The story finally continues - Samui, Full Moon Party and Koh Tao!

So I arrive in Samui airport a bit dazed and tired after the short flight and a busy day but keen to get in touch with Burley and the others to meet up with people from back home.  It was strange as I’ve not actually seen Burley for years but had seen Baz recently through other people.  Got in touch by text message and found out they had landed but they weren’t too sure where they were or where they were staying, Burley seemed to think because I had been travelling for a while I knew Samui which made things a bit harder to find them.

I managed to get a taxi from the airport up to Chaweng Beach, the area of the island I was staying in and arrived at the Embassy Hostel there.  It’s a small place with a café downstairs and then rooms upstairs.  Nice enough though with a couple of sofas to laze about on during the day and free wifi – perfect! I had booked my accommodation there months in advance and it turned out to be one of the most expensive places I stayed – that’s what you get when you book from home and don’t really know what the deals are in Thailand. It was fine though, more than I needed as I had a double bed with an extra sofa bed and a private bathroom with supposedly hot water but a shower that didn’t work for 3 nights with only cold water L Thankfully Samui was boiling so it wasn’t the end of the world.  Oh – I forgot to mention the really crappy air con that didn’t work properly either. 

I did a quick freshen up and headed out to meet Burley and the boys which was interesting as again, they were talking to me about the bar they were in as if I had any ideas of anything in the main town!  More by luck than judgment I managed to find them!  After 3 months on the road it was nice to see some familiar faces (obviously Lou and Yazz count but this was good too!). 

So what to tell you about the evening!  Well – one beer led to another which led to another which led to them dragging me into a strip bar! Not sure they want me to publicise this on the net – but it was an experience for me that I hadn’t planned on doing – or doing again!  They have about 15 or 20 girls up on this stage in their underwear grinding away to music and the stage has seats all around it which of course the boys wanted to sit at to be close to all the action.  Well I’ll leave it as an interesting experience in which one of the boys (not naming any names) got a bit to close to one of the girls and then decided to use me as his excuse not to go any further with her and said I was his girlfriend!  We only stayed for one drink and then ended up in some others bars and out till about 4am I think on a bar on the beach. 

The next day of course I was pretty wiped out and ended up doing a similar thing the following night with the boys.  The day after was New Years Eve – Nikki Burley and Karl were flying out as well so I went down to the guys very posh 5* hotel to meet up with them.  We organized boat tickets to get over to Koh Phanghan and the aim was to leave about 3pm as had heard horror stories about people leaving it till later on like 7pm and not even getting to the Island until after midnight – if they got there at all. 

Well we didn’t quite make it for 3pm as there was lots of toing and froing getting ready but we did end up over on the Island for about 5pm I think.  It was definitely the right idea to go earlier as we didn’t have too much trouble getting on the boat.  It was a bumpy and slightly scary ride though as soon after leaving the port they seemed to be having trouble with one of the engines and had to keep turning everything back off and then on again and then they seemed to sort it by having one of the crew sat at the back of the boat doing whatever was needed to the engines to keep it going!  Once they got it going though it was a bumpy ride and I was thankful I was sitting down!!!

The plan was to meet up with Leanne and some other peeps from home who were staying on the island itself.  First we went off to get some food (to be nice and sensible of course J ) however managed to choose the worst restaurant ever as the food took forever to come out.  Nik managed to spend the time though painting a lovely mural on Burleys back.  Unfortunately there are no pics from me for NYE as I didn’t want to take my camera in case it got stolen so you’ll just have to imagine it. 

We got down to the beach about 7pm and got us some buckets to drink to get the party going and it ended up being a great night, meeting random strangers to join our group and making our way down the beach.  Different bars in different sections playing music and then eventually we get down to the end of the beach and end up meeting up with Leanne etc which was great!   We ended up down at a bar playing techno music for midnight which was heaving and had this huge scaffolding structure with New Years Eve 2010 written on it – but in flames!  Very cool!!

Midnight came and loads of fireworks went off and carried on going off which was great until the first one went off funny and fired right into the crowd – apparently it landed really close to us but I didn’t notice.  I have to say I even managed to get a midnight snog off a random kiwi guy on the beach – but when everyone I was with left, I left him there J

We all ended up splitting up into different groups and I stayed with the girls and ended up having a bit more of a chilled end to the night sitting and chatting on the beach and having some meat on a stick and then as they were staying on the island I was planning on heading off to find the boat back as the boys had disappeared.  I followed the girls up off the beach to head towards the road/town thinking I would find somewhere but we managed to find the only dirt track uphill road which led to nowhere except a pickup truck with a thai family inside.

Somehow – one of the girls went up to them and managed to persuade them to give us a lift back to the girls resort –which we were happy to give them some money for.  Anyway – the 4 of us piled into the back of the pick up – and I do mean the back, you know where you put all the luggage and stuff like that.  Sat down and hung on for dear life.  It seems like this was a family who had also been to the party and were dropping various members off home on the way as we kept making stops and people kept piling out of the cab in the front.  Eventually we got back to the girls resort about 3am after an hour of driving in the countryside and by that time I had given up getting back to Koh Samui.  The girls were great though and piled the 3 of them into the big bed and let me sleep on the single in there. 

Next morning started my mission to get home which luckily enough their hotel helped me out with by sorting me a taxi to the port and a boat ticket.  A very funny ride in hindsight as the boat were full of people covered in neon paint and looking very sorry for themselves.  I made it back to the hostel and needless to say collapsed and relaxed. 

