Ko Samui, Thailand

We landed in Dubai just past midnight, dragged our weary bodies to the business lounge, and ran for the cappuccino machine. Adri got the correct local time from the lady at the front desk and we proceeded to relax with a few snacks. We planned to have about 30 minutes for duty free shopping and left the lounge at the appropriate time. Bought a couple of things and the next moment I looked at the departures screen only to see that it was “last call” for our flight ! We were still some 10 minutes away from our gate. We got there just in time to board, but it was a pretty close call. Assessing the situation we realized that the girl at the front desk must have given us the incorrect time, somehow. We arrived home at around 11:00, took the Gautrain to Sandton where Lood picked us up and took us home, home sweet home…

Ko Samui, Thailand

We decided to make the most of our last day. Got up early-ish to pack as mush as we could and went for our last drive. Stopped off at Big Buddha for one last shopping item, then it was on to Choeng Mon beach for a last swim. The water was great, the weather was great, it felt as if the holiday was just starting. Jerked back to reality, we notice that is was almost 12:30 and we had to leave our apartment by 14:00 in order to make our flight. We rushed home, showered, packed the last things, handed in our keys, paid the water, electricity and cleaning services for the month, and we were out of there by 14:15. It is said that the airport of Koh Samui is one of the ten most beautiful airports in the world. Take a look at the pictures and you might agree. It is just so low-key, unassuming, lush gardens… After check-in, while waiting for your flight, you can have free snacks, coffee, tea etc., not served only to the upper classes, but to all classes, no distinction made, which seems to resonate well with the rest of Koh Samui life. The flight on Bangkok Air was great and we arrived in Bangkok ready for our flights on to Dubai and home. Were looking forward to a rest in the business lounge so we were hoping to get our check-in done as soon as possible. This was not to be be. The queue at the Emirates counters was moving ever so slowly when it suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Nothing happened for 15 minutes. Then an attendant came by with a signboard with the words “system problem”. Really, Emirates, in this day and age ! Another nothing happened for the next 30 minutes when the queue started moving again. Once through this ordeal, we get to Immigration, again a long queue, but at least moving pretty swiftly. Got to the cubicle and the lady without speaking a word, pointed to the departure card in my passport, stapled in there when we arrived, which should have been filled in. We quickly filled in the cards and handed it back to her, hoping she’d see the sheepish smile we gave her, hoping that that would melt her hardened heart. But no, the first word I heard her utter was “OVERSTAY”, exactly like that. She reached under her counter and I thought I was was about to be confronted with a Baretta or AK-47, or something. Fortunately she was only reaching for the buzzer to buzz the police. The police arrived in about three seconds flat, taking our passports and leading us to their little cubicle. After him completing some forms he says “that will be 2000 baht”, i.e., as we learned later, 500 baht per person per day for an overstay. We were apparently two days over, i.e. we were there for a month, but a 31 day month, not a 30 day month, and one only gets 30 days, you see. Furthermore, the day you arrive and the day you depart count as two days, it does not matter what time of the day you arrived/left. OK, lesson learned, although, is there no leniency, surely they could have seen this was a truly honest mistake and let it be, it is not that we willfully overstayed by weeks. Anyway, I did not have 2000 baht cash on me anymore, so I was told to go to the ATM. I was lead out, though security etc. to the departure hall where I could draw cash from an ATM. Yes, now I realize, I am also just a farang ATM. After all this palaver we had to head straight for our gate and boarded almost immediately. The flight to Dubai was uneventful, watched two recent movies that was really ****, not sure what happened to Robert de Niro, his movies used to be good.

