get the best view we had to walk (climb more like it) up a 500 metre high hill (aka mountain). The first 100 metres were ok and then it went pear shaped. Rock climbing in normal heat is bad enough but it was over 40 degrees. We've never sweated so much in all our lives... Sara needed 10+ stops before making it to the top, but to be fair it was really, really tough. Some parts were really steep and very slippy. We wouldn't have made it to the top without breaking some bones if it wasn't for the ropes to grab hold of and we needed them even more on the way back down. The view at the top was absolutely amazing and we were glad we did it even though it took us 45mins to get to the viewpoint at the top and we could only stay for 5mins before we had to go back down again. It took us
another 40mins to get back down again and about 50 metres form the bottom the heavens opened up with the heaviest rain we've ever seen in our lives. It was so bad we had to wait 30mins for it to clear before we could get a longtail boat back to the main boat. After lunch on the boat we moved to another island and did a bit more climbing to get to a viewpoint of an inland lake. We then had a quick swin in the sea before the rain started again, but this time we just stayed in the sea until the storm passed.
On the final day we spent the day by the pool and got fried again... despite going up to a factor 30 sun lotion we still got burnt by the sun...
To sum up the 3 islands we visited. Koh Tao was our favourite because of the chilled out atmosphere and the great beach BBQ. In contrast, Koh Samui is livelier with a lot more activities and things to do, but doesn't have the charm of Koh Tao. Ko Phangan just didn't appeal. Not much to do there other than drink buckets of
Ang Thong National Marine Park 3
Viewpoint 100 metres up the hill vodka or sangsom. Outside of full moon period it's very quiet.
On we go to Krabi on the west coast...
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Danielle
non-member comment
Looks amazing
Hi Sara and Col, Been looking at all your blog entries, seems like you're having a complete ball and everywhere you've been so far seems amazing. You're both really giving me the travel bug and we're all the more determined now to get away in September. Everything is still pretty much the same as when you left. Bryan abd I have my brother's wedding in Scotland in a couple of weeks so looking forward to that and I was in Edinburgh at the weekend for the hen party. Sara your Mum is keeping a little file of all your blog messages and pictures which I'm sure you'll be glad of when you come back, almost a complete diary of events of your trip. Anyway hope you continue to enjoy the trip and looking forward to seeing your next adventure. Talk soon Danielle xx