Koh Samui Arrival
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2007
1
58
110
Trip End
Jul 23, 2007
Koh Samui,
Thailand
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Ok, when I last left you I was drinking my first beers of the day with a bunch English guys from Gilford (south London) onboard our ferry boat to Koh Samui. I should have definitely been tired since we had such a long and exhausting night on the bus from hell but with a few beers in me and good mates I was as lively as ever. Andrea and I were completely toasted since we sat on the edge of the boat for the full two hours letting Apollo fry us till we were quite crisp. Once we arrived we followed the rest of the herd to where the taxis and shuttles were. As we sat pondering what to do, an English man in his forties yelled from the back of one of the pickup trucks that they were the best bang for the buck since the taxis here charge about 10 times what they do in Bangkok. Taking his word for it we jumped on the back of the pick up truck he was on since he also was heading to Chaweng beach (basically the most touristy part of Koh Samui where everyone goes)
01
. On the way we made friends with two Israelies that we thought were a couple but we found out later from the girl (obviously since she was pretty good looking compared to her "friend", I'm going to take a wild guess here and tell you he's probably been in love with her since they were in kindergarten but she just wants to be friends. CLASSIC!!! Of coarse she eggs him on by letting them sleep ion the same room and travel the most romantic beaches and locations in the world just to tease him...That's what I think but who knows...). We asked them about the bombings and Hamas but she said it was overly dramatized on the television and it wasn't that bad...If bombs were killing people in my country and buildings became dust overnight I'd be worried and definitely scared but she acted as if it was almost not happening. Weird but maybe that's her way of coping. One last thing that happened on our 30 min pick up truck drive was that the Israeli man/boy (aka Ariel) went off on the British guy for Britain owning an empire hundreds of years ago. For a moment there I thought he was going to go ballistic on him. It kind of reminded me of the movie Munich for a moment...I was scared for a moment but then realized ...ohh yeah he weighs like 130 lbs...scrawny would have been a compliment to this kid. So with that in mind I listened to his machismo and laughed inside. We later decided to go together to see if we could get a discount on 2 rooms instead of one
02
. That plan worked well but Ariel was not satisfied with the prices the places were giving us...on the contrary I was...Rare but true, I found someone stingier than myself...Did I mention he was Jewish??? He was classic, after we saw 2 million hotels he still wasn't satisfied and wanted another $2 off before he would stop. I on the other hand was satisfied so I took Andrea who was with Donna (the girl) at a little restaurant we had decided to get lunch at in the middle of our hotel journey, since Ariel and I had continued on to find THE BEST POSSIBLE DEAL!!!
So Andrea and I head to the hotel by the road but Ariel and I had traveled along the beach so I hadn't actually seen the front of the hotel but I knew its name. When we finally arrived I tried to be slick and cut a couple bucks from their previous price and said that they had told me that price. The three ladies looked at each other trying to figure out if any of them had quoted that price and I couldn't understand them since they were speaking in Thai but one of them motioned as if to say "Maybe I did tell them that price I don't remember"...so they showed me the room and it looked great and so we booked it for the next few days and paid up front as usual. As soon as we dropped our stuff and I was gloating how I had gotten us such a great deal and the pool here was fantastic and the lounge chairs were incredible and they even have massages on the beach for about half off the usual price, I noticed that the pool wasn't were it was supposed to be
03
. TURNS OUT I PICKED THE WRONG HOTEL!!! To make things worse I overpaid because the rate I paid was a good 20% more than was customary for a place without a pool and without good lounge chairs...OOOPS!!!! The hotel I had meant to book was literally across the fence. DOH.So after picking my ego off the floor I decided that we would try to use the facilities next door and if they asked any questions I would give them extra tips. Luckily no one has said anything so far. This is the type of stuff that only happens to me. I wasted almost 3 hours looking for the perfect place and then I pick the wrong one. To top everything off on the other side of our hotel is a big construction site and they keep working late into the night and start way too early with the banging. We couldn't see it or hear it from the beach but our room is right next to it...that makes this place the perfect worst hotel to stay at!!! Only I could pick'em so well.
We spent the rest of this day at the beach using the good hotel's beach chairs and pool. A couple hours in we ran into Ariel and Donna which had picked the correct hotel and obviously asked about our room and how spacious theirs was and all my ego could manage to say was ..."Yeah it's nice"...I couldn't confess the error of my judgment and how horrible our room and hotel actually was...instead I just acted as if we were staying in their hotel
04
. I am writing this several days later and I've seen them everyday and I still haven't told them. Funny huh??? Hopefully they don't use travelpod as well and are reading this now! Later that that night we decided we needed a night out on the town. We found a strip of bars and clubs that were pretty empty except for one and so we headed there for a drink. It didn't take long to realize how many prostitutes roam the streets of koh smaui. Most of them were at this bar hitting on old, young, fat, skinny and anything that walked basically. We saw men walking down the street that were molested by US standards for just walking alone. These women were relentless and they wouldn't take no for an answer. We saw this one in particular talk to a man for a while and we thought for sure he had hired her and she even left with him. 15 seconds later she came back empty handed after being rejected, mind you she had spent a good 20 minutes talking his ear off. She was easy to pick out of the crowd since she had a huge cowboy hat and Dallas cowboy cheerleader type (sequined, mind you) outfit on. As soon as she got back she got back in the saddle (no pun intended) and headed for her next conquest. I'd say that night we saw a minimum of 100 to 150 women that were possible prostitutes and out of those, 50 definitely were. Andrea went to the bathroom and out came a customer and his service provider out of the same stall...a little awkward wouldn't you say
05
. Anyways, we made friends with some other backpackers also enjoying the koh samui roundup. 2 of them worked for a hotel and were actually on business rating hotels (BEST JOB EVER) the rest of us were backpackers heading one way or another. The funniest one was one of the hotel raters who was a Swedish-Indian and definitely a lush. She took no less than seven shots of vodka while her peers took 1 or maybe two. Andrea and I valiantly declined all shots but we did put down a jug of margaritas which kept us happy all night. They kept drinking like fish and were ordering Vodka punch bowls that looked more like sand buckets kids play with except these had liquid and about 5 straws each ( I took some pictures of them). Andrea and I decided to try one after our margarita jug but quickly changed our mind once we tasted it ...It was horrible!!!! We then went with the group to the next club and stayed for a bit before calling it a night. The Indian girl didn't make it to the end of the night and she headed straight for the bathroom and was never seen again. This was after she ordered yet another vodka shot - but we and one of her friends sneakily replaced the vodka with water! As for us we had a great time and then headed home for some much needed R&R. Goodnight.
PS: Thank God I have been with Andrea because otherwise I would definitely have been molested, and molested is an understatement. THEY HAVE NO SHAME!!! They grab and jump on anything.
Love,
Jose and Andrea