Ko Samui, Thailand

We slept in, gymmed and after breakfast we made a lazy start to the day, this being our last full day on the island. We headed out to the Chaweng Noi area, which I have come to like as well, and went to the lookout point for a couple of photos. We also went to check out apartments in this area that were on our shortlist for this trip. I had concerns that it may be too noisy due to the close proximity to the ring road, and thus reluctantly scratched it off my list. My concerns were now justified as the noise level from the passing traffic is just not acceptable. I must admit though that the sea-views from the apartments are stupendous and the quality of the internal furnishings are just fine. We stopped off in Chaweng for ice cream and went for a last walkabout on Chaweng beach… we will miss this place. We arranged to pick Patrick up for him to show us a place that may be a good rental opportunity, for future reference. Before we left we had a tour of his two bedroom home which is great, prefect size, perfect location. We then headed out to the apartments which are just a bit north of the Big Buddha. There are approximately twelve one/two bedroom apartments built in a U shape, right on the beach. The one bedroom apartments go for 13 000 baht per month, including wifi and water, excluding electricity, a good deal. On the way back we stopped off at the Wat Plai Laem Buddhist temple for a walk-around, see pictures, quite amazing. Patrick also showed us the best way to the airport, noting specifically that arrivals and departures are at two distinct different locations, which could be confusing. Now it was time for our last supper… of our holiday. We decided to spend our last evening in Fisherman’s Village, and found a retaurant called Copacobana which seemed to have great seafood on their menu, which was also on the menu of our taste buds. The setting was great, the service good, the food was good (calamari and french fries for me, barracuda with a lovely sauce for Adri). We finished that off with a cocktail bought from a street vendor. We sat ourselves down with our Mojitos in hand at the little stage at the Bophut pier, just reminiscing about the month just gone by.

Ko Samui, Thailand

After gym and breakfast we were off to Choeng Mon beach again today as the weather was just great. We had such a great time with Patrick the other evening, so we decided to call him for another get together.

Arriving at the Boat Bar in Bang Rak at the appointed time, I ordered a beer, Adri a Mojito and Patrick a water. Huh ? Patrick reckons that, living on the island full-time, one will consume far too much alcohol than what is good for one’s sanity, thus he always starts with a water and then later may switch to a beer or a vodka. Good advice.

We just got settled in at the bar when in walks Jack Nicholson, yes, from “The Shining” fame. Jack greets Patrick warmly and makes himself comfortable at the bar, ordering a vodka and lemonade. I looked at Patrick with, what must have been a “WTF” expression on my face and he says, “oh, this is Phil, my friend I told you about the other evening, who is a Jack Nicholson lookalike”. We were introduced to Jack, I mean Phil, and what a great character he is, probably much more interesting than the real Jack. Phil was born in America, left on a sailboat when he was 20 and arrived in Australia, via many south pacific islands, two years later. He decided to stay there and only left Australia 46 years later to move to Koh Samui one and a half years ago. If you do your maths you will notice that he is now 69 and a half, and looking bloody great ! He confided that he was actually used as a Jack Nicholson stand-in from time to time.

The four of us moved from the bar to a table closer to the beach so we could watch the sunset. Patrick and Jack/Phil had to meet friends at the Cassidy’s pub and said we should join them there should we wish to. Adri and I settled for another drink and made our way to Cassidy’s thereafter, which is just up the road. There we met another couple of ex-pats, all great people, from all walks of life, enjoying a life of abundance, though much simpler and easy-going than most of us, I expect. I could get used to this, I could get used to this, I could get used to this…

One of the many stories heard the evening which I found quite illuminating was this farang that was visiting his Thai girlfriend’s family. When they heard an airplane take off overhead, one of the family members commented “aah, there goes the farang ATMs” !

