Khlong Sa Ket

After recovering from dengue fever, the doctor cleared me to travel. So, we booked a direct flight to an island on the southeastern coast of Thailand – Koh Samui. As a joke I bought the obligatory “elephant pants” for Ken and Everett so they would look like “real backpackers” on our departure from Bangkok. Well the joke was on me because they’ve been wearing them non-stop. We took the train to the airport and chilled at the lounge for a bit.

Koh Samui is one of the larger, more developed islands but one we had not visited previously. Twelve years ago, in Thailand we met a Canadian couple (Ken and Crystal) and have stayed friends all these years. How did we meet? Well, Ken Altmann drank so many banana shakes at the local bar that the bar ran out of the key ingredient. The owner told his kid to climb the tree next to the bar and cut down more bananas. Ken and Crystal laughed so hard and talked so much trash we knew they were our type of peeps. Now 12 years have passed and they happened to be in Thailand and invited us to stay with them at their epic, beachfront AirBnB. It meant so much to us to not only remain friends for all these years, but to meet them back where it all started from. We love you Ken and Crystal! Thanks for hosting us for our epic week on Koh Samui.

The first day was spent renting scooters (surprisingly difficult because everything was sold out), finding the grocery store (our purchases had to fit in my backpack), and getting our bearings along the west side of the island (first things first: coffee, boba tea, ATM). Day 2 we took a long tail boat (powered by a nauseating lawn mower engine) to a snorkel spot and then stopped at Crystal’s request on “Pig Island,” which is exactly what it sounds like – a mostly deserted island with a bunch of semi-feral pigs. This farm girl was not impressed – really, we spent money to hang with pigs? But Crystal was so enthralled with the baby piglets that her enthusiasm helped us all enjoy the experience. There was one “drinks shack” that sold the best mojitos. So, after a few hours and many mojitos later the Pig Island attraction ended up a pretty fun and unique afternoon.

The next day our scooter gang of five traveled around the island (Everett was on the back of my scooter and we stopped at another snorkel spot). The cars on the road were surprisingly chill and considerate given the volume of tourists on scooters that didn’t know how to drive (us included).

The beach at our house is less than 2 feet deep for several football fields out into the ocean. We can see the ferry boat terminal in the distance but we are 100% removed from other tourists. There are three beach dogs that frequent our beachfront (they have become our guard dogs because Crystal keeps feeding them breakfast sausages). And we are now known at the local dinner spot because we’ve gone five nights in a row and have ordered every item on the menu. What else? We are averaging 5.5 mangoes per day. Each night we sit and watch the sunset. Crystal makes the best cheese and appetizer platters. Ken Andrukow makes the best drinks and ensures we have the deep conversations of life. And they even made me brownies for my birthday.

Yesterday, Ken, Ken and Crystal went scuba diving and Everett and I played in our pool and did homeschool. We are sad to leave our dear friends and now await the ferry to our next adventure- the island of Koh Tao.Read more