Koh Samui island in Thailand has every amenity. The streets are lined with bars, restaurants, and shops. Want a deisgner Gucci bag? You can find it here. (Just check the label to make sure it’s not counterfeit). It feels like a show put on for tourists. I saw girlie boys pactice for a cabaret, and drank coconut juice straight from a coconut.

My husband had a scooter accident. It was his first time on a bike and he fell off twice. The Thais were lovely and brought their medicine box, refusing to accept any money.
W got patched up at pharmacy and looks like a mummy with all the bandages! We walked along Chaweng main road (a very long road) to find Khao San Bakery.

We spent the day on Chaweng beach, eating hot corn on cob and getting another Thai massage. It’s a tough life! The masseuse was tiny but powerful. She twisted my body and I heard it go ‘click’!

While Koh Samui and the islands are very Western, if you go off main road, it’s still unmistakably Thai. Real Thai life carries on behind the scenes. People see W all bandaged and instantly guess – motorbike accident? We’ve seen other farangs in a similar condition.

An amazing kayaking trip

We went on a Blue Stars Kayaking tour to Ang Thong Marine Park, which boasts about 42 land formations – spectacular islands jutting out of the sea. We took a ferry from Nathong on the West Coast. It was quite a rough, 2-hour ride. Not so fun squatting above the toilet with water swishing around my ankles!

We took a longtail to one of the islands. Love the way they tie colourful ribbons to the ends of the boats, and place food offerings for spirits for a safe journey. Beautiful, limestone cliffs, the shrill sound of cicadas. (Saw someone trying to catch them once with a butterfly net. Quite tasty apparently).

We hiked up to a viewpoint of an emerald-green lake – a sinkhole formed by the collapse of land into underground tunnels and caves.

Our bald, tattooed German tour guide said that Thais believe Ang thong national Park was formed when men were fighting over a woman and they were turned to stone. ‘Koh’ means island.

We kayaked around the marine park and had a great Thai buffet lunch on boat. We went snorkelling, but the visibility was poor due to plankton. Scraped my knee my on choral just as I turned around to hear W saying “be careful of choral!” We kayaked through slip-throughs, and into an enclosed lake. Beautiful and quiet, surrounded by limestone cliffs, hot from the sun reflecting on water.

Apparently a 3-metre no fishing zone surrounds the park, but we suspect that this is not always adhered to. It’s monsoon season and it rained on the road trip back to Chaweng. The rain comes in short bursts, water steaming on the hot roads.

We went to Lamai market and got pad thai takeaways, and drove back to Jungle Club on a 4×4. Found a red-striped frog on our bed when we got back to our hut.

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