After a number of additional beverages we decided to head home after a truly memorable evening. I can still hear Phil’s gruff voice above the music “just sell off your things and move to the island”…

Ko Samui, Thailand

Walked into this pub and the waiter welcomes me with a big smile and a firm handshake, “the wife shopping again today, sir ?”. Yes, I am back at Max Murphy’s in Nathon again, this pub is starting to feel like my local watering hole. With the wifi at home being down since yesterday I had time to catch up on emails, admin and general surfing. This time I made sure to order the Asahi early on, thinking I might get the name right this time around. The waiter replied, “sorry sir” with a questioning look on his face. I repeated, aSAhi, to which he replied “aah, asaHI”. Apparently the emphasis must be placed on the HI and not the SA. Next time I”ll get it right. Rewind a few hours… We decided that this will be a non beach day. Had a late breakfast of bacon and eggs, cheese, croissant, pomegranate juice and we were off. Anyway, the wifi was still not up from the previous day’s burst water pipe, flooding some of the units on the ground floor, so we decided to get to someplace with wifi where we can catch up on some surfing etc. Left home at about 11:00 with our eventual goal to get to Nathon for the last bit of shopping. Drove south though Lamai for a very pecific reason, to have coffee at the Blue Canyon Coffee shop, which still serve the best coffee on Koh Samui. From there we stopped off at the Kunaram Temple where the body of the mummified monk, Phra Khru Samathakittikhun (Dang Piyasilo) is on display. When he died many years ago, he was sitting in a meditative position. He is still in that same position and his body shows few signs of any major decay ! You can read more about him on the photo below. We continued on around the island, stopped briefly at Pang Ka Bay, which looked a bit too scruffy for my liking. We anyway drove around the area and it seems like a very peaceful area of the island. Them it was on to Nathon as per the introduction of today’s introduction… Again I found the music great. Amongst others I heard Huey Lewis and the News, Doobie Brothers, Billy Joel, Four Non Blondes, Dire straits, Styx, Eagles, U2 etc. Some Irish drinking songs are thrown in for good measure now and then, there was one containing the words “He’s drunker than drunk”, this guy must have been singing about someone else… Adri completed her shopping excursion, sort of, and joined me for a Pina Colada, after which I joined her for one last purchase she just had to make. Before leaving Max Murphy’s, I complimented the waiter on their choice of music. He then showed me a type of electronic “juke box”, i.e. anyone can select a song, via this touch screen, from which seems like a vast music collection. It queues your selected song and you can listen to it when it comes up. Anyway, I left after selecting two Jimmy Buffet songs, Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in paradise, I am sure the pub would have enjoyed those, or stoned me ! Leaving Nathon going north, we pass by the now familiar little restaurants on the beach to our left, which we agree must have an amazing sunset view every evening. This is something we will definitely come back for. We continued north on the ring road, past Laem Yai, on to Bang Por and a stop-off at our favorite reggae beach bar for a beer and a shandy.

Ko Samui, Thailand

Today we decided to try the Bang Rak beach and headed to the Secret Garden restaurant which also have sun loungers available for their clients. I settled down for a beer, Adri wanted a fresh coconut, which they unfortunately did not have in stock, so she diverted a couple of sips of beer away from me. After a couple of turns in the sun, we headed towards the Bang Rak market to get Adri her fresh coconut which was denied her at the restaurant. We then headed home for a quick snooze and to prepare ourselves mentally for the evening ahead. We noticed a while back that there was a “barbecue buffet” restaurant just down the way from us, on the ring road. It intrigued us that the place was always closed, looked very low-key, but at night it was a hive of activity. We found out that this was an eating place catering for locals, although farangs (foreigners) are welcome. Mostly the farangs stay away as they do not know how the setup works. Natty came by during the course of the week with a tamarind sauce which we do not get back home, for us to take back with us. We asked her about the barbecue buffet and she agreed to join us on Sunday to show us the ropes. 19:00 arrived and we went downstairs to pick Natty up for our evening out. Arriving at the open air restaurant, it was already in full swing. We picked our table, ordered drinks, and was off to immerse ourselves in the buffet. As can be seen from the photos, there are four tables laid out with food, mostly uncooked, although there are a lot of already prepared food as well, such as little pork pies, chicken drumsticks, chicken nuggets, french fries, etc. The uncooked food are made up of raw pieces of pork, chicken, beef, squid, bacon, prawns, etc. and a myriad of different types of vegetables including different types of sumptuous mushrooms. Following Natty’s example, we filled one small plate with cooked foods and one plate with uncooked meats, and yet another with uncooked veggies. When we got back to our table, the drinks were waiting for us as well as a type of a barbecue bowl, as per the photo, ready for us to resume our barbecue. The barbecue bowl is quite unique to anything I have seen before. Below the dome/dish, hot coals are placed, in order for one to barbecue ones meat on. Around the dome, there is water with some chicken stock to enable one to prepare ones soup. Mostly the fresh vegetables are placed in the water and after a short while the soup is ready, wonderfully tasty. Should one want more soup, just pour more water around the dome, add more vegetables, and voila ! And so one drinks soup, eat the meat as soon as it is barbecued, replenish the dome with more meat, and so the meal continues… Once we had our fill we proceeded with dessert, of which there were ice cream, little cakes, little chocolates etc. I settled for a refreshing lime sort of a sorbet, which was perfect after such a meal of abundance. We had much to eat and we did not even touch the salad table ! On our way out I asked Natty about a sign that was displayed in Thai (by the way, all the signings here are only in Thai). She replied that it informs one that you must only take what you can eat, else you will get fined for food that is left over. So beware, rather go back for food as many times as you wish, but do not overload your plate as some people tend to do at buffets. I am sure this keeps wastage to a minimum. What a great evening !

