Exploring Koh Samui

Todays plan was to rent a car and go exploring other parts of the Island. The car rental place is just 200m along from the cottage which is handy. By 9am we have the car and set off in a clockwise direction to avoid having to cross the busy main road. The traffic is flowing quite slowly this morning which is good. There are so many moving parts to watch out for on these roads. I swear they have no traffic rules here. 

Our first stop is the Big Buddha which is at the top of a hill on a small island just off the coastal road. They have built a road bridge permanently out to the island. Initially we miss the turn and have to double back. That won't be the last time that happens today. There's good parking nearby which in this busy place is helpful. A short walk and a few steps and we ascend up to the Buddha. The view is pretty good back towards Bophut beach where we have come from. 

Next stop is Cheong Mon beach. It's a small idyllic looking beach at a smaller village. We had seen a few clips of it on YouTube so thought it was worth checking out. The main issue with most of the beaches here is accessing them via hotel resorts and not being able to see the beach from the main road. Most have hard to find or no easy public access. This one isn't too bad and we find a way down to it via a resort driveway which ends at a car park that you have to pay to use. No problem for us as we have walked from a free nearby parking spot. The beach is beautiful and has many beachfront resorts with lounging chairs and cafes overlooking the sand. It's too early in the day for us to stop for a swim so after a few photos we continue on our way.

There is a lookout pull in place at the top of a hill and we get lucky with a park right beside it so check it out. It's a nice view and you can walk down the hill to the rocks at the bottom. There are a few people fishing off the rocks. Jeepers is already blimin hot. Let's get back into the air-conditioning.

We drove through a popular holiday destination called Chaweng Beach next. It was very hustle and bustle with skinny little streets and older looking buildings. A very large and spread out town centre. Not very attractive and we are glad we didn't choose to stay there.

There is another view point which we fail to figure out how to access and parking near it looks a pain so we continue past it. I forgot to mention that the car rental was 1,200 Bhat, about $63 and the car is a brand new Toyota Yaris with only 2,605 km on the clock. It's just our luck that when leaving the Big Buddha I see an orange warning light flashing on the dash. An "A" with a bit of a circle around it and the word OFF. No idea what it means and we have no internet to find out. If in doubt turn up the stereo - right? Well hopefully it doesn't come to that. There are no loud noises yet. I also forgot to mention, many of you will know, today is my birthday. Driving a car around a foreign island in busy traffic may not have been the most relaxing thing I could have chosen to do today but that's what we are doing.

Our next stop is a place called Silver Beach which again we had seen on YouTube and it looked nice. I fully expected this stop to be a failure due to lack of parking but we got lucky again with a park almost right outside the silver beach resort. It did say "restaurant guests only" but we won't be more than a few minutes, honest! The beach is very nice and was a place we considered staying but decided against it due to there being very few walkable places to eat or visit nearby. Turns out this was correct. 

Lamai Beach was the next port of call which like Chaweng had skinny little streets some of which are one way only. We don't intend to stop for long but would like to see the beach. A little side alley runs down to a beach access point. Fortunately I have the common sense to stop before going too far. The alley gets super skinny and turning would be impossible, backing out would be the only option. There are lots of scooters parked alongside the alley that I could run into too. Let's not do that. We see a single park by a hotel entrance and pull in there. A man soon appears from the hotel and Sarah's asks nicely if we can park there for 5 minutes to go see the beach. All good as far as we can tell so we leave the car and walk down the alley to the sand. This beach is very long and it has waves and looks much deeper than others were have seen. The Lamai area is another popular tourist spot on the island with many hotels to choose from. 

Is it just my imagination or is the car not changing gears on the hills very well? Hmmm. And does it feel a bit under powered even for a Yaris? Hmmm. Turn up the stereo! 

Especially given that the next place Sarah had on the island tour list is a rock overhang viewpoint up the side of a mountain. Well a significant hill at least, and a very steep street. I mean very steep! At one point I thought the car had stopped we were moving so slow. But we made it to the small parking area and got the only park available. But then we see a sign saying 200 Bhat each. Sarah thought it was only supposed to be 60. Buggered if I'm going to pay $10 to look at some rocks. That's not true. I would pay that much if the rocks and view looked spectacular but from what I've seen this wasn't going to be worth it. Plus I was already stressed out from driving up the hill in a car that is not filling me with great confidence. There may have even been some swear words on the way too. Or did the swearing come later? I can't remember exactly. Sarah will know. Either way we got in the car and went back down the hill.

The next planned stop was a waterfall. A 1km drive up a very narrow side road into the hills. We missed the turn into the side road as it didn't even look like a road. I think at that point I had had enough. Too much traffic, crap roads, and a hot day was taking it's toll. A minor tantrum erupted from me suggesting I would never recommend anyone come to this island as it's too full of tourists and far too busy to be enjoyable. In hindsight we should have known this wasn't our kind of place. But until you come you just don't know. 

We were now on the far side of the island and I had had more than enough of island life! I'm sure Sarah had had enough of trying to navigate to these difficult to access places and she had heard enough complaints from me. How do we rescue this day? I suggested we go all the way back to Cheong Mon beach for a swim and a beer. It looked nice there. Plus beer fixes a lot of things. So that's what we did. 

It wasn't a 5 minute drive either, more like 45 minutes. There may have been some navigation issues on the way here but I'm not going to mention those. Let's just say you should not blindly trust Maps.me turn by turn directions anymore than Google's. We used the same parking and access point beside the resort as last time. We placed our bag and towels on a beach lounger that was near the waters edge intending to have a swim. There were 8 loungers with no one sitting on them. The ones further back under umbrellas had people sitting there. Within seconds there was a little Thai man telling us it would be 250 Bhat ($13) to rent each chair. A better chair than this had only cost us 20 Bhat in Prachuap! He got a polite "no thanks mate" and we moved 30m down the beach into the shade and lay our towels on the sand. FYI we weren't the only ones to do this. 

We enjoyed a lovely swim. We enjoyed a lovely walk along the beach to the far end. We enjoyed a lovely Pad Thai and cold Chang beer at an on the beach style Cafe. All for only 350 Bhat. Life was good again! Food and beer to the rescue! 

The car got refueled and dropped back at around 3.30pm and we retreated back into our cosy White Cottage. I think we are likely to stay close to the cottage the next couple of days. It's just too hectic out there for us! 😃

The nice late lunch we had meant we weren't very hungry come dinner time. So rather than go out we simply enjoyed some fresh watermelon and mango. Yum. There's a possibility we pop out for a birthday ice cream from the 7 Eleven later. 

Edit. We did head out to the 7 Eleven but only got as far as the family restaurant at the end of the driveway. We asked if he had mango sticky rice which we haven't yet tried and apparently it's something we should have while in Thailand. We added a pineapple smoothie to the order as well. The smoothie is delicious and the mango sticky rice is unusual but tasty. The closest thing to it would be rice pudding but with less liquid and more of a sweet sauce on the rice.