Koh Samui

Both days we spent in Bangkok saw sudden severe, but short lived, thunderstorms pass through the city accompanied by torrential rains. I got caught out in one of them Thursday morning and had to hide under shelter for about twenty minutes while waiting for the rains to subside.

Just before we left Bangkok, another storm came through so we decided we'd taxi to the airport rather than risk getting soaked on public transit.

As a result, we once again arrived at the airport well ahead of our departure time and had lots of time to browse through the shops.

The flight to Surat Thani is a short sixty five minutes, but it's followed by a ninety minute shuttle bus ride to the ferry, a 1:45 hour ferry ride to Koh Samui and a final 45 shuttle ride to our hotel. In the end, we arrived at our hotel at 8:30PM, tired and hungry. We went out for a bite to eat and I had the spiciest bowl of Jungle Curry I've ever eaten. Despite washing it down with a couple of bottles of Chang beer, I was sweating bullets and literally crying from the heat. That's the last time I request the spicy version of anything in this country.

After the blistering in my mouth had subsided and my vision had returned, Brenda and I went to our favorite massage place, Golden Hands, for a one hour foot massage. It was so relaxing I dozed off a couple of times only to awaken myself snoring. Embarassing.

Sunday morning we went off in search of fruit at the local fresh market and brought back some of our favorite Thai baby bananas, some succulent pineapple, some jackfruit and a bunch of mangoes. The durian here is still quite pricey at 160฿/kg (about $3.00 cdn/lb) so we passed on it this morning. But who knows, we may succumb to temptation by the end of the week.

In the evening, two of the main streets were closed off to traffic for the Sunday walking market, which had all manner of stalls with the vendors selling food, clothing, knock-off electronics and handbags and every souvenir imaginable. We ended up filling our bellies on various local specialties, but, being good vegans, we gave the crispy crickets a pass.Read more