Ko Samui, Thailand

There are a number of Thai islands to choose from, and I hadn't been to any.  Lisa wanted to go to Phuket, because she had a friend who went there and loved it, and I wanted to go to Ko Samui, because it was a ferry ride from Surat Thani, a train hub that also has an airport.  I convinced lisa that the east side of thailand has better weather conditions than the west side of the island (from what i read) and that it would be easier to get back to Bangkok.  My initial plan was to take the train up Malaysia, from Kuala Lumpur, to Penang (the foodie capital of Malaysia) and possibly Langkawi, an island right on the border of Thailand and Malaysia.  That train line continues up the east side of Thailand, and we could take a scenic overnight train to Bangkok, but the train passes through a town called Hat Yai; a muslim territory of thailand that is said to be unstable enough that americans should avoid the area altogether.  For a moment i considered it, but i thought my mom would kill me if she found out, and really, did i want to risk getting pulled off the train and be some kind of international incident?  The three of us really stick out as americans, and it just wasn't worth it.  We were running out of time on our trip anyway, so we took a flight instead to Surat Thani, and hoped we could get the fast ferry to samui,  

Lisa is magical.  My book said that the ferry to Samui was 6 hours, and there were only a couple of fast ferries to the island.  Lisa finds that there is a service at the airport that takes you directly from the airport, by bus, to the ferry, and that it's only a couple of times a day.  We try (and fail) to race out of customs at the airport, and RUN to get the ferry combo, and there is a bus leaving in 5 minutes and we had to GO.  Even better, it only cost about $20, but none of had any Thai money and there was a line at the ATM.  Three of the 4 ATMs were out of order, and almost everyone on the only working ATM at this tiny little crap airport is getting turned away, because for some reason their cards don't work.  I get lucky, and take out plenty, just in case.  This was a good move, as neither Lisa's nor Timeka's cards were working.  We run back to the counter and are able to get on the bus, and three hours later we're on the island.

Lisa is our best negotiator, and she reads that the trip to Lamai beach, the section we chose, should only cost about 400 Thai baht.  She goes to the driver and tries to negotiate from the requested 600 to 400, he scoffs at her and WALKS AWAY.  He didn't just walk away, when Lisa continued to try to negotiate, he ignored her.  Did not look in her direction.  Timeka tried next, and he refused to turn around and face her.  Next driver we found, we paid the 600 baht.

The driver accidentally takes us to coconut lamai beach, instead of our lamai coconut resort.  This will be the first of many confused taxi drivers who speak almost no English and either don't know where they're going or aren't really interested in taking you where you want to go.

Much like legian in Bali, we were smart enough to pick a sleepier part of samui, and although there is a little strip of stores, restaurants, massage places, lamai beach is not too dense and there's only one McDonald's and they have a small night market.

Our place is a tiny bungalow, clean and old-fashioned looking, and aside from the one roach we found in our soap the first day, it was clean.   I bravely killed that roach, by the way, stabbing it with the hotel's umbrella, and did not employ my preferred method at home: spraying the shit out of it with bug spray and putting a bowl over it, leaving it for days until it has decomposed a bit and I muster up the courage to dispose of it properly.  The hotel is steps away from the gorgeous and sparsely populated beach, and the beach bar serves food and drinks.  The only downfall, it seemed, was that the water pressure in the shower could be best described as "tinkling," and this was annoying enough for me, but Lisa and Timeka both have a large amount of hair, and it just wasn't going to cut it.  Timeka sat herself down at the beach, read about 10 books, and pretty much never left.  To her, this is paradise.  And at $20 per person per night, paradise comes cheaply here.

We instantly decide we would like to stay a third night, even before we had done a thing.

We spent time at the beach, got massages and scrubs, pedicures.  I got a Thai massage so amazing that I asked her for a second hour, all of this setting me back about $15.

We go to the night market.  I get some delicious massaman curry, a skewer of grilled prawns, and a mixed fruit shake.  Delicious, and I don't think all of it cost more than $4.  Have I mentioned how much I love night markets?!?  Afterwards, we're all ready for a drink, and the music is pumping at the three bar huts next to the market.    Each one of them has a stripper pole, and each is (wo)manned by a young girl in a bikini calling us to them.

I really, really, hate the seedy aspect of Thailand.  I'm not a big supporter of prostitution in general, but the idea that people travel to Thailand JUST to sleep with Thai women, for cheap, is really disturbing to me.  Every time I see an over-tanned, tribally-inked, 30 or 40 year old bald stocky white guy with an Asian woman, I'm pretty sure she's paid for.  There are so many of these guys.  I know lots of other types are paying for it, too, but MAN these white guys stick out like a sore thumb.

I didn't want to support any of this in any way, but the music was good, and all the other bars were dead, and, well, it's Thailand.  This place had a nice whiskey menu, and I do like whiskey, so I get a Johnny walker red with coke, Lisa gets a mojito, and Timeka gets a Mai Tai, each a splurge at $5 each.  

My drink is fine.  The mojito is brown for some reason, and so sweet Lisa can't get 1/4 way in.  Timeka's drink tastes like kool aid made with twice the recommended ratio of powder to water, something like a punch you might have made with grain alcohol in college, if you didn't know any better.  At least it was served in a nudie-girl shaped glass which entertained us for a few minutes.  There was some white girl who got on the pole for so long that it seemed to really annoy the guy she was with.  She was really feeling herself.  I wanted to tell her to get off that damned pole, but I found some restraint.  Maybe it was the whiskey.

We've got the traveling thing down pretty well, but haven't had too much luck in the partying department.  My one drink gave me an enormous headache the next day.  It was definitely NOT Johnnie Walker.  Someone we met later on told me that whatever the Thais call whiskey at a bar is actually rum.  

There is no sun today.  I am really pale of having spent about 3 weeks in and out of beaches.  Whatever happens, I think we picked the right place to be.