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Shan!! Get your hand off Grandfather!!!
Today we had organised to rent a 4X4 Jeep. We had breakfast at the resort and went back to our room to get ready.
About 20 minutes before the Jeep was due to be dropped off at our resort I got a call saying they had no more Jeeps!!!!!
However if we were happy to use a D-Max (Holden Rodeo Extra-cab) we could have one for the same price of B900 (AUD$36).
Obviously we agreed and I called Tyron and Kristy to see if they wanted to join us.
On the way to find Tyron and Kristy's hotel we got completely lost and we were quickly running out of diesel (the D-Max was delivered almost empty) so we went to the Servo to fill up. It cost 479 baht to fill it and I gave the guy a 500 baht note, when he handed me the 21 baht change I told him to keep the 1 baht. I got the obligatory wai (bow) and korp kun krup (thank you), and he walked off muttering something to his friend. The poor guy probably thought "cheapskate farang!!" but I just didn't want
yet another 1 baht coin...lol.
Finally we found Tyron and Kristy's hotel, a bit further than we thought it was, and headed off on our journey to somewhere.
I had 3 maps of Koh Samui, all of which proved completely hopeless by the end of the day. We first found Grandmother and Grandfather rocks. I assume once you see the photos, i don't need to explain the difference. Why Grandmother and Grandfather is beyond me, but Grandfather is still going strong!! LOL
I made Shan line up for a (ahem) pic with Grandfather, yes yes, sick sense of humour i know!! But it (almost) got the desired effect.
Tyron was the designated navigator for the day and he didn't have much success. Don't worry Tyron I'm sure it was the maps fault!!
Seriously though, we could not find half the places that were on the map!! We decided to head up one road that supposedly had a waterfall up there. This particular road quickly became a rough road, then dirt road, then muddy track that our 2wd D-Max was lucky to make it up!! The girls were sitting in the back and having a hell
of a time dealing with the firm seat, let alone dealing with the bumpy track we were dealing with.
About 25-30 minutes up this track and we were in the middle of nowhere (as you do) and found a little cafe. The owner tried to insist we eat there and came to us bearing menus, but not before I snapped a quick pic, much to his disgust!! No eat - no photo!!! LOL
So we headed back out to the vehicle and proceded down the mountain (never did find that waterfall) and back to the main road.
A further 20 minutes or so up the road, we saw another sign stating there was a waterfall up the side street on the right. We decided to try again and drove to the end of the road where we found a few roadside stalls and a sign pointing up to the waterfall through the rainforest. It was a stinking hot day and we were dripping with sweat as soon as we got out of the car let alone walking uphill through the forest, but we thought "how far could it be?"
Shan was busting to go to the
toilet and we found one just up near the start of the walk. 10 seconds later she was back out of the toilet saying it was one of those squat toilets, but was so filthy black and disgusting that she couldn't go!!
We started heading up through the forest, Shan ducking off the path for a minute to water the plants. About 10 minutes up through the forest I was gettting absolutely exhausted from the heat/humidity and the uphill battle. We came across a sign that read "100m" which I assumed meant 100 metres to the waterfall. I thought thats OK, I can go that much further. A further 500 or so metres there was another sign that read "700m"!! That was it!! I turned to Shan and said "Stuff this, I'm buggered!!", and we turned around and headed back. Tyron and Kristy had stayed down the bottom at the start and we met them walking up not far from the bottom. I explained how far we had walked and we all continued back to the bottom and jumped back in the air conditioned car.
We continued following the "ring road" around Samui, past the (invisible) elephant gates
(were on the map but never saw them), and around to Nathon, the main centre of Samui, a little old town, where we had lunch.
The food was good, but we felt like the only tourists in the area. We walked through the main street and everything was in thai language, not a word of english to be seen. I think there were only 2 or 3 restaurants in this area, well thats all we found anyway while we pounded the pavement in search of food!!
After lunch we carried on around the ring road heading north east, and finally found the big Budda. It was an awesome sight up there on the hill, and I tried to get a few good pics. We met a monk there who allowed me to take his photo and had a little chat to us in english. One other monk also tied small string braclets around our wrists, for good luck, girls on the left wrist and boys on the right.
Kristy and Tyron, Shan and I, purchased paving bricks which they use to make the paths in the area around the Budda and surrounds.
When we left
Big Budda we stumbled across another temple with large statues not far up the road. We stopped here for a while and took a few more photos, then jumped back in the car and returned to Chaweng.
Tyron and Kristy joined us at our resort for Happy Hour Cocktails at the beachfront bar. We arranged to meet up at The Grill Restaurant for our final dinner on Koh Samui as we were flying to Phuket the next morning. Tyron and Kristy caught a taxi back to their hotel, they would ride their rented scooter to the restaurant later on.
Goodbye Dinner at The Grill Restaurant
When Shan and I arrived at The Grill later that evening we were greeted with open arms. We took a seat at a table to wait for the others to arrive. Red, the owner, got the staff to bring us out some coconuts to drink while we waited. Not long after, Tyron and Kritsy arrived and we ordered our meals.
After we had ordered the staff brought us some cocktails, followed by some chicken satay skewers, thai style spicy seafood salad and pizza, all free of charge.
Red had said to us on Songkran day that when we came back for a meal it would be happy hour all night for us, but this was crazy!!
By the time our meals that we had ordered came to the table we were already pretty full, however we tried our best to down our chicken fried rice and beef massaman curry.
We sat there and ate and drank and chatted to the staff, knowing very soon we would have to say our goodbyes. We exchanged email addresses and contact details and took a few photos to remember the people that had pretty much treated us as family.
The bill was brought to us at the end of the night, a ridiculous AUD$32!! Needless to say we gave them a large tip and thanked them for their kindness.
This ended the Koh Samui part of our holiday as we returned to our resort for the final night, with memories of such lovely people and fun times, wondering what excitement awaited us in Phuket.
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