Koh Samui 10-27-09

We arrived in Koh Samui by boat and our taxi driver told us we arrived on the first day the island hadn’t seen rain in over a week! We thought we were lucky, until right when we got to our hostel the downpour started. Oh well.

Our hostel, Embassy Guesthouse, was really nice. The small first floor was a restaurant/café and our room had a king-sized bed, a twin, and a little balcony... $9 US a night. We ordered up some food, settled in, and since the rain cleared, we hit the beach (which was right behind our hostel). It was so nice to finally be on a beach and near the ocean again after traveling on land for so long!

Around 5pm the clouds started rolling in again and we headed inside to take naps and get ready for the evening. Holly, James, and I walked along the beach looking for a nice place to eat dinner and stumbled upon an area where we could actually eat on the beach on these wooden platform tables which were covered with mats to lie on. The servers put towels down for us and we ate our fresh fish while lounging near the water. The white snapper was great (caught that day) and the salads were bottomless… we ate until we couldn’t move. It was the first buffet-type meal we had had.

During our meal, little Thai girls and boys would come up to us trying to sell us flower necklaces, ladies were selling jewelry, guys were selling fireworks, other guys were walking around with pet monkeys and would place them on you to try to get money for a picture. Another Thai guy had an iguana that he was walking around with to do the same, and about 10 little kids walked around with connect-4 games to gamble against the tourists. We learned the hard way that these little kids have been trained at a young age how to win connect-four in every scenario- little devils.

We pet a couple 6 month old monkeys and lost some games of connect-4 then played some pool at bar on the beach next to where we ate. It was an early night.

The following morning was another beach day which didn’t start until 12 because of the rain. We walked around the shops during the day and at night headed back to the same restaurant on the sand. We met a couple girls at our hostel and they came with us to dinner. This time we all decided to have fun with the dinner disturbances. We played connect 4, a little Thai girl fell in love with James and gave him necklaces, the girls took pictures with the monkeys… we went all-out. Every guy holding a monkey placed it on James since he was lying down, and the 3^rd one peed on his shirt! We were dying laughing and for the rest of the night James was pretty adamant about not holding any other monkeys.

We met the group of 4 who were sitting beside us. Ashley and Meryana were from Canada, and ‘Chico’ and Ricardo were from Chile. We all talked for a couple hours and played more connect-4 and bought more necklaces from the Thai children. All of the little kids were around us for most of the night, but the monkey men stayed far away, they had heard about James’ misfortune.

Our last day on Koh Samui, Hollie and I had a girls’ day. We walked pretty far down the beach to a resort and slid onto some lounge chairs near the water. We ordered frozen daiquiris and chilled coconuts, listened to music, read our books, swam in the ocean. It was wonderful. When we finally headed back we met up with James and the three of us got ready for the evening.

We walked through the back roads, past a night market, and into where the real Thai food was at. We ate some pad Thai, and I fed some of my chicken to a stray dog that was walking around. The three of us headed to the beach and found Ashley, Meryana, Chico, and Ricardo on one of the table/benches where we were now regulars. We joined them and ordered drinks and buckets. In Thailand, bars sell little sandbox type buckets that are filled with ice, a mini bottle of liquor, coke a cola, and red bull syrup. It’s a deadly concoction. We sat by the beach for an hour and the little children remembered us and came over to say hi, sell necklaces, and play connect-4... Around midnight we headed to a bar called the Green Mango; the place was huge and packed with people. The seven of us danced for hours and had the best night!

In the morning we packed up our bags and stuffed into a slightly larger version of a tuk-tuk. We somehow crammed 11 people inside and made our way to the north shore where our ferry boat would be waiting to take us to Koh Phangnan. The skies were clear, the sun was shining, and the water was blue and crystal clear as we set off for our next island.

Koh Phangnan is known for their full moon parties that thousands of backpackers flock to each month. I’ve been looking forward to the November 2^nd full moon party for over 5 months now and now it’s time to see what all of the commotion is about.