Ko Samui, Thailand

Today was overcast and a bit rainy, so we slept in, reading and listening to music. in the latter part of the morning we went to the complex’s gym which is located at the top of the building. The gym is small but very functional. It has a rowing machine, treadmill, exercise bike, stepper, weights, bench press, etc. The view here though is the winner, one can see all around the Buphut area including the wonderful Bophut beach area.

After a great workout we showered and went down to the Fisherman’s Village for a cocktail. Each bar, and there are many, has a happy hour every day, normally between 17:00 and 20:00. Some though take it a step further with theirs starting at 13:00 and ending at 22:00 ! Anyway, we found a nice quiet restaurant/bar with very friendly staff which served us a mean Mai Tai and Pina Colada. The staff informed us of the Fisherman’s Friday evening market, so we penciled that it for Friday.

During cocktails we decided that it was time to try our hand at Thai cooking and decided on a Thai green chicken curry. We went shopping at the Big C supermarket for the right ingredients, the most important of course being the Thai green curry paste. This we found, also some chicken fillets, green beans, basil, carrots, chillies, and of course coconut cream, which generally here comes in one litre cartons, unlike the variety we get at home tht comes in tins. While Adri was collecting the ingredients, I accidentally wandered off in another direction and somehow found myself right in front of the beer section. Lo and behold, there it was, my most favourite beer of all time, Hoegaarden ! Hoegaarden is a Belgian, hazy white wheat beer, 50% malt, 50% wheat, that is incomparable, and currently we don’t get it back home. I met with a Hoegaarden on my first trip to Brussels, and I was a convert. Placed a few of these into the trolley for consumption at my earliest convenience.

Anyway, the Thai green curry turned out great, better than most that I have tasted in restaurants here. And of course, some Hoegaardens were consumed.

Ko Samui, Thailand

After our shopping spree at Tesco Lotus yesterday, we were stocked up and we stayed in for a full-on English breakfast of eggs, bacon, ham, cheddar cheese, toast, yogurt, juice, watermelon, pineapple, et el. Magnificent.

I’ve been sussing out the flat screen TV in the apartment, mounted to the wall, and simply could not find the HDMI plug. This I needed in order to plug in my Mede8er media player, which connects to the hard disk that contains my entire DVD and CD collection, which a cannot survive without. I called in the maintenance guy and without batting an eye, he promptly lifted the TV from its wall bracket, revealing the HDMI plug at the back of the TV. I plugged it in and the maintenance guy would not leave until I got everything working. The service here is really great ! I was thrilled to be listening to my own music collection and being able to watch all those DVDs that I never get a chance to watch at home.

After this episode we were off to the beach, this time to Coral Cove which lies just below the Chaweng beach area, on the eastern side of the island. Coral Cove is a really pretty beach with huge boulders on either side of the cove. The sand is white but not too fine, a bit gravelly but wonderful. There is of course also a beach pub come restaurant which serves ice cold Chang beers, which we promptly ordered. We also paged through the menu and decided that we simply have to come back here sometime for a lunch/supper, the food looks delicious. We spent a relaxing few hours here in the sun after which we headed back home. On the way back we stopped off at Tesco Lotus again for a few more items which we forgot yesterday. We also stopped off at the Bophut fresh produce market where we bought some more fresh veggies and fruit.

Got home, went for swim in the complex’s pool, which was very refreshing, more time will be spent here. We stayed in, made a scrumptious pasta dish that went down well with the Italian Rosso that we purchased the day before. Ended the evening by watching a DVD, falling asleep halfway through though. This could be put down to either spending too much time in the sun, or the Rosso.

Ko Samui, Thailand

Tuesday arrived, we slept in, still recovering from the travel ling. While ambling around Fisherman’s Village the previous evening, which is a very agreeable experience, we made a mental note of our possible breakfast venue for the morning. Hence we were back in the village and had a sumptuous English breakfast at the Karma Sutra restaurant, which is, oddly enough, located on both sides of the street.

Fueled up and ready to go, we stopped off at the local Tesco Lotus shopping centre, a large supermarket, to stock up on some basic foodstuffs. Got most of what we were looking for, i.e. breakfast stuff, pasta dish stuff…and of course beer, of which you get two sizes in Thailand, the normal 330ml and the big 640ml. Anyway, a funny thing happened to me on my way from the beer aisle. A lady store attendant approached me and told me to buy more booze… Huh ? I had already stocked up with eight big beers made up of a variety of Chang, Heineken and Carlsberg. Also one litre of gin somehow made its way into the trolley and I was busy selecting a bottle of wine when I was approached. Now I’m not one to shy away from a good trolley load of booze, but this was unprecedented. “Not enough”, she’d say with me replying that “it is enough… for today at least”. This carried on until she pointed to the sign on one of the
racks which says that if you happen to purchase liquor from a/this store between 14:00 and 17:00, you have to purchase more than 10 litres of alcohol… I like this place already ! I thus concluded my booze stock with a two litre bottle of Italian Rosso wine and threw in another couple of big beers for good measure.

Later the afternoon we went back to Fisherman’s Village, down to the beach, and lay in the late afternoon sun, catching our first Thai sun-rays, and also had a quick swim, our first of the holiday… come to think of it, the first of he year.

