Koh Samui

7/30 - Lamai Beach

After actually sleeping in a bit and heading to the airport with calm (and lots of traffic congestion), we headed off to our final stop on the trip, Koh Samui.

Koh Samui is one of the many lovely islands off the coast of Thailand. Sam chose this island based on the likelihood of avoiding the rain – apparently, Phuket was non-stop rain for most of our entire time in Thailand. Sam had booked us a great little bungalow right on Lamai Beach. For $100 a night, you really can’t do better than having a porch overlooking the ocean while drinking a bottle of Leo beer – which is basically what we spent the rest of the afternoon doing, just being beach bums. Lamai Beach had great beaches, clean water, is a little less rowdy than some of the beach areas, but our guide book also adds in words like ‘seedy’ and ‘grimy’ to describe it – I’m not sure I would totally agree with that, but it certainly had the highest number of bars with ladies looking to find retired male tourists.

One side note that I learned on this trip. Sam needs practice taking selfies…

7/31 - Wua Ta Lap Islands

One last day of walking up early for a tour. This tour was a bit different though, as it was really about ocean fun things – snorkeling, hiking, and nature. And it was also different in that there were actually a lot of people going with us this time – first time of the whole trip.

The boat sped out to Wua Ta Lap Islands, where we went snorkeling around the edge of the rock cliff on the side of the tiny island. Snorkeling in clear, warm water with neon fish is always fun. I think my favorite part, though, always ends up being the sounds of the fish eating off the reef – its such a strange, but distinctive sound.

We next sped over to the National Park where Sam and I split off from the group. Pretty much all of them headed off to go kayaking, but we had decided on a hike up to the top of the island hill. The hike was well trodden, but it was also endless stairs to go up 500m to the top. The views – and monkeys! – along the way made it worthwhile.

Three unrelated stories added color to the hike.

1.     On our way down, we happened upon a group of early teen Thai kids. They were trying to take a group picture, so I offered to take the picture. They got really excited and instead decided that they wanted us in their picture. I managed to get a picture of them, but before we could continue on, they made sure to get a picture of us hanging out with them. The New Yorker in me kept checking my wallet, but it seemed they just genuinely wanted to get a picture with random strangers.

2.     At the first viewpoint of the hike, we were joined by an middle aged American woman and her Italian boyfriend (of equivalent age). The Italian guy had a very strange vocabulary to describe everything that made it seem like he watched a lot of Hollywood movies from the 90s – describing the view as ‘totally sick’ and calling her ‘dude’.

3.     My favorite lady of the hike – and one of my favorites from the whole trip. While at the top, Sam and I were taking in the view, snapping some photos, and taking a breather. When we arrived at the top, there was a German/Austrian family there as well with a very excited, rather talkative mother leading the way. She asked us to take their picture an we obliged, only to have her demand to take our picture as well. As she took Sam’s phone, she told us that she was the director and would make sure to get us a good shot. She then proceeded with a fashion shoot of us, making us give our best Blue Steel poses while taking an absurd amount of pictures. She was non-stop hilarious. The best part was that near the end of our descent we caught up with them. She at first seemed a bit offended, but after looking us up and down again, proceeded to tell us – “Not bad for a woman with two kinds, no?” To which we happily agreed and pointed out that it was even more impressive that she had done it in sandals (which, honestly, was impressive).

The boat party made its way over to another island that had a picturesque lagoon in it, and after that, we headed back to our little bungalow where we passed the afternoon chilling out in the sun, swimming in the ocean and walking along the beach like a scene from a postcard.

The previous night, we had gone to a well rated place near our hotel. The food was decent, but not really anything to be impressed by. For dinner on this day, Sam had done some deeper searching for my favorite type of place – a plastic tables and chairs type of place. She found one that was not too far away that we figured we would try out. It was perfect. It was basically a shanty that had a large porch with a corrugated metal covering over a cement floor. The women who worked here were fantastic – if it weren’t for these ladies, the hiking mother from earlier would have been my favorite person met during the trip. But what really made this place was the food. It was, hands down the best overall meal of the trip. A fried seafood mix, panang curry, and a couple of beers – it was great from beginning to end. It was also incredibly cheap. I think we tipped 50% and it was still less that $10 per person.

Back at the hotel, we did some Oceanside star gazing before cashing out for the night, sleeping to the sounds of the waves washing ashore.

8/1 - Winding Down

Day of nothing. This was really the last day of the trip, so the plan was to just relax in the sun. We went from the beach to the water to the bungalow without purpose. We did have one exciting event involving our water floaty – an blow up tube decorated like a watermelon – in which it made a renegade attempt for freedom and outmaneuvered Sam’s swimming. Eventually, a young Dutch kid saw Sam’s struggle and successfully swam out to head off its escape. Well done young man, well done.

That night we went back to the same restaurant with similar results. Love that place.

8/2 - Last Day on the Beach

After a bit more time on the beach and a late check-out, we headed to the airport. The airport of Koh Samui is unlike anything I’ve seen. It was essentially a series of buildings that you walked outside to go between. When you arrive at the final terminal, you are under a thatched roof, with a few stands acting as stores and bars, but basically just outside. When your plane arrived you jump on a long golf cart that takes you to your plane where you walk onto it like you are in the Caribbean in the 1950s. Fantastic.

The flight took us back to Bangkok, but since we arrived in the late afternoon and were flying out early, we decided to just stay in a place near the hotel.

8/3 - Return to Loisada

This was a very long day. We headed to the airport at 6am for our flight to Tokyo. From Tokyo we were off to LA. Sam’s trip stopped here for the day, but I had one last leg to NYC. 32 hours later I dragged myself into our apartment in alphabet city and crashed on the bed.

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