Dim Sum Times: Chinese New Year Vacation: Part 4, Koh Samui

A view of Koh Samui from the ferry.

We got to Koh Samui and still had another half an hour on the back of a truck before we arrived at our hotel. We were served purple kool aid when we got there, and were given another speech about available attractions. Tar handed out our keys, we checked into our rooms, and then everyone met for lunch at the hotel's beachside restaurant.

After a long half-day of traveling, we were all itching to finally get out on Thailand's famous beaches. Unfortunately, as we were eating we were also watching dark stormclouds approach the island. It started to drizzle, and then it really let loose.

On our way back to our room, we were stopped by a young man trying to interest us in a new cheap suit. Looking up, we noticed that the tailor had a small shop located inside of the resort. Plopping into our room, we noticed we had no sheets, no hot water, and our shower and toilet were on top of one another. We started to getting claustrophobic. Before we really started to feel bad for ourselves, we decided to just go outside anyway. Christine put on her raincoat and I donned a new number I had picked up at the fake market (BIG warning sign) in Shanghai, and we headed out. We picked up Chang beers at a convenience store, and started walking in the general direction of "the best beach in Koh Samui." Since it was so wet, I chose to not take my camera. I apologize in advance for the mass of text you're about to look at. I promise, there will be plenty of pictures when you get to the end.

On top of the bad weather and the unfortunate rooms, Tar had been telling us that it would cost 400 B to take a taxi to the nice beach. A $12 taxi ride on a small island in Thailand seemed ridiculous, and we couldn't help but feel like we were being taken to the cleaners. This was part of the reason we decided to see what we could find if we went on foot instead.

We learned a few Thai phrases that came in handy on the road. Sah-wat-dee is Thai for hello, and ah-ghat-dee-nah translated to something like "my what a nice day." When we weren't using our new vocabulary, we were saying everything else with our finest British accents.

"I say, I fink I see a bit of the sun poking through."
"Guv'na, that's no sun. I fink its more rain, it is."

Our sad situation was made all the more entertaining when I learned that the "fake" in "fake market" is meant to be taken literally. It turns out, they constructed my waterproof rainjacket out of sponge material. I was soon carrying about 30 lbs. of water in my coat, and my t-shirt was soaked through. No matter the obstacles, we marched on.

Eventually, the novelty of speaking with an accent and surprising locals wore off and we found ourselves tired and hungry about 3-4 km from our hotel. We stopped in an Irish pub, hoping someone could let us know where we were.

The barman was an old Irish guy, and he ended up being very friendly and helpful to us. He showed us exactly where we were, and pointed out 2 of his son's restaurants on the strip we were trying to get to. He clued us in to the local forms of transportation. There were moto-taxis and the "red trucks." These were the island's answer to public busses. Red pickup trucks were converted by adding benches and a canopy to the back. You could flag it down anywhere along the road, and then hit a button to get them to stop. You could ride it anywhere along its route for 50 B. So much for the 400B taxi ride our tour guide had told us about. Our new friend warned us against using the moto-taxis, though, since he thought they were too dangerous.

The rain had stopped at this point, so we decided to keep moving forward. The barman walked us outside, saying he would help us flag down a red truck. Instead, a moto-taxi pulled up. Despite his previous warnings, he happily sent us on our way on the back of this dubious form of transportation. We made it to our destination without any incidents, the rain had stopped, and Christine realized that her jean skirt did not behave itself when wet.

Since she was uncomfortable, we started poking our heads into the small shops that lined the road along the strip. They looked nicer than the shops in Bangkok, even though all of the merchandise was the same. The prices were almost double what we had seen in the city. I soon got tired of shopping, so we set out for the beach without buying anything.

The beach was naturally bigger on this end of the island, plus the tide went out at night so there was a wide white beach to walk on. Restaurants were just starting to set up shop, so we watched tables and pillows getting laid out on the sand.

We chose one of the restaurants, and sat down early. It was only 5, so we were the first people to sit down for dinner. We ordered a tentative appetizer of garlic and herb mussels, and had a couple of Chang beers. When the mussels turned out well, we ordered more food.

As the sun went down and the lights turned on, more diners filled out the beach. We later learned that we had found the most popular dinner area on the island, with about 5 or 6 beach restaurants packed side by side. They all had similar set ups- a short table was placed in the center of a platform on the sand. You ate while lounging against a triangular pillow. Each restaurant differentiated itself with its pillows and tablecloths, and the prices on its menu. The hawkers on Koh Samui were relentless, and people with different baskets of stuff kept approaching us. They would shine a laser on you, and then take your annoyance for interest. When it really got dark, some of them started selling big fireworks. I didn't like the salesmen, but I did enjoy watching fireworks arcing over the water. They also sold the floating lanterns that I had first seen on New Year's Eve in Shanghai.

