Koh Samui

July 5

I am writing this exactly a month after I was here. But, that's okay because I wasn't too impressed with Koh Samui, and I still am not impressed with it after a month more of traveling.

We left Koh Phangan, tropical paradise and dream land, around 10:30am this morning. A lot of the girls had woken up early to get some tan time in on the beach. I just got up for breakfast. If I didn't already mention it we were staying at Bottle Beach. I for sure need to stay here if I ever come back. Such a lovely place with such lovely people.

After breakfast, we squashed ourselves into the tsung taos for another crazy 1 hour ride and got dropped off at the ferry port again. Leaving Bottle Beach royally sucked. But I was excited to continue traveling. Bring on the next adventure! 

Unfortunately, the adventure was delayed a bit because the ferry we were taking was running late. We sat in a waiting area with all our luggage. Again, probably looked ridiculous with all these white back packers, but whatever. Then, Brett handed us small tokens and we grabbed our bags and walked into the ferry. We didn't get to keep the tokens, but it regulated who was getting on I think. 

This ferry was smaller and all our bags were loaded into the front. We had to put tags on them so the people working knew what bags to take off the boat when. They were green and said Koh Samui. We actually had a place to sit on this ferry. It was a 30 minute ride and they were playing a really strange set of videos. Like practical joke videos but really strange such as a young kid hitting on older women or an old man trying to get women into his car by delivering them flowers while they were sitting on a bench. 

When we arrived on Koh Samui, we took vans and headed to FX hotel. I can't remember how long it was but I want to say maybe 45 minutes or so? The room was really nice and even had a balcony. The bathroom was completely clear for the wall. Like made of glass, you could see everything. Luckily, there was a shower curtain to pull so it could be covered. We literally had 15 minutes before Brett took us on our orientation tour around town.

To get into the town area near the beach, we had to cross over a lake. It was maybe only a 10 minute walk. Not too far. Near us were some restaurants and bars and then there were other hotels and small stores. The town area near the beach was a bunch of restaurants and small gift and souvenir shops. If you went down far enough there was a McDonalds and a Starbucks. Brett told us it wasn't very big and we didn't even need a hotel card, especially because if we needed to take a taxi everyone knew FX hotel. Later that night when we went out though, the area seemed a lot bigger.

After Brett showed us the way to the beach and a few markers for how to get home and around to places, we all went off in smaller groups. I was with Marion and Jillienne. I ended up buying a stamp so I could finally send the postcard home that I bought in Chiang Mai. I sent it to Watermark and to my knowledge, they still haven't gotten it yet. I'll get home before it does! Other than that, we just walked around and shopped. Marion was looking for another pair of pants. 

After a while of shopping we decided to head to the beach. It was nice, nicer than like Sanur and even Lake Michigan beaches, but it was similar to maybe Miami or really populated beaches. Very nice sand, just a ton of restaurants and people all over the place. We walked along the beach for a while and the sand was so hot that we had to walk down by the water. Then we decided we should maybe eat so we found a restaurant. The food was good. I had pad thai and it could have used more peanut sauce but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. 

After that, Jill had to go back to the hotel because she didn't have her swim suit with her. I kinda wanted to swim in the pool instead of on the beach anyway. It was just too many people after Koh Phangan. Marion wanted to stash her stuff before heading back to the beach. 

We went up to the pool and it was Infiniti pool style. The water looked green though. We decided it was the tiles and the 3 of us just stayed there swimming and sun bathing. The building was a strange shape for sun bathing and there was a higher wall that ended up blocking the sun to the pool. So, logically, we climbed the stairs and moved to the roof. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon swapping stories and hanging out.

We then got ready for going out and just chilled til it was dinner time. I actually wore my hair down and it was for the longest number of hours in a row I have been able to wear it down in Asia. So that was a big accomplishment. Everyone told me my hair looks so nice down and that I look so different. So pretty. 

Anyway, we met up as a group and headed toward the beach. It was a much longer walk to this part of the beach than where we were earlier. Brett walks super fast as well so we were all running behind trying to keep up. It was a long ways! The town is way bigger than I thought it was. It's still pretty small though. 

Brett made dinner reservations for us on the beach. There was a long table with cushions for us to sit on on the beach. The cushions were on a raised box but it wasn't like sitting on a chair. None of us had realized this was the case and many of us girls were in short dresses. So that was a fun feat. We were sitting literally maybe 10 feet from the water. 

