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Published: March 22nd 2008
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The journey to the island started early on 13th march where we caught a mini bus to Surat Thani. Something gave us the impression that the driver gets commision from the restaurant as we spent the next hour and a half there before continuing our journey to the ferry pier. I think the driver was trying to break a world record of how many people he could fit into a coach as we were all herded in there like cattle! Fortunately we were able to get a seat, the next group were not so lucky. An hour and a half later we arrived at the pier to take the ferry accross to Koh Samui, then a songthaew ( also known as a Baht bus) ride later we arrived at Lamai beach, the location of our booked (or so we thought) hostel.
The hotel/hostel looked fantastic so we emailed and emailed to confirm booking. We unfortunately ran out of time and were unable to send them our card details (although this may have been fortuetous). On arrival we enquired about our 7 nights for the price of 6 in the cheapest room and were told in no uncertain terms that our
booking was invalid as they recieved no card details. After some consideration about walking around with backpacks in 35 degrees (already endured 2 hours of this trying to find the place) we decided to except the charming ladies offer of 1 night in an expensive room and then move to what we had originally planned.
The hotel/hostel was however exactly what we wanted, a decent room with a shower and with a view of the sea! We also had an onsite swimming pool, which was really nice with such extreme temparatures. The next few days were spent doing not much more than sitting by the pool soaking up the sun and swimming in both the pool and the sea. We surfaced twice a day to wonder into the main town area, firstly for lunch, then in the evening, just to admire the sights....
The main strip (excuse the pun) consisted of rows of bars each containing at least one pole (and i dont mean of the Eastern European variety)! The bars were quite interesting although we didnt venture in too far despite the offers. Our main port of call was the food stalls at the far end. You
could buy a beer in the shops next door for 50p and then get a filling meal for another 50p. We alternated between getting a taxi and walking along the beach.
The beach was very much like a tropical paradise - white sand and clear turquoise water. The only downfall is the effect holiday makers have had here, with the occasional beer can and cigarette butt on the otherwise clean sand. overall, it was really relaxing, and was nice to just completely chill out, although sometimes that was a little difficult with a certain genre of shop....
James has always considered Debenhams a competent outlet of fine tailoring so we were agrieved when almost every trip into town came with the incessant words of "lovely Couple", "where you from?" and "just to look, just to look". You couldnt get away from it. At one end of our hotel was one who asked us the same questions every day, sometimes twice or even three times, as if at some point between walking to the 7/11 we had changed our minds!
After telling the tailors we would look at their suits on Friday, we made a hasty exit on
the thursday to Koh samui Airport, and wow, this really does derserve a blog to itself, but we will try to do it some justice in a paragraph!
It was mostly outdoors, with a security check right at the beginning (although it didn't pick up James' wallet and belt!). After checking our bags in, we made our way to the departure area, with a quick stop at the toilets. Now you may wonder why we needed to include that information, but if you had seen the toilets you would understand! They were more like a five star hotel than an airport with a fishtank and water feature in the middle (if you didnt need the toilet when you got in there you sure did after hearing all the water)! The departure lounge was seperated from the runway only by a short row of Hibiscus, the sofas were spread around nicely and were so comfortable that we wished we had stayed at the airport for the week. There was also free food and drink at your disposal. The trip to the plane would have taken only 20 seconds to walk but they put us on a tram that can only
be likened to those little road trains you see at sea side resorts.
The flight was fine and we were soon touching down in Singapore!
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Nikki
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hoff style!
Ha! Just watched the video of James auditioning for baywatch too....brilliant! I He plays a better drowning person than anyone I've seen! xxx