Wander More Work Less

The afternoon drifted by with swimming, lounging, and reading. Plus one game of five crowns. Trip score is now 4 to 1 to me. 😳 That's unheard of normally. Thailand must be good for my card luck.  We walked all the way to the end of the drive for dinner at our usual place. Tonight we had chicken red curry, rice, pork pad Thai, and a large piece of BBQ chicken. Oh and a Chang to wash it down. Total of 380 Bhat or $20. The diet and beer detox will start when we get home, promise. 

We decided to start our day with a morning walk into Fisherman's Village. But before we could leave O and her sister Nee had a surprise for me. A birthday cake complete with candle. O had seen my birth date on my passport. They had gone to bring the cake over to us last night but we were already asleep. They then sang me happy birthday. What a wonderful way to start the day. 🎂 We walked 4.6km, just over an hour, which got us to the far end of the village that we hadn't yet visited. It's so much quieter and more pleasant at 9am in the morning. Hardly any people about over crowding the place. The temperature is already 32 degrees and humidity started at 80%. Our cottage windows had condensation on them this morning!  At the end of our walk we stopped at the same family restaurant, called Osmin, for a smoothie to cool things down. Today it was the Mum serving. Previously we had met the son and his father. The son does almost everything in the evenings together with another ...

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 ...

Mid afternoon we went back to the car hire place that was closed this morning. This time it was open but there was nobody around to talk to. It's bloody hot out so turning and walking the same distance but in completely the other direction to the other car hire place was not done lightly. Phew at least they were on the ball and said they would have a small car available tomorrow morning for us. On the way back to the White Cottage we crossed the road and purchased a watermelon and a mango from a fruit and veggie stall. Very nice for an afternoon snack.  We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing by the pool reading and going into the pool to cool off sightly. Rinse and repeat. The pool is quite warm only marginally cooler than the air but it still helps.  According to Google there is a very nice and inexpensive restaurant right at the end of the driveway heading out of our accommodation. It has great reviews. However, also according to Google it is shutting today at 5pm as it's...

Well no mosquitos infiltrated our tent. In fact we only saw one or two in total in the room so we are happy about that. Another very firm but comfortable bed. A lovely sleep after the long day yesterday.  Sarah has found us a nearby cafe for breakfast but they don't open until 8am. Only 30 minutes to fill in. We both order the pancakes with bacon plus two eggs and maple syrup. I go for the coffee while Sarah had a passionfruit drink that is sweet and delicious. It's a big expensive breakfast at 675 Bhat, $35 crikey, but hey we are on holiday so it's all good. And it was very nice.  While we are out on the main road we decide to head towards the village and check a car rental place. They weren't open yet but we continue on to the beach front where the $640 hotel was last night. It still looks amazing in daylight. Then we take the beach back to our place. It's hard going on the soft sand and it's already very warm. I think it must be more humid here and so far not...

Where we are staying on Koh Samui is a place called Bophut Beach. It's also known as Fishermans Village. I'm guessing 40 years ago it was a quiet fishing village. It is far from that now! It's now tourist central as is the whole Island I suspect.  For dinner we follow O's advice and walk into the village to the night market which is on tonight. It's around a 1km walk. The island has one main road that circles it, a bit like Rarotonga, then the various beach towns have additional roads branching off the main road. This makes the main road crazy busy. They have made it two lanes in each direction to help cope with the volume of traffic. It seems to work. There are nice wide footpaths to walk along which is good.  The night market is in full swing and there's loud music playing and many many food stalls. There are hundreds of people too. Very busy place. We opted for pork sticks which are 50 Bhat each. They are much larger than the ones in Prachuap. We also get so...

Another very long travel day. The bus to the ferry departed at 9am. In case you forgot we left the hotel at 1am! We arrived at the ferry terminal at 10.15am and the ferry was ready to board immediately. The ferry was almost 2 hours and was a very smooth ride. Flat water all the way and quite slow. Barely knew you were moving. We were expecting to take a Songtheaw (Little Red Truck) that you ride in the back of and hail down on the roads here. But the first Songtheaw driver we spoke to outside the ferry terminal could hardly understand us and we couldn't understand him at all. We therefore checked with a shuttle driver and he spoke great English. The shuttle to very close to our accommodation was 150 Bhat per person, about $7.80. I had already checked the Grab option and it was 560 Bhat for the trip so 300 seemed good. We had to wait 30 minutes while he filled up the shuttle with 10 more people.  We arrived at The White Cottage, our accommodation for the next 5 nights, at 1.30pm. P...

The alarm was set for 12.40am! Well mine was. Sarah had misunderstood and set hers for 12.20am robbing me of 20 minutes sleep. As is the case when you know you have to get up for a flight or train it's very hard to get to sleep. I think I nodded off about 8pm having tried since 6pm. Our bags were already packed so all we needed to do was throw on some extra clothes, add bug spray, and then check-out. We have been very vigilant with the mozzie repellent as they are everywhere in this warm climate. We have all the shots for things we can get from water, monkey, or dog bites but there are lots of things you can get from mosquitoes that don't have vaccines. We are expecting to have the whole Prachuap town to ourselves walking to the train station at 1am. How wrong we were. There has been some sort of street festival or concert by the pier and everyone is only now starting to disperse. It makes the walk much safer until we get onto the quieter street to the station and 5 dogs wande...

