Koh Samui

When we landed at the island's airport we were full (of delicious Thai plane food) and eager to see what this place was all about. When we got out of the plane, we found the airport to be more like a little tropical oasis. There was a tiny little luggage belt in the arrivals hall, which was really just a palm leaf roof with open sides. We got our bags and with a bit of difficulty and found a semi cheap ride to our hotel.

We arrived at the "Samui Beach Resort" after a scenic ride and found it to be a very quaint and pretty little family run place. It was a bit off the beaten track which was nice because we'd heard the island was quite the tourist destination. It was quiet and the restaurants and shops nearby were geared mostly toward the locals.

After settling in a bit, we thought we'd walk up to the nearby touristy town, Lamai Beach, and see what all the fuss was about. Apparently, Lamai Beach is the second biggest tourist strip on the island. It wasn't too hopping -- apparently this isn't high season. That suited us just fine. We found a little restaurant booth and had a delicious meal before walking around a bit checking out the shops. We ran into some guys handing out leaflets for some big fighting event and discovered that one of them was a Muai Thai (Thai kick-boxing) fighter! The big event which was going to have 9 fights in total was starting in about a half hour and this fighter was the main attraction, fighting in the title bout! Clearly we had to get a picture with him. Yen even challenged him to a quick fight to the death and when they were posing for the pre-match photo, she swiped him with a cheap shot... 10 points for style.

After that stroke of fate, we absolutely had to go watch the fights. After all, Yen's nemesis was going to be the main event. We got there just in time -- there was absolutely nobody in the entire arena! By the time it actually started there were a few dozen -- by no means full. However, by the 5th or 6th fight, more people, especially the locals, had come in and the crowd was starting to get excited. The fights were going in order of weight, lightest to heaviest. It started at 90 pounds. These guys were just kids pounding each other. The first four fights didn't get past round 3 and ended with one guy on the floor and helped out of the ring. After the first four though, none of the fights ended with a knock-out. This is kind of a mixed blessing, since on the one hand nobody is losing brain cells -- or at least not so quickly; on the other hand, it's REALLY boring to watch an entire 5 rounds of people blocking the odd punch or kick. Finally the main even came on and that too was a 5 rounder; and Yen's besty didn't even win on judges decision. Disappointing all round. Especially for him -- 2 losses in one night. The most bizarre part was that the last fight of the night, after the main event was the 70 pound category. These kids couldn't have been more than 9 or 10. Shocking and kinda cute, all at the same time.

It was a late night when the fights were over so we walked back to our hotel. It was a 25-30 minute walk and we weren't feeling too well so we thought we'd cab it back. We got in the "meter cab" and were told that there was no meter and it would cost three times (or more) the price it should be. We got out. We walked.

The next day we got up bright and early for a "Jungle Tour." A pickup with a canopy and benches along the sides picked us up at 8:30 from our hotel. Our first stop was an elephant trek. Yen and I got on the bench on the back of the elephant and the driver sat up front on its head. We roamed about 5 minutes into the jungle before the guide hopped down and told me to move down to sit on its head. SCARY! The elephant's ears were really fun to play with though. It was very difficult to balance though... especially since our elephant was more interested in eating palm leaves than following instructions on what to do next from the guide who was now walking up ahead and taking pictures for us. Our ride only lasted about 20 minutes or so before we headed back to where we started and got to feed the elephants. Their trunks are so cool and gentle and have quite amazing motor control. I want one.

After the elephants, we walked up a pathway to where there was a guy with a monkey on an extremely long rope. After a few words, the monkey took off up a huge coconut tree and with a bit of coaxing, started picking the cocnuts and tossing them down to the trainer. Awesome. Afterwards we got to see how they train them by hanging coconuts on some branches and having the monkeys twist them off until the stems break. We even got to hold the coconut while the monkey jumped up on our arms and twisted the coconut out of our hands! It was fantastic! Apparently they don't do much training there -- they send most of the monkeys to a coconut picking course on the mainland. That just sounds funny.

We then had a Thai curry cooking demonstration in a hut in the jungle. Cool. Got to smell the fresh ingredients of all the things I'd heard of or seen in powder form before. Very tasty indeed! Surprisingly, I was the only one who had seconds. The then cut up some different coconuts for us to show us the difference between coconut milk and coconut juice. This left a lot of coconut to eat and we couldn't let it go to waste now, could we? Right beside where the cooking demo was was a little baby monkey playing on a rope. Apparently it stunk and screamed as one of the workers bathed it under a hose. It was so cute!

