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.