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Published: October 19th 2008
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Back into Thailand..
18 hours travel... Minibus, walk, tuk tuk, walk, minibus, tuk tuk, walk, train, taxi, plane, minibus.... relax......
Relaxing on the beach!
We finally arrived at our resort in Koh Samui by mid-morning on Monday 13th October and headed straight to the beach for a well-deserved dip and relax on the shores, followed by a lovely massage! The rest of the day was then spent relaxing, exploring and generally enjoying the beach and airconditioned room!
The next day, Dav (aka Mr Action Man), not content to relax too long, hired us a scooter so that we could explore the island... Quite scary, not because of Dav's driving skills but more to do with the crazy Thais also driving on the road...! While each lane technically having a bike lane on the left, this is a very fluid concept, to say the least.. Not unusual for someone to be stopped in the bike lane, or for someone to overtake just near a bend, etc. The general idea is to just go with the flow - if someone steps out onto the road, just swerve around them; if you come up to a hill and
there is someone overtaking, coming the different way and hence in your lane, just swerve around them; etc. Lets just say there was a lot of mirror and shoulder checks going on!
And here i was balancing on the back of the bike, my knees firmly locked into Davin like a vice and my hands cramped from hanging onto the back, and we overtake the locals - a man and lady, the lady sitting side straddle and balancing 2 bags of shopping; a lady ridding with a child no older than 3 years standing on the front of the scooter in between the mum's legs; a lady ridding with a dog on the front of the scooter! I felt very much like a ferang...but not enough to loosen my grip!
So after making our way around most of the island, we managed to stumble across a beautiful semi-hidden beach called Crystal Bay, between Chewang and Lamai Beaches. The beach was just breathtakingly stunning and was hardly busy, had no hawkers and had a lovely big tree which I was able to seek refuge under! Dav was able to acquire some snorkels for free (by just asking... we think
the guy in the store thought we were staying at the local resort..) and so we spent the rest of the afternoon there, soaking in the ambience!
Heading back to our resort, we managed to get slightly lost.... my navigational skills were somewhat lacking i must say as the 'short cut' i suggested took us halfway back across the island... We finally made it back and had a lovely dinner on the beach, a lovely end to a fantastic, if not a little scary, day!
Kayaking and Snorkelling day trip Up early, we were taken in a minivan up to a pier where we transferred onto a rather big boat, for our trip out to Angthong National Marine Park for a day of kayaking and snorkelling. First up was kayaking around Koh Mea Koh, one of the 42 islands that make up the national park. This was quite spectacular with us kayaking under a few overhangs, and into a cave (this was a lot less scary for me than the last underwater cave i experienced!).
Kayaking ended at a beach on Koh Mea Koh, which happened to be the inspiration for the book 'The Beach'
which was subsequently made into the movie 'The Beach', starring Leonardo Decaprio and filmed on the other side of Thailand. From here we walked up to a lookout overlooking the inland salt lake 'Talay Nai'. Quite spectacular!
Back onto the boat and over to another of the islands, 'Koh Wua Talab' where we had free time, able to swim, snorkel or just relax. The snorkelling here was not very good at all, with the visibility being very poor, so we just relaxed on the beach, dreaming of future renovations to our house!
From here it was back to the mainland and back home, followed by dinner on the beach at the same restuarant. Again the meals were spectacular, a lovely end to a full day.
The next day (our last in the sunshine...), we again hired the scooter and headed back down to Crystal Bay to soak up the rays while we could. That afternoon we flew back to Bangkok and stayed the night there, before saying goodbye to Thailand and flying off to London...
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