Day 55: Relaxing in Koh Samui

After the disappointment of all the rain last night, no sunset and a long day of travel, we were both very happy to open the curtains in the morning and discover almost entirely blue sky! We grabbed a hotel breakfast quite early (about 7:30), got ourselves ready and were settled on a pair of sun loungers on the beach before 9am. Here we stayed until about midday, swimming, listening to music and doing some reading.

The beach was pretty good - very clean though the water wasn't that clear, a little choppy but you could walk out probably 50m or so without even reaching shoulder depth. And of course it was bathtub warm! For lunch we visited one of the two restaurants across the road; we just chose the closer one essentially at random but again I was quite disappointed in my meal. The pad thai was very bland again, almost the equivalent of ordering pasta and getting spaghetti topped with ketchup.

Back to the beach by 1pm and our sunloungers, though the weather had closed in a bit and storm clouds were looming. Sure enough, within the next 45 minutes a gale whipped up, stinging the sand against your skin as rain lashed down and thunder boomed. We beat a retreat to our room and whiled away a few hours online, Skyping the Cleavers and my dad. It's actually a bit easier to organise Skype to Australia now that we're in Thailand, since it's a 3 hour time difference. The 2 hour difference we had in Malaysia meant that Skyping before dinner wasn't an option as we were usually out, and by the time we'd finished our dinner it was too late in Australia.

Eventually the weather cleared a bit and we ventured back outside. The wind had subsided but it still was sprinkling on and off and not that pleasant. We grabbed two longnecks of beer from the store across the road (total cost = 120 baht or about $5 AUD) and sat on our loungers, watching the clouds drift past and the sunlight fade away.

Went to the other restaurant across the street and happy to report that the food was excellent! I had a very tasty red curry with pork, and Shandos's minced pork & basil dish was also great. We even lashed out on a dessert of fried bananas and ice cream!Read more