Exploring Ko Samui

Sunday, 20 February 2005

After the train ride, then a bus ride, then another express boat ride, and a ride in the back of a pick-up truck, we got to Chaweng Beach area, a popular area of Ko Samui. I had called a variety of places during one of our rides to find a hotel to stay in, and we ended up at a more expensive one (vs. your typical bare bones guesthouse) north of the popular beach area. It was quiet, there were older couples and families, and Mr. Pirate Caribbean guy who looked like Corto Maltese himself. During our 4 day stay in Ko Samui, we shopped for sarongs, headbands, and jewelry (you know, because we didn't want to end up looking like all the other tourists visiting Ko Samui), ate at some expensive restaurants on the beach (which are still not expensive by American standards, but 3 times more expensive than my 20 baht meals I get here in Nakhon Pathom. By our second day, we realized where the more "happening" scene was - where we could find people our age- and we had dinner at one of those restaurants on the beach sitting on Thai pillows amidst the bright, colorful paper lamps that lit up the beach at night. Young Thai children roam the beachside restaurants trying to challenge tourists to a game of Connect Four, pester you/or amaze you (depending on what mood you're in) with their ability to play with lizards, and charm you with their sweet looks as they give you orchid with styrofoam bead leis.....Then they ask you for money. After one incident when Cathy nearly got assaulted by a child, and then other children kept pestering us at dinner when we asked them to stop, we were quite miffed when a girl came around to give us some orchid leis. We soon came to realize they were from a guy sitting at the next table over that had bought them for us. So, I let that slide.

One day, we went to the fancy 4 star Century Hotel and spent an afternoon getting pampered in the spa, where you get a tea drink, then can get scrubs, facials, waxing, or massage for about $5 each. I had a quite funny experience that Tess and I laughed about later.

The nightlife of Ko Samui wore on us and by the end, I was pretty disgusted by the scene. All the negative things you hear about where present here...basically every foreign male, young or old, was propositioning some young Thai girl, and scantily clad girls hung out in groups outside of bars and the streets in Central Chaweng, calling guys to come into the bar. A guy was either holding the hand of a Thai girl or watching football in the Irish pubs.