It was already dark at this point and there weren't a ton of people on the beach yet. The atmosphere was already pretty cool though. It was like a night club on the beach. There were flashing lights, loud music, cool lighted pole decoration things (not for pole dancing)... There were even fireworks and guys who were twirling fire around on sticks and ropes and things. Some of what they were doing was pretty amazing. There were even acrobatics involved. At one point, a guy went out into the water onto thos huge platform and a guy on the roof across the beach threw him a few fire ropes and he started whipping them around and essentially became a human firework. It was amazing. It also made me think of Grandma. I seriously hope if and when she sees the video I took of it that she never asks me to do that. Ha. Once the beach became more populated there was even dancing. Lots of screaming and yelling. It was a good time. The food was good as well. I had a burger and it had an egg on it as well as bacon. So good.

After dinner we had some drinks and smoked some hooka and waited the big migration to the "Green Mango", a place Brett had been talking about for a few days already. It is supposed to be one of the biggest party clubs on the island. Apparently this is where everyone goes for a good time. 

We migrated that way around 11:15pm. It wasn't too far from where we had eaten, but it was off a side street away from the beach. The Green Mango was pretty impressive and it only became more so as the evening went on and the club became more and more crowded. 

There were a bunch of flashing lights and light up lights on the ceiling. There was a massive screened TV at the top of the club that was actually showing tennis. There were at least 2 bars as well as people walking around taking drink orders. There was a DJ and another stage area with a different DJ playing different music on the other side of the club. There was a stage area up a bunch of stairs where anyone could go up and dance. And really anyone could go. Some people were pretty shitty at it ha. Props to them for dancing in front of everyone though. 

We had tables that were literally just picnic benches. They were unfortunately in close proximity to the toilets and well, it didn't smell to nice to say the least. Marion, Jillienne, and I ordered a bucket to split between the 3 of us. It was literally a plastic bucket with 3 straws. It was a Blue Hawaii or something. We really wanted a Zombie but they didn't do that in a bucket apparently. The bucket was full of ice. Good business proposition for them, not so good for the 3 of us sharing the bucket. 

We danced and sang and took silly pictures and laughed... A lot. It was really fun. Then, a bunch of people were heading back around 1:15am and I was like okay yeah I could go back now. So I went to get the key from Marion and she said her and Katie were heading back to the beach to see what was going on down there. That sounded good to me because I wasn't tired yet but I also was over the Green Mango experience. 

When we got to the beach it was bumpin'. Unfortunately, it was also 1:30am and they were doing last call. Then, shortly after the last song was played. At this point, Marion was trashed. It was becoming a little difficult to look after her. She wanted to go find some hot guys and dance and have fun and wanted to know what kind of men I was into. I pretty much didn't want to pick up a guy at 2am on the beach on a party island. 

When we were dancing, a few German guys came up to us and started dancing with us and asking about what we were doing and all that jazz. Marion was all about it but Katie and I thought they were really creepy! At one point one of the guys even said, "So, we can make love together now?" They were very drunk. They also were either 23 or 31... It kept changing. Katie and I pretty much had to pull Marion away. We had to scope out a bathroom at Burger King because the club had already locked their bathrooms up. 

When we were leaving the bathrooms, Marion really wanted to go back to the beach to find those German guys. Katie and I didn't want to go and Katie was going to let Marion go back by herself if she really wanted to. I vetoed that idea real fast. I told Marion we would go with her if she really wanted to go back. Then all of a sudden she changed her mind and started heading back toward the hotel. Again, surprisingly enough, I was the navigator. And, I got us home safely as well without even getting lost! Marion got stuck on wanting street food which Katie and I also vetoed since it isn't safe. Katie had to basically hold Marion up. The streets in Koh Samui were very uneven and there are random man holes in the side walk. We didn't want her walking into any of those...

We made a pit stop at the 24 hour mart that was near our hotel and got back and went to sleep. Kind of. I had to get Marion water and help her eat food. She had wanted noodles but ended up getting some rice porridge or something. We finally got to sleep around 4am. And breakfast was at 9am. So that was fun... The best part is Marion had promised her friend she wouldn't drink while away because she gets so out of hand. Ha. Yes, she does. Good thing I have had good practice with shit faced people from home. It was a piece of cake!