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44: Exploring Koh Samui (1)

Saturday, December 31st, 2005

Hired a Scooter today and drove around the northern part of Koh Samui a bit.

I only left around lunch time as the sky became a bit overcast and the beach wasn’t that appealing anymore. So I left my resort in North Chaweng just opposite Samui International Hospital if you check the area map. Strangely enough on this map the resort is not listed (its between Amari and Muang) but also the airport is no way where it’s marked!
I certainly don’t hear airplanes going over my bungalow and in fact the planes fly over mid Chaweng Beach about 1km south rather than where my resort is. One of the reasons why I was rather lucky to stay in this resort! But more on Samui Beaches in a different post.

So I took the main road along the cost (road 4171) towards Choeng Mon, the north eastern corner of the island. There are a few small beaches which I stopped at, the biggest of them near Koh Farn Noi, a tiny island opposite the beach.

Even this biggest of the Choeng Mon Beaches had quite a different feel to it compared to Chaweng.
Very few people were there, bunglaows a bit more worn and looking rather like old wooden huts. There was not much happening in terms of catering which can be good or bad depending on whether you want any food/drinks or not;-) The sand was quite nice and so was the water.

To bo continued.. (sorry I put pictures on flickr.com which took a good while)

43: Dangerous Indulgence

Friday, December 30th, 2005

I conclude Koh Samui is potentially dangerous 😉
I could get used to this… Sun, White Sandy Beach, Turquoise Waters and excellent Restaurants on the Beachfront which serve food all day and night.

During the day plenty of retailers pass you to sell BBQ’ed Fish, Chicken or Pork Skewers. BBQed Corn on the Cob is also very popular and then there are the fruit and ice cream sellers that have everything from fresh pinapple and mango to deliciously refreshing coconouts (for drinking rather than eating since they are green coconut and pretty much only coconut water… Hmmm.. Trouble is it’s so easy to be lazy and get eveerything brought to you whereever you aer lying on the beach that there is great danger of giving up all travel plans and simply enjoy life on Koh Samui 🙂

Well.. no worries I won’t but it is definitely a nice change to the hectic Bangkok experience.

Turns out I was lucky with staying at the Big Wave Resort since I have now found Marine Resort and it does not look very impressibve at all and is quite a bit further up north where the beach is not as nice.
Also I tried the Beach Restaurant at Big Wave and it’s the best Thai food I had sofar!
Their Tom Yum Soup with Prawns is awesome and for main course I chose a BBQed Red Snapper. Uh Oh Yum Yum 😀 It was incredible! For a start the fish was HUGE!!!. Never seen such a big red snapper before and I reckon it was between 30cm long but big&fat as well. Two people could have easily eaten that one without anything extra and I seriously struggled to finish it. It was BBQ’ed but not charred. Actually I was surprised how little it looked BBQed, it tasted fantastic though. You could realy taste the freshness.. very different from the Red Snapper back home. It came with a Lemon&Garlic Dip and some Tartar sauce which I tried briefly but I decided the fish tasted way too good to spoil it with any sauces.
Thanks to Rose I knew how to eat this for a start (For some reason my famuily never cooks fish at all so I had no idea what to do with fish until Rose showed me:-) Rose would be proud of me: I learned well and even dared to eat the little meat on the fish head 🙂

Anyway so by now you surely believe me that the Restaurant and the Seafood is pretty darn good 😉

So what’s to moan (Since I’m known for moaning..)?
Well not much… it gets dark too early on Koh Samui. Sun is down by 18:30 at the latest. Very strange since for me Hot Sun = Summer = Bright until Late so it being pitch black by 19:00 just seems odd. But I can live with it 🙂

And of course Koh Samui and the Beaches and all is really a bit too romantic to spend time here on my own.. the long evenings don’t help I guess and it’s a little strange going to restaurants on my own. Bangkok was easy since I used street vendors or street restaurants. Never anything fancy. The places here are a little bit more on the romantic side so it feels a bit strange.

Nevermind thought I will get used to it. In fact I could really get used to this place and spend more time on these islands than I initially planned. Once I get my Dive Course sorted and see all the amazing marine life firsthand I might struggle to leave the islands 😉 Eeek.. maybe I should go to the north first and then come back here to do the PADI Dive course…

PS: Weather is nice of course. It seems to rain during the night a bit but sofar by the time I get up it is all sunny and warm again. During the day sometimes it gets a bit cloudy but it does not matter as it’s still very warm (around 28C I reckon) .

42: Koh Samui Arrival

Wednesday, December 28th, 2005
Note: I'm using the worst keyboard you could imagine so excuse spelling mistakes in particular in this post.. Arrived in Koh Samui - hooray :-) I flew from Bangkok with 6am departure. Had to leave Big John's Hostel at 3:30am so only ... [Continue reading this entry]

41: River Boat & Flower Market

Tuesday, December 27th, 2005
Went down to the big Chao Praya River today and took the Express Boat from Central Pier to Tha Saphan Phut. This is where the Flower and Vegetable Market is. Spend about two hours walking around all the stalls with ... [Continue reading this entry]

40: Koh Samui coming up

Monday, December 26th, 2005
This blog system is doin' my head in! The message below was emailed to my blog space days ago and it still has not come up so I add it manually for now... Might be time to look for ... [Continue reading this entry]

39: Learning Thai

Monday, December 26th, 2005
If one would feel like learning Thai one could start here: http://www.learningthai.com/useful_phrases.html Sadly it can be very dangerous trying to speak Thai because just as in the Chinese language one word can have entirely different meanings depending on the pronounciation... In total, ... [Continue reading this entry]

38: Hostel & Chatuchak Market

Sunday, December 25th, 2005
Hostel Moved to a Big John's Hostel today. It's still in Sukhumvit and nearish the last hotel, about 15-20 mins walk. Tiny Boxroom, no window, room fits a bed and a shelve but nothing else ;-) Lock on door is very flimsy ... [Continue reading this entry]

37: Pictures (Almost)

Saturday, December 24th, 2005
Took some pictures over the last few days though I have to say there are more than one occasion where I didn't dare taking out my camera.. I might get more used to it eventualy. I need to figure out how ... [Continue reading this entry]

36: Christmas Eve

Saturday, December 24th, 2005
Merry Xmas Everyone :-) Nope - it's doesn't feel christmas like here in Bangkok. Some shopping malls play xmas tunes but that's about it. Apart from the strangely out of place xmas shop in chinatown there is not much about xmas in ... [Continue reading this entry]

35: New Hotel & Old Teakhouse

Friday, December 23rd, 2005
Took it easy today after having been to Chinatown yesterday. I had to move out of my Hotel and on to a new place which took the morning. Sawadee Sukhumvit Inn is the cheapest Hotel I could find at HotelClub (12 pounds) ... [Continue reading this entry]