May 22nd, 2006 - Ko Samui

We finally arrived in Ko Samui and our accomodation was a little less than desirable however, Lanai beach left nothing to be desired - miles of golden sand, tons of bars, restaurants, shops and even a Thai boxing ring! What was special about Lanai is that although tourism in Thailand is booming, Lanai has its spoiled bling, bling tourist section but there are remnants of the relaxed beach culture off the beaten track. The next two nights we found a bungalow on the beach with a direct view of the Ocean. yeah, so it had a fan rather than A/C and was in desperate need of a paint job, I could have stayed alot longer in our humble abode. The weather wasn't overly cooperative, but with our little bungalow beach side we could sit out and watch the storms roll in and out. The evenings we spent mainly walking down the beach and into town, grabbing a bite at the street vendors and browsing the shops a little. Saturday night we decided to go out and hit the bar scene, after happy hour on some rock outcroppings outside of our accomodation, we headed into town and joined the ladies at the King Kong bar. It seems we chose a good night for two reasons - 1. It was Thai Box night and there was a free Thai boxing tournament on between the several outdoor bars set up around the square and 2 - halfway through the night, we discovered that our tax return had come through as anticipated and couldn't have arrived at a better time. We were pretty early and to kill the time while we waited for fight time, we played connect four and jenga - our bar tender was amazing (you can tell she's used to entertaining clinets this way!). After some well desreved beach days and not venturing to explore any more of Ko Samui then the lovely beach that we settled on, we caught a ferry to Ko Toa - a famous diving Mecca.