66: Ko Samui, Thailand

I’m sitting at Movies Under the Stars (aka MUTS, the large screen above the Neptune Pool) watching tonight’s movie, Crazy Rich Asians, and pondering how to start today’s blog post. I can’t decide between three openings:

• I’ve got to stop falling in love with places further and further from home; or

• What a difference a week makes; or

• We had the BEST day today!

Taken in total, you can tell that Ko Samui was a good time.  We had decided two days ago to book the same Chaweng Beach On Your Own excursion that we had done last Sunday, that day with rain of biblical proportions. I had been checking the weather forecast for the island of Samui every day for three days; we weren’t going to be caught unawares a second time. We really did want to see that beach because the photos we’ve seen were gorgeous. 

Ko (Island) Samui, Thailand 

Where in the world are we?

The meeting time for our excursion wasn’t until 8:45am, but G woke up around 5am and found the Redskins v. Titans game live on TV. You know about Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football; in Asia we have Sunday Daybreak Football. The game ended about 7am, and we went to the Horizon Court Buffet for breakfast and sat with the most delightful couple from San Francisco via Australia and Germany. (Our lives feel so mundane in comparison to the people we meet while traveling). 

The day was sunny and hot and extremely humid, and the tender ride to shore was an entirely different experience than last time. We were on a local tender to shore today (not  a ship’s tender), and I took note of some taxi fares posted inside. The round trip taxi to Chaweng Beach is US $80, which is exactly the same price of the excursion for two people. So if two couples share a taxi, that’s the cheaper way to go. But, for us, using the ship’s excursion was the simple way to go. Along the way, we were not surprised to see that clean up from last week’s rain was still underway, and there was still standing water in a couple of places along the road. 

We were surprised, however, to see the beautiful ocean views next to the road in several places as we made the 45-minute drive to the beach. We had no idea. The visibility had been so poor, and we were so focused on the flooding, that we never noticed what we were driving past. Though we were comfortable in the taxi, as soon as we got out, we were almost instantly drenched in sweat. We stopped just long enough to withdraw 2000 Baht (about US $60) from an ATM and walked back to Baan Samui Resort, where we had camped out in last week’s rain. 

Who knew the island offered these views?

Our friend in fair or foul weather 

We walked through the pool area and rented two padded loungers and an umbrella on the beach for 400 Baht and that gave us pool and shower privileges at the resort. I wasted no time getting in the ocean, and, in the end, I spent over three hours of the three and a half hours we had on the beach in the water. It was heaven. The water was calm, the entry was gradual and sandy and the wavelets were mild. Best of all, it was about 86-87F, exactly the same temperature as the air. Standing in water up to my waist, I couldn’t discern where the water stopped and the air began. Heaven!

Whereas we had been the only ones on the beach last week, it was crowded today with people from all over the world staying on Samui for the holidays. We enjoyed watching multigenerational families playing soccer, building sandcastles and swimming. Surprisingly, the man who rented us our loungers remembered us, asking if we had been there during the big rain. Yes we had. 

Chaweng Beach on a sunny day

The water was about 86F. 

No crashing waves today

This hawker walked up and down the beach all day

“Our” cozy hideaway last week 

Baan Samui pool area

At 2pm we met back up to go back to the ship. Though I could have stayed in that water forever, we didn’t need any more sun. By 3:30pm we were back on the ship, and showered and rested until it was time to go to dinner. Though our day had been sunny, by sail away the humidity won out and it was almost foggy outside. Our plan for the evening was to skip the Princess Theater entertainment (the harmonica performer is back) and sit out at MUTS to watch the movie. We weren’t certain until we left dinner and went up to the Lido Deck whether the weather would allow us to, but it was perfect. 

Watching  Crazy Rich Asians, we were underimpressed with the plot but thrilled to see the familiar scenes from Singapore, especially the Marina Bay Sands Hotel with its rooftop infinity pool, the Singapore Flyer and Gardens by the Bay. We even got to see the gardens lit up at night, which we had missed in real life because we hadn’t overnighted in the city.

The alarm is set for 6am tomorrow in Laem Chabang, but we’re not going into Bangkok again. Instead we have something different on the schedule, and I can’t wait. 

Day 59: Ko Samui, Thailand

Ko Samui (or Koh Samui) is an island off the east coast of the Kra Isthmus, Thailand. Geographically in the  Chumphon Archipelago, it is part of Surat Thani Province, though as of 2012, Ko Samui was granted municipal status and thus is now locally self-governing. Ko Samui is Thailand's second-largest island after Phuket, with a population of over 63,000. Abundant tourist resources, sandy beaches, coral reefs, and coconut trees are present on the island.

