Exploring Samui

We rented a car while on Samui which gave us a nice dry ride in on Songkran and also gave us the freedom to explore the island at our leisure. Z still had his International Driver's License so all driving responsibility was his. I don't think even if I could have driven would have wanted to. First off you drive on the opposite side of the road and well driving is a little crazy as scooters will pass on the right or left of you and cars pass on the right and sometimes oncoming traffic needs to move a little left to make room. Too stressful in my opinion.

We had a good chuckle every day when we looked at the weather forecast. Everyday the report would say a thunder shower or two. The weather was great, it was sunny with the occasional cloud cover which actually provided much needed reprieve from the hot sun. The temperature with humidity was in the high 40's C. If you were not careful you could get sun burnt before you could recite the alphabet. Our air conditioner in our bungalow was set at 23C.

We chose to explore different areas of the island on different days. To the south of our resort is Lamai which we read has a Sunday night market. The market spanned many blocks and offered a large variety of items for sale including a lot of "brand-named" items. An entire section was dedicated to food and drink. Lamai also has a Tesco which is a big super store similar to a Walmart where you can buy household items, clothes, groceries, etc. Also in the Tesco Z discovered a DQ which helped satisfy his mango blizzard craving. :)

We made our way to Namuang Waterfall 2 which required us to hike about 25 minutes through jungle before getting to the waterfall which has a 80 meter drop and is the largest on Samui. After the waterfall we stopped in at the Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom. This park provides an imitation natural habitat for the butterflies in their enclosed beautifully landscaped gardens. The park also houses some not so beautiful insects such as scorpions, millipedes, a tarantula, and bees. I wasn't too keen on these creatures.

Being on an island means lots of beaches. We had a wonderful sunset beach dinner at I-Talay restaurant in Taling Ngam, known as the virgin coast. We also explored an area on the north side called Mae Nam. This area isn't yet as popular as others so the beautiful beach was practically deserted. We spent a lovely morning here after having rented a couple beach chairs and wasted the time away reading, swimming and listening to the surf. The water here gets deeper faster and the sea floor is a lovely fine sand making it all the more enjoyable bobbing up and down.

Next to Mae Nam is Bo Phut. It is in Bo Phut where you'll find Wat Phra Yai and the big Buddha. I'll post a picture in a picture blog, but this Buddha is massive!

The biggest and most busy beach and town is Chaweng. The beach here is very long and the sand quite nice. The beach was much busier than we had experienced at our other beach visits. The main street in the town is lined with shops and restaurants. I found the hustle and bustle of the town a little much and preferred the quieter, less busy areas of Samui. We did have a lovely dinner here though.

Koh Samui is a beautiful island filled with lots of gorgeous beaches, tropical jungle, and extremely friendly and hospitable people. Everyone we encountered was friendly and smiling. I guess when you live on a tropical paradise such as this it would be relatively easy to always be smiling.

All in all I'd have to say that the beach by our resort was my most favourite place to be. It was so tranquil and relaxing and being there with Z made it all that much better.



Our sunset dinner in Taling Ngam