The saddest part of the whole scene was the cadre of young girls, all under 10, who showed up with Connect Four under one arm and garlands of flowers hanging over the other. They challenged us to games of connect four, "You win, you get 100 B. I win, I get 100 B." They tried to sell me flowers "for the girl" and when I turned them down, they called me a lady boy. I watched as they won hundreds of Baht from the tables around us.

We met two Danish girls who, like many of the people we met, were traveling for months on end.

We were dry by the time we finally got up to walk down the beach. We hadn't walked 50 yards when someone grabbed us by the shoulders from behind.

"Well fancy seeing you two here!" Lee yelled when he spun us around. We had ended up eating dinner at the restaurant next door to the one Tar took the whole tour group to. We got there just in time to go see the famous lady boy show (drag queen show).

On our way, Christine and I taught the two Irish girls what a "road soda" is. We stopped in the 7-11 and picked up another Chang beer. We had to wander around a little bit to find our group, and we stumbled into some of the lower tier lady boy shows. The starlets had a little facial hair, but they were still done up quite nicely.

We found our friends right as the show was starting. There venue was outside, and there was no cover to get in. You just had to buy an overpriced drink to stay. Lee came up to us again when we got there and showed us his Singapore Sling. He said he was used to drinking beer, but this funny stuff was pretty good. I got one myself, and Teen got a sprite, and we sat down for the show.

This drag show had a tongue-in-cheek sort of humor, and they went all out on their songs. They had dance lines of men (lady boy understudies, if their delicate features were any indication), and story lines. Christine, used to the drag show scene from her time in South Carolina, started egging the Queens on with whistles and catcalls. I worry that we offended some of the stiff upper lip crowd, but we were having fun.

Then, Lee proposed to his girlfriend Luella. He had not planned it, he did not have a ring, but he popped the question and she said yes. As soon as the lady boys found out, they were on stage for a reacreation of the moment. He got down on a knee and asked the question again, and she said yes again. Then, they dressed him up in a wedding gown and marched him around.

We went to a couple of out door clubs, and we ate some overpriced Burger King. Christine and I got back on a moto-taxi and made it back to our hotel room, wrapping up a long, eventful day.

Thankfully, the weather was beautiful on our full day in Koh Samui. We spent the morning reading on the beach, and walked down a little to find a really nice lunch spot. We ate our Masmun curry lazily, and we read our books some more in the shade.

Christine reading on the beach.

Hawkers!

A view from our lunch spot.

Tar had told us how fun and affordable Kayaking was, so we went to the front desk to figure out the details. The lady working there told us they did not rent kayaks. We could get a canoe if we wanted but no kayaks. We asked her if she was sure, and she reiterated that there were NO kayaks on Koh Samui. If we wanted Kayaks, she suggested another island. She even asked another Thai woman hanging out in the lobby if there were Kayaks on Koh Samui. No, she answered, no kayaks on Koh Samui. Then, one of the gentlemen working at the reception desk grabbed a pamphlet describing an all day tour that we could take with 4-wheelers and a 45 minute kayaking trip. We politely turned him down, and headed to the beach to find a canoe.

On the way, we ran in to Tar, and she told us that we could rent a kayak. She sent us next door to a man, who, lo and behold, had kayaks for rent. We had a lot of fun out on the water. We rowed out to a small island and back in an hour. We were exhausted by the time we got back.

We were heading back to our room when Christine decided to dive into the hotel's pool. I was distracted while watching her when I stumbled on the moat around the pool and sliced open my toe. It wasn't too bad of an injury, but it was bleeding and it sent the transgendered girl at the poolside restaurant scrambling to find some first aid. I wrapped up my toe and snapped some sweet pics.

Near where I cut myself.

That night we headed back out to the better beach for dinner. We took a red truck bus, and ended up riding with a group of Chinese nationals. We started a brief conversation where we spoke in broken Mandarin and they spoke in broken English. We walked around the strip for a while, being propositioned every 20 feet by Indian men trying to sell us cheap suits. The most annoying thing about their sales pitch was the approach.

He would step into your path with a hand extended and say something like "Hey, boss, where are you from? England?" as if he were trying to be your friend. It was only after a second or two of chit chat that he would introduce you to his wide array of bargain basement tailored goods. Little do they know that Shanghai tailors do it for half the price and with a small fraction of the conversation.

BBQ joint on the strip.

There were lots of cool book stores.

We chose a tiny "italian" restaurant for dinner and got a bottle of cheap white wine. We had first tried to order a red wine, but were turned off when we found out all of their reds were kept in the refrigerator. What can I say, Sonoma County turned me into a wine snob. We had a decent italian style pizza for dinner.

With a nice wine buzz, headed out to the beach. We were in a romantic mood, and spent some time just admiring the night and enjoying eachother.

We found a really fancy restaurant, about a kilometer down the beach from the more crowded area we had dined in the night before. We stopped there for dessert, a fruit crepe, before taking another red truck home. They claimed that priced doubled after 6pm, and we had no choice but to pay them 200 B for the ride.