Ko Samui, Thailand

The weather was not too shabby today so we went back to Choeng Mon beach. Yesterday we found a little side street that leads directly from the main road to the Crystal restaurant and pub’s premises, thus we did not have to park at the Sala resort, which we came to like, actually. Parking here was just a shorter walk and we needed the time in the sun. We found our spot, booked our sun loungers by leaving our beach luggage on them, and had a wonderful brunch inside the restaurant. Me a cheese and egg burger with chips and Adri a spicy chicken noodle salad. I could tell it was spicy by the tears running down her cheeks. Got home for a quick shower and a snooze before heading out to Fisherman’s Village, and more specifically, the Emerald Irish pub and restaurant, to meet Patrick. I like the fact that the Emerald is a “pub and restaurant” and not a “restaurant and pub”. We met Patrick at the Emerald outside on the balcony overlooking Bhoput beach, great view ! Patrick filled us in on the expat island life, who’s who and what’s what, he is an amazing source of information. Patrick told us that he bought a place here some four years back and finally retired to Koh Samui two years ago. We found out that his place was about 40 metres down the road from where we were staying, what coincidence ! The expat life seems to be very active here judging by the many times his phone rang for invitations from local friends during our time together, the island life sure is fun. He was telling us how his friends back home were worried about him having nothing to do and being bored on the island, everything but ! We asked Patrick about the free barbecue that he attended at the M&M Bar the previous evening and he remarked that this was not unusual, there was a time when there was a free barbecue at different restaurants every day of the week, thus one could have perennial free suppers if one so chose. In fact, he informed us, there was a free barbecue on at Cassidy’s bar in Bang Rat tonight should we wish to go ! After spending a great early evening with Patrick, we walked along the pier for a couple of photo opportunities and then headed back home for supper.