We jumped back in the pickup truck and headed for a hill where there was a beautiful place to look out over the island. Nice photo op. Then off to a rubber plantation. This was very cool. Like a maple syrup farm, there were rows and rows of trees with little buckets attached. Except the buckets were collecting white sticky sap that dried into what looked like and was kind of the consistency of bococcini cheese. The farmer then collects all the buckets, blends in a few additives and then rolls them and presses them into sheets that look and feel like (and basically are) bath mats. Each is sold for about 8 baht (25-30 cents CDN?) depending on the market and used to make tires and shoes and all that good stuff. Pretty cool.

Back in the truck for a few minutes and we landed at a little pathway leading into the jungle. A couple steps in and we were at the most picturesque movie style waterfall with a perfect little swimming hole among the trees and rocks. Just gorgeous and so refreshing! We jumped in for a bit of a swim before heading back to the hotel. It had been a long day! We went and checked out the beach and pool. Nice, but nothing spectacular. In any case, this wasn't why we were there. We ate dinner at a nice local joint and headed back to our room. Yen wasn't feeling well so she had a lay down while I went out to have a Thai massage. I wanted to get a one hour massage but the lady said that I was too big and that I'd need one and a half hours :-( The people here are so small, but have such powerful hands. NICE!

The next day was going to be our arranging day. We needed to figure out what we wanted to do next. We hit a local travel joint and figured it out surprisingly fast, and it wasn't even noon yet!

One of the attractions of the island was apparently right near our hotel, called the Grandfather and Grandmother Rocks. We set out to find them. We didn't see the main street that takes you there and we ended up getting there through a strange jungle pathway requiring the use of ropes to climb down some rocks. Interesting. Once we arrived, the grandfather rock was easy to spot -- a big erection, coronal ridge and all sticking straight out of the rocks by the shore. Kind of fun, but it took a while to find the grandmother. In the end I ended up following a tour group to the end of a rock platform and voila! There it was... uncanny!

Then with the rest of the afternoon to kill, we worked up the guts to rent a motorcycle and go cruising around the island. When we asked about the rental, everything was good. Then when the girl brought the bike over and learned that I'd never ridden one before, everything wasn't so good. Something to the effect of "I'm not so sure about this" was all I heard before she started talking to her friend in Thai. She showed me the basics and I barely idled across the lawn. Being too embarrassed about the situation to say otherwise, she asked if I was ok and I said yes. So I rolled the bike to the driveway, Yen hopped on the back and off we were! We had to get gas before we set off, which was just across the street. It was a cool old fashioned pump. Then we were off to circumnavigate the island. We stopped to check out a market on the way and then it started pouring! We rode in the rain and stopped in the main tourist strip for dinner. It was alright but nothing special. Then back on the road in the dark night. It was really a lot of fun once we got the hang of it. Nowhere near as bad as learning standard on the left side of the road like in England! This was just a bike on the left side. In any case, we returned to the hotel in one piece, which seemed to relieve the staff big time. We had a nice dip in the pool and hit the sack.

The next morning we got up for our pickup to head to the ferries back to the mainland. What we thought was a minibus that took us right on to the ferries and to our next destination, Khao Sok, turned out to be something quite different. The minibus took us to somewhere near the ferries. Then the driver pointed to a random little storefront and told us to go there. The guy in the storefront told us to wait by a bus that was parked outside. The driver of the bus pointed to yet another bus which we got on. It drove around the corner -- literally -- before we had to get off to board the ferry. The bus then drove on to the lower decks. When we arrived at the mainland, the buses all drove to a parking lot and we had to find ours and get back on it. It dropped us off somewhere in town at another storefront. They told us we had to wait another 2 hours for our next bus. So we went next door to have lunch. Delicious. Luckily we'd just finished, when the storefront guy ran over and said that the bus parked out front was ours -- an hour early! We scrambled to pay and ran to the bus. It was a local bus with no AC and only 1 out of 6 fans were working. We also had no idea where to get off, but we eventually made it to Khao Sok. We'll tell you all about it in our next post!