Ko Samui - Street food, ladyboys, and waterfalls..
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2006
1
15
33
Trip End
Ongoing
Ko Samui,
Thailand
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
This was the easiest and most effort free place to get to from where we were on Ko Phangan.. and seeing as we were still recovering in from the full moon party, and wernt exactly in the bet frame of mind for making big executive decisions.. it seemed the best option. Also the pier for the ferry was just a 1 min walk from where we were staying which made the decision process dramatically more easy and obvious. So morning came and me and Kristine were off to Ko Samui with a tear in our eye for the beloved Ko Phangan and the great memories, with no sign of team sweden of Minda.
On first impression Ko Samui was pretty big, having its own airport too that was capable of landing medium sized jets, and it had that feel to it that a lot of the bigger Thai towns have - dirty, smelly, noisy and this one had lots of tourist crap on it too - after all... it was a popular family holiday destination for foreigners traveling to Thailand... similar to Phuket. We stayed in the main area of Sumui called Cheweng I think. Along the beach it was an endless view of resort after resort with all the European tourists wearing tight speedos and having that pink color to their skin from trying to soak up as much sun as possible but getting more than one could handle and burning in their rushed attempt to get a tan. We managed to do reasonably well with our accommodation too. Most of the beach bungalows wanted between 400 and 600 baht for a small bungalo, close to the beach, with most of them being dirty, smelly, not having a flush toilet and having a cold shower.. but we stayed on the main road (about 50 mtrs from the beach) for 400 baht per night, but we got a big hotel style room with a nice clean bathroom, flush toilet, hot shower AND air con! (aircon bungalows usually go for about 1000 baht) Funny thing was.. we were paying for a fan room and its like we wernt supposed to use the aircon. I still dont really get it. We did ask the lady if it was noisy at night and she looked at us as if we were silly. It wasnt until later that we discovered that we might as well have been living inside a club as the noise volume was so loud!! Wasn't too bad though as we were parting in it until the wee hours or the morn so we didn't notice it too much.
Our first night out was fun.. we went to a nice bar on the beach which had heaps of young people and we could rip in to the buckets again.. and that we did!. But the main thing that was great is that they had an awesome house dj and played good music all night! Then it was off to the part of town that was close to our place. And it seemed that every bar was playing bob sinclar.. first it was love generation, then world hold on, then another part of the song of world hold on... it was TERRIBLE!! There were HEAPS of ladie boys out too... but them mainly just stood on the corner waiting to be picked up... and its hard to say.. but some of them actually looked hot too... *shudders...* there were also hoards of these bloody kids trying to sell you flower necklaces or trying to play you at connect four! And you had to fight them off with vigor too! You can have fun with them though.. :) But I do wonder.. most of them are between 6 and 8 years old and they are out until 4 in the morning.. :( poor lil guys. I did have a 6 year old beat me at connect four too! mind you, after a few buckets its prob not that hard. :P But they are good lil buggers!!! Lucky I said I would only play for 20 baht though... they normally play for 100, and if u win they give u 100bahtm it they win.. which they do everytime.. then you gotta give them a hundie.
The next day me and Kristine hired a motorbike to see more of the island. after riding for about 40 mins we decided to veer off to try find a waterfall.. thing is though... this so called road to the waterfall just seemed to get narrower and narrower... and the quality seemed to follow in similar fashion. Within 10 minutes it seemed as iff we were riding up a small river bed!! None the less it was still bloody fun!! I dont think we should really have been doing that with the motorbike though.. :P It was a dirt road with HEAPS of ruts , with water cuts all thru it and water running down it too.. maybe a 4wd could get up it.. but that would only still be a definite maybe. Turns out that the road just got too bad and was un nagavable so after a bit of slipping, sliding, and a few near bails, we turned around and went home. The next day we set out a bit earlier on our motorbike mission determined to find a waterfall! It started out well, and then we got hungry and stopped by a roadside stall to grab some quick street food... but this was wierd street food this time. It was a pancake with quail egg spread into the middle, with mango custard stuff, wrapped with half a sausage in it. It tasted like a sweet and savoury pancake.. was a strange taste, but id buy another one as they wernt too bad.. and for NZ 30 cents each thats not too bad at all!! :D
After that it was onwards and upwards with our waterfall mission.. and we were nearing success!! We found one!!! They didnt tell you it was a 40 min trek thru the jungle to get there though!! ah well.. we found our waterfall, and it was... um... ok. Not too bad.. the jungle trek was more fun I thought. :D After that it was a mission around the island, ko samui, and back to return the bike... but we managed to stop in for a quick street pad Thai on the way back. :) That night involved more buckets and dancing and eating hamburgers, of which the paddies had fallen on the dirty dirty Thai pavement, but Phill was a firm believer of not wasting food, so he picked the paddy up off the foot path, but it back in the burger and finished it! I did feel a lil funny the next day,.. but nothing to worry about! :0
after that we had a day of sunbathing and not much else, then Kristine left the following day and I stayed around a bit longer organizing my travels to Phuket, and my flight from Singapore to Brisbane. Next up wil be my stories in the infamous Phuket!