Ko Samui, Thailand

When we booked the holiday we did not care about what the weather would be like this time of the year, we just wanted a good rest. If it rained the whole month, that would have been ok as well, would catch up on all the lost reading of the past year. Some people we spoke to seem to think that we were lucky to get so little rain, only had one day of that, and others said we were unlucky not to have received more sunny days. We did not dwell too much on the weather, there were always some cloud cover but plenty of sun during the day to brown the body with. All in all we believe we had pretty good weather, but when we woke up today, we knew that this was going to be a truly glorious day, no clouds to be seen in the sky, a perfect weather day. We headed to Choeng Mon beach which has now officially become our favorite beach on the island. Not too big, not too small, not too busy, not “not busy”, the water is really great for swimming, all in all, our perfect beach, for us at least. Headed to our favorite beach pub for a sun lounger but all were taken. What a blow. We continued on the beach another 40 or so metres and found another beach pub with sun loungers, and two were waiting for us to heave our by now weary bodies onto. The beach pub is called Crystal pub and restaurant, which we will surely visit again soon. The weather was just absolutely perfect, a day like this does not come around everyday and we made full use of it. Yes, a Chang please, and don’t forget the Sprite… Late in the afternoon we packed up our beach stuff and took a walk further along the beach where there are a number more beach pubs and found another one that looked irresistible, and we just could not pass up on it, so we ordered more beers. We reluctantly called it a day and headed home late afternoon, not easy to tear oneself away from such a day. Received an email from Patrick inviting us to the M+M Bar in Bang Rak where they have a free barbecue and live music on a Friday night, you obviously only pay for your drinks. This is heaven ! We already booked a table at Fi so made an alternate arrangement to meet for drinks in Fisherman’s Village, at the Emerald Irish pub and restaurant at 17:00. Got home, showered, took a bit of a snooze and then we were off to the the Greek restaurant, Fi, for their Friday night buffet which we booked a table for. Greeted and treated like “old” customers on our arrival, their food was still the best in town, and I have a sneaky suspicion they will not let up on the quality.

Ko Samui, Thailand

Today we had what can probably be described as a typical expat type day, I guess. We slept in, read, gymmed, watched some news on tv, had breakfast, and then went shopping for a few things to make Musman curry tonight. On the way to the Big C supermarket, we stopped off at an apartment development down the road called Pacatas to check out its viability. Off-plan prices are sort of reasonable, but having been bitten once with an offshore off-plan development, I will be hard pressed to try it again. The developer seems well organized though. Even though development will only start second quarter 2014, they have built fully furnished one and two bedroom units adjacent to the sales office, which is situated right across the road from the development site. Before exposing ourselves to the rigours of shopping, we tanked up on some excellent coffee at Simply Delicious once again. By the way, their food does look simply delicious as well, we just haven’t had an opportunity to test-drive it. Once shopping was completed, isn’t it funny how one always end up with more in the trolley for what one went shopping for in the first place, we stopped off at Tesco for a few things we could not find at Big C. For a snack we found these wonderful peanuts with a covering flavored with coconut. You also get them flavored with chicken and seafood, nice. The main reason though we went to Tesco was to book a table at our favorite restaurant, Fi, which is situated right next to Tesco, for their Greek buffet on Friday night. We also stopped off at an English bookshop called Bookazine where I bought “The Nation Property Guide” newspaper. Strange, but neither Big C nor Tesco had any coconut milk, which come in one litre cartons as one would buy normal cows milk. No sweat, we stopped off at the Bophut fresh produce market and bought a litre of freshly pressed coconut milk. This trick Adri learned from her Thai cooking class with Natty, in fact Thai’s seem to cook only with freshly pressed coconut milk and seem to despise the carton, and heaven forbid, the tinned milk variety. Got home and Adri started preparing the Musman curry. She demanded gin and tonic and I settled for a big Heineken which soon morphed into a big Chang. I sat outside on the balcony, reading and listening to Glass Tiger, Supertramp, The Beat, Steve Forbert etc. I made email contact with the brother of a friend of mine (Tony) who now lives in the Philippines. His brother (Patrick) bought a place in Koh Samui a few years back and is now retired and living on the island, also in the Bophut area where we are staying. We will probably meet up and go for drinks on Saturday early evening. The Musman curry was a gastronomic delight. The doorbell rang and in walks Natty for a visit. She also brought tamarind sauce for us to take home, as we do not get that back home and need it for a couple of Thai dishes. Had a nice chat and we decided that we would go to the local barbecue buffet on Sunday evening, which is just down the way on the ring road. Looking forward to that. After Natty left we did a bit more reading but soon the sleep overtook us and we turned in. And so ends a typical expat type day, I guess.