The next day Aoife and Amanda who I met in Laos were due to arrive in Samui after being on Phanghan for 10 days but didn’t end up meeting up with for NYE.  They didn’t have any accommodation but having sat in the lounge area on new years day and seeing about 20 people looking for accommodation and being turned away – I knew there wasn’t really anything available.  I told them to come down to me as I had a place that was plenty big enough for the 3 of us which they gladly did. 

The girls only had the visa you get on arrival and both of them needed to extend it so the next day we decided to take a taxi to the immigration office on the other side of the island – a complete waste of time as the bloody thing was closed it being a Saturday and which the taxi driver well and truly knew – so another time of being ripped off!  Anyway we made him take us back to the resort and then told him we were only giving him a bit of money as he knew the office was closed (there was a guy in a shop next door to immigration who told us this was a regular scam they pull).  Oh and I can't resist this photo of Amanda in the back of the cab fast asleep!

  The next few nights in Samui were fairly quiet as I had managed to get some kind of bite on my leg just before new years that hadn’t cleared up and seemed to be infected so I was on anti-biotics – a very good enforced and well needed detox!  It was good to be with the girls though and have some company.   It was fortunate as well though that we weren’t up for much as I experienced my first bit of Thai rain storms.  It wasn’t too bad and wasn’t constant but definitely meant we couldn’t sunbathe.

Both Aoife and I wanted to go to Koh Tao to try diving so the plan was to head there after a couple of days with Amanda. 

Off to the ferry we went expecting it to take about 3 hours to reach there but of course it took more like 4 and a half!  We hadn’t booked any accommodation before we reached there thinking we would find something when we arrived.  Of course that wasn’t the best plan as it was still so busy from New Years Eve everywhere and people moving on from the other places they had been.  We got off the boat and were bombarded with touts offering us places to stay which we decided to ignore and got in the back of a pick up truck to take us down to Sairee Beach, the area which has the most nightlife (of course!).  Our cunning plan was to leave Amanda in a café with all our bags whilst Aiofe and I hiked it up and down the beach looking for somewhere to stay.  We didn’t arrive on the Island till about 5pm and the sun sets by about 6.30pm so after an hour of asking around everywhere we were on the verge of giving up but then tried a travel agency place who said that there was maybe some rooms in a place in the main town.  It wasn’t cheap and not in the area we wanted but figured that it was better than not having anywhere to sleep that night.  Off we trotted and even went against the golden rule of paying before having seen the rooms figuring we had no choice.  Well it wasn’t the worst place we could have ended up staying – but it sure wasn’t the best.  We walked up stairs and got the shock of our life when you turn the corner and the building is half finished!!  I’m not joking – one end of the building had these glass doors in with a balcony and the other end was just open – no wall no nothing.  Then next to that was a room that was also half finished – a floor but no walls on 2 sides.  It was freaky!

Both of the rooms in there were petty basic with only a fan but had hot water and kind of comfy beds.  We booked it for 2 nights to give us a chance to find somewhere better to stay on the beach which was needed as there wasn’t much else around.  Anyway – we had to get a taxi from there down to the nightlife on Sairee Beach – its only a 5 minute drive – the way they drive ha ha ha!  So we asked the people downstairs to call us a taxi and this guy appears from nowhere and takes us down there.  Unlike everyone else on the Island he has a proper songthaew thing where you have proper benches in the back and a roof.  He also charged as a reasonable amount as on Koh Tao they have a taxi mafia and won’t take you anywhere for less than 100 baht a person which is a rip off.  The main reason is scooters are so cheap to hire so it has to be worth their while.

We managed to get him bartered down to 200 for the 3 of us so I decided to ask him if we could have his number and call him when we need to get back up to the hotel – he said no problem and I asked until what time I could call – he said any time!  Unfortunately I don’t think him or his girlfriend/wife were bargaining on us calling at 4am – although it might have been later – whoops!!!

Actually I think that night was fairly quiet and we went out for a few but I was still on my antibiotics.  So Koh Tao is definitely my favourite Island I have been to so far in Thailand.  Its small and friendly and apart from the taxi mafia, the locals are great.  On our second day there we took to the beach again to ask around for rooms and ended up just booking a place in the first place we went to which is where we had dinner the night before.  Wind Beach.  The staff in there were really friendly, the food was good (apart from Rudy who forgot my order) and it had a really nice vibe about it even though we couldn’t see the room first!!  Oh and they had free wifi – always a good plus for me!

They had a triple room as well which was perfect but only a cold water shower – ergh!

So we made it down to Wind Beach to move in and had a fantastic time on the island living by night and seeing a few hours of daylight each day J  There are some great bars there – Fizz a good chillout place with these huge beanbag chairs and fab cocktails, then Lotus bar who have about 5 or 6 guys doing fire shows on the beach each night which also includes fire rope jumping! (film to follow on facebook eventually!).  Lotus is basically the place to go until about 2am when you walk up the beach to Cave bar, which isn’t really a cave, but a building built to resemble a cave inside, and that tends to keep going till about sunrise. 

The first couple of days my leg hadn’t gotten better so I didn’t want to go in the sea or diving with it and then by that time we were too late to book a diving course so all 3 of us decided to turn it into a bit of a party week!  Needless to say great fun was had by all J

Next stop – bye bye Amanda – hello Krabi and Koh Phi Phi!