Still later we stopped off at a lady with a mobile banana pancake stand. Wonderful to watch her make these delicacies. She first takes a pre-prepared ball of dough, then rolls it out on a flat surface, pulls a couple of pizza moves, swinging the dough around until it is thin enough, after which she places it on the warm frying pan with a bit of oil. Then she takes the banana, deftly strips off three quarters of the skin lengthwise, using the remaining quarter as protection while dicing the banana into slices, which ends up right on top of the open pancake. We opted for the banana caramel, so she took the caramel bottle, drenched the banana with that after which she proceeded to fold the pancake over, to end up with a square of about 15 by 15 centimetres, with all the goodies inside. This is placed on a paper plate, a mini cleaver is then used to cut the pancake into little bite size squares after which condensed milk is drizzled over it. A toothpick, to eat this with, is then stuck into the pancake after which it is presented to you. Delicious !

This treat got the taste buds buzzing and we soon found ourselves at the Ali Baba Indian restaurant where we ordered a Tandoori chicken, a dish for two, which was simply divine. Seeing the Ali Baba sign, it reminded me of a trip I took to the Greek island of Rhodes, back in the 1990’s. We took a day trip from there to Turkey (Marmaris) and the tour guide on the bus introduced himself jovially with “I am Ali Baba, I know there are many who claim to be Ali Baba, but I am the original Ali Baba” !

Bangkok, Thailand

At about 04:45, after a restless early morning, trying to get some sleep on hard airport benches, we made our way to the check-in counters of Bangkok Airways. The plane left Bangkok at 06:00 with us on board and arrived promptly at 07:02 in Koh Samui. I booked a car for the month from Thai Rent a Car, so after we picked up our luggage we proceeded to the Thai Rent a Car counter, went through the formalities and soon enough we were heading for our accommodation at Arisara Place in our white Nissan March. I had a good idea as to where Arisara Place was located, i.e. in the Bophut area, near Fisherman’s Village, which we were familiar with as we spent some time here three years ago. After being on the “road” for 36 hours, one does not feel so bright and bushy tailed as one should, and thus we drove around the Bophut area for a good 30 minutes before finally finding our accommodation. It was still early at around 08:15 so no-one was there to meet us at check-in, only the cleaner that happened to pass by. She could not speak English but went up to the clock in the office and pointed to the 9 and the 10, which we interpreted as “someone will be at reception between 9 and 10”. Just at that moment the early morning coffee craving kicked in and we went to the Big C Shopping Centre which we spotted in our earlier wanderings that morning trying to find our accommodation. We found a cuppa made in heaven, really strong, really tasty, really good, at the Simply Delicious Deli which stocks Blue Cup Coffee. We will certainly go back there. We presented ourselves at Arisara Place at around 10:00 and was welcomed by Yui, pronounced Huey. I immediately thought of Huey, Dewey and Louie the triplets of Donald and Daisy Duck fame, the only way I would remember her name. We were so very tired and after check-in we went for a shower and simply fell onto the bed and slept… and slept. We finally woke up at around 19:30, yes, 19:30, and went for supper in Fisherman’s Village, in the same restaurant we ate at three years previously. We had thai green curry, roast vegetables with chicken, Chang beers and Sprite, which ended up as a Chang beer and a Chang shandy. Surprisingly, after a full day of sleep, sleep again came easy.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Sunday, and for that matter, Monday, were spent on airplanes and airports, not my favorite pastime, but it has to be endured to get to the fun part. Arrived in Dubai at 08:20 and spent time in the business lounge until around 14:00, boarded again at around 14:30, bound for Bangkok. Scheduled arrival time in Bangkok was 00:20, with departure to Koh Samui scheduled for 06:00, quite a long layover, but not an issue if time can be spent in the business lounge. But, this was not to be as the domestic flights in Thailand only start operating from 06H00 and one can only check in from around 05:00. With the lounges being air-side, we missed out on a few hours of decent rest and recuperation in an amenable atmosphere. We started killing time in the early hours of Monday morning by ordering a cappuccino, which was pretty bad and came at an unrelenting price tag. Note to self, ” never buy coffee at Bangkok airport, it is a rip-off”. We struggled through the next few hours, trying to sleep on hard airport benches… not easily attainable. Needless to say, sleep did not come.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Arrived at the airport early to ensure a hassle-free check-in. Apparently it was too early, Emirates only allows check-in to start some three hours before the flight. Once checked-in and through Customs and Immigration, we proceeded to the Diners lounge, presented the Diners card, and waited with bated breath to see whether we would be allowed in. Why is that you would ask ? Well, Diners have changed their rules since beginning 2013 whereby you have to spend a certain amount on your card during the previous quarter in order to qualify for lounge access, unless of course you want to pay the visitor’s fee to enter as a guest. I apparently spent enough money on my card and was granted access. I trust Diner’s will re-look this requirement as the amount to spend is far too high. Also, it states that you have to spend this amount in the quarter that you travel. So if you travel, say, in the fourth quarter starting October, and your travel date is 1 October, you would hardly have had time to spend that ridiculous amount of money. We settled down with a beer, wine, some snacks and a newspaper, readying ourselves for the trip ahead. We were seated across from a couple, with the woman talking loudly, almost as if she wanted everyone to listen to her conversation, i.e. about a previous trip they took and all the places they had seen. Immediately we thought that she’s not really used to much traveling, but let it rest. Soon enough they were quietly joined by their two daughters, with the mother still in fine vocal form. So, great was our surprise as we boarded on our way to our cattle class seats, when we passed them in first class, enjoying their, no doubt, Dom Perignon. So you might think that sometimes looks can be deceiving ? That’s what I thought at that moment until we sat down with the cattle and noticed that the two daughters of the Dom Perignon first class breed were sitting right behind us. What parent would fly first class and let their kids fly cattle ? Not sure what to make of that. The Emirates flight was perfectly comfortable, as always, and we settled down for a relaxing flight, good supper, a movie, and a good rest, i.e. as good a rest as is possible on a long haul flight.