Ko Samui

Posted by Danae

Our final day in Ko Tao unfortunately; I was really enjoying my time on this island - there's so much more to do than just go diving. Chris got up mega early for his scuba diving 7 o'clock trip to the pinnacles, of course in the process waking me up and I couldn't get back to sleep. I wasn't due to meet Heidi until 9.30am for brekky, but as it turned out my watch had stopped during the night and there were no clocks in the room, so I ended up getting up and eventually going for a wander down to the beach with my book to the pass the time. When we met at the AC Restaurant No 2, we had to wait a ridiculous amount of time for our breakfast of cereal and fruit (Heidi) and scrambled eggs (moi), nearly an hour, despite us being the only people there. Luckily the eggs were worth it. It was strange because everywhere we'd been, including this restaurant, so far had had impressively quick service even when there were loads of people there.

Our morning wasn't particularly remarkable: we had a last wander down the streets of Ko Tao, enjoyed a cocktail (or three) at another beachside restaurant, surfed the internet and then met the boys post their diving courses, proudly sporting their SSI certificates (and fortunately no lasting ear damage).

Chris' day had consisted of going to 7eleven and after much effort (due to language problems between him and the staff) bought a nasal decongestant. This unblocked his ears and made his diving day a lot easier. The trip to the pinnacles was about 45 minutes. During the briefing from their instructor, Lorenzo, Chris and Ryan learnt the sign language for "big fucking shark" which was pretty amusing. Next stop was the twin peaks, where Lorenzo and the class did their best to avoid the fish that had been swimming into their ears the day before. They did some compass things, and then went for a bit of a paddle and swam through a hole created through two rocks leaning together. They arrived back around midday and did their tests, which of course they passed with flying colours.

We had a quick bite of lunch and then caught the catamaran (the best and quickest boat we had been on) in airconditioned comfort over to Ko Samui. There was a French movie showing with Thai subtitles which seemed to involve lots of men shooting at each other, beating each other up, etc. and not much else. At Ko Samui pier, we got a free minibus to the Buri Rasa Hotel at Chaweng Beach. This was a pretty impressive hotel, right up there with Naithonburi in terms of the luxury factor. I was very pleased with our room, which faced out onto a beautiful courtyard which included a dip pool and fountain. I would like one of those in my dream house thanks! Unfortunately Chris and I felt like we had wasted 50 bux upgrading to the nice room, as Ryan and Heidi were upgraded to the same style of room for free - understandably they were very pleased though. I particularly liked it how you were given a bowl of fruit (in a half coconut shell) and a little tapioca pudding snack on arrival, and you could burn incense to make the place smell really nice.

I didn't waste any time in getting my togs on and going into the impressive horizon pool which looked out on the beach, and was expertly designed with little seats to sit on and jacuzzis for your back - ohhh yeah. Then back to Ryan and Heidi's dip pool for a quick refresher and a couple of vodkas (Ryan of course had a Chang tallie - Chris was trying to get in the in-room wireless internet working so he could do some blogwork).

Chris and I decided to go out for a romantic dinner by ourselves, so we left the others and walked a fair distance down the beach before stopping in for a cocktail / Chang at a beachside restaurant. The food didn't excite us much and the prices were significantly more than what we'd been paying, so we walked up to the main street to find an Italian restaurant. We dined at La Taverna, obviously owned by an Italian ex-pat but serviced well by several Thai waitresses who were very attentive and even spoke Italian to us. It was pretty cool to say 'Grazie' and have them respond 'Prego'. I thoroughly enjoyed our thin-based pizza, huge glasses of delicious Italian wine (finally, some decent wine!) and then the dessert of chocolate mousse and panna cotta. There was a huge table of girls and one bloke who were singing raucously what sounded like university anthem songs very enthusiastically. It turned out they were nurses from Iceland, and the bloke was from somewhere else and was trying to pick one of them up (unsuccessfully it would seem, given that they went in separate directions at the end of the night) and they were very apologetic for their noise and if they were ruining our romantic dinner - we didn't mind at all, it was highly amusing.

On the street (as had been the case with the beach) there were hawkers touting their wares, smooth-looking tailors trying to shake your hand and people with snakes/monkeys/large birds trying to get you to take your picture with said animal/reptile (for a price of course) what seemed like every 5 metres. We headed back for a blissful nights sleep in our lavish room at Buri Rasa. I really didn't want to leave Ko Samui or the hotel - I could have easily spent a couple of weeks there, but for the cost which was definitely more touristy than other places we had been.