At 4pm we went back to the same Pad Thai restaurant as we had lunch yesterday. Same dishes but water instead of coke this time. 150 Bhat, less than $8. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the 7 Eleven for bits and pieces for tomorrow. Why are we eating dinner so early I hear you ask? Because our train leaves Prachuap station at 1.45am! Yawn. 🥱 Let's hope the alarms are loud enough. It's not yet 6pm and the bags are being packed and then hopefully sleep comes quickly. 

Right let's get this out of the way first up. The pork from last night! Hmmm. At 2am I thought Sarah might have been right as I didn't feel very well. However, some of it might have been psycological. By 3am I was back to sleep and woke up feeling better but far from perfect. Well enough to have another free breakfast so that was good.  After breakfast we packed our togs and towels and went almost right next door to hire some bikes. Kermit bikes were 50 Bhat and mountain bikes were 100 Bhat. We weren't going far or off road so the Kermit bikes were fine. We headed along the beach from our hotel to the South and then through the entrance gate to the Wing 5 Air Force Base. I expected them to stop us and check out passports but instead they simply waved us through. In the middle of the base there is a beautiful beach called Ao Manao. To get to the beach you cycle through the main base grounds and across the runway! At the beach there are hundreds of beach chairs alongside the ...

The plan for dinner tonight is to go back to the street food market for more sticks. Therefore we decided we could fit in lunch today as well. We had gone searching last night for a Pad Thai place that we had seen on an earlier walk. But we couldn't find it so assumed it was only open for breakfast and lunch. Turns out we had not walked far enough last night. It was open at lunch time today and the sign suggested it is open for dinner too.  I had the chicken Pad Thai and Sarah had the pork. Both were very nice. Sarah couldn't eat all hers so I had to help out. 😉 Two dishes and two cokes were only 160 Bhat. $8.30! That's such good value. I can see us going there again tomorrow.  A small but useful bonus with this hotel is it has a drying rack on the balcony. A good chance to wash a few things in the sink and hang them out. It's the small things that matter when you're flash packing. 😂 Our afternoon was spent reading and we played another game of Five Crowns down in...

After our breakfast this morning we thought it would be a good time to tackle the Monkey Hill. Try and get up there before it gets too hot. The hill is at the end of the waterfront and there is a Buddhist temple at the top called Wat Khao Chong Krajok. To get to the bottom of the steps is a nice warm up flat walk off just over a kilometre. At the bottom across the road there was a tuk tuk man that rented sticks for 10 Bhat. A worthwhile investment to ensure the monkeys stay at arms length. There are 397 steps to the temple at the top plus a few more inside the temple gates. The monkeys certainly make things a bit more stressful. A few are a little aggressive and reluctant to move out of our way. Banging the stick on the concrete encourages them to retreat. There was just one that tried to get close enough to grab Sarah's water bottle. A quick wave of the stick at him was required. Half way up Sarah was pretty puffed and hot. I was walking slow but maybe not quite slow enough and be...

Just before midday we went back down the stinky fish stall street onto the side street looking for postcards. There were none to be found. Obviously not enough tourists or too much internet influence. But it's after 11 so the Chang is fair game this time. Two large cans and a couple of Sprites.  Heading back to the hotel via alternative streets we are keeping an eye out for potential dinner spots as well as a bike hire place. There are two bike hire options on the beach front road. Bikes like Ayutthaya and only 50 Bhat each. That could be a good option for an activity one day while here.  The walk back makes us warm enough to check out the pool up closer. There are four other older people hanging out by it but no-one swimming. The pool is very nice. Much deeper than the other hotels we have visited. Sitting on the lounge chairs watching the waves and reading is a pleasant way to pass the afternoon. Very relaxing.  For dinner we thought we should check if the night market ...

We woke to a very nice early morning view of the sea and nearby islands. We could hear the waves during the night which was nice. The sun was soon rising and looked amazing coming up over the sea. Breakfast was nice, choose your own, with a man cooking eggs various ways for you. Not the extensive choice as Siem Reap but still good. Good coffee from a machine. We also checked out the pool which looks very nice and it has a ladder. What a great idea!  We then headed out for a walk along the sea front and out onto the pier. It was about 25 degrees and there was a nice sea breeze. The street alongside the hotel and sea front was very quiet with hardly any traffic. Two blocks back from the sea we turned along one of the main streets. Lots of street stalls selling veggies and fruit. We went to a supermarket Sarah had found on Google maps. Stocked up on water, snacks, milk, toothpaste, and soap. We were not allowed to buy beer until 11am so had to put the two cans of Chang back. ☹️  ...