Ko Samui was probably first inhabited about 15 centuries ago, settled by fishermen from the Malay Peninsula and southern China . It appears on Chinese maps dating back to 1687, under the name Pulo Cornam. The name samui is mysterious in itself. Perhaps it is an extension of the name of one of the native trees, mui. Some people believe that the word "samui" derives from the Malay word "saboey", or "safe haven", although there appears to be no credible corroboration of this. Ko is the Thai word for "island".

Until the late-20th century, Ko Samui was an isolated self-sufficient community, having little connection with the mainland of Thailand. The island was without roads until the early 1970s, and the 15 km journey from one side of the island to the other could involve a whole-day trek through the mountainous central jungles.

Ko Samui's economy now is based primarily on a successful tourist industry, as well as exports of coconut and rubber. Source:  Wikipedia

We had a real adventure today in Ko Samui, Thailand. It wasn’t the kind of day we’d imagined we’d have when I booked the excursion, “Chaweng Beach On Your Own” just last night. We had such a hot, sunny day yesterday in Bangkok that I never considered that  today would be any different, and we thought a day spent on a 4-mile long picturesque beach, lounging under a beach umbrella sounded just perfect. 

That’s not at all how our day unfolded.

We had crashed so early last night that we were up by 6am, long before our excursion meeting time of 9:45am. When we walked across Lido Deck to get to the Horizon Court Buffet for breakfast, the sun hadn’t yet risen and it was already raining. It wasn’t a very promising start to the day. If we weren’t already aware that the weather was going to be a problem, the announcements we eventually started hearing about tender operations to the island being hampered by the rain and wind made it very obvious. By the time we returned to our cabin to pack for the day, a heavy rain was falling. 

Oh yeah, that’s a perfect beach day. 

On the tender to the island, it was raining so heavily that the tender driver (what are they officially called?) had to keep the hatch above his head open and stand up every few seconds to see where he was going.  He was soaked to the skin. It was raining so heavily that, sitting on the bench seat next to the side door hatch, I was drenched by water pouring in, even though the plastic sheeting doors were zipped shut. It was raining so heavily that people were sitting under open umbrellas inside the tender. It was raining so heavily that the lights on some of the life vests stored under seats started turning on. We’ve heard for years during the muster drill that will happen when the life vest comes in contact with water. Now we have proof. 

Umbrellas inside the tender ;-)

Note the water pouring off the tender driver’s beach towel. 

We couldn’t see a thing outside the tender windows, and when our driver started repeatedly putting the tender in forward and then reverse, we didn’t know if we were near the pier or hung up on something in the water. Eventually we could see that the issue was that the tenders were backed up offloading passengers. In the end, it took us over 45 minutes to get to shore. 

Once there, we were directed to a waiting minivan. G had said in the tender that we were not getting in the vehicle if it didn’t have good tires, and he checked them and climbed in, so I guess it did. (He’s very protective that way.) I hoped that, because it was a Princess excursion, there might be some quality control about that sort of thing. It was supposed to be a 45 to 50 minute ride to Chaweng Beach, but we had such horrible rain and flooding that it took even longer. And all the time I was wondering how we were going to salvage this day. 

I needn’t have worried. It turned out to be one of the best days of the season.

Rushing water along the way to Chaweng Beach

Visibility was nonexistent at times...

...like this. Looks like a beach day to me!! ;-)

We were dropped off at a very small shopping center that housed a McDonalds as well as a Burger King and a few stores. We were pointed in the direction of the beach and started walking that way in a torrential rain. It was only 5 minutes or so away, but by the time we got there we were soaked. The beach was completely empty (no surprise), and none of the many beach bars and restaurants appeared to be open. We found a picnic table under a wooden structure and parked ourselves there, trying to decide on our next move. 

The waves were crashing, high white caps coming halfway up the beach. G’s very first words when he saw them: “The season was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli” in his best George Constanza voice (from Seinfeld, for those wondering). He can always make me laugh. The sea was definitely angry, plus  it was high tide. We figured out on the way back to the ship that a lot of the flooding we were driving through was coming from the ocean and the high tide and the winds, and not from rivers overswelling their banks. 

Our first glimpse of Chaweng Beach

We were afraid to get our iPhones any wetter than they already were (though they’re supposed to be able to be underwater for 30 minutes) and took turns walking down the beach in the rain while the other person stayed under cover. On his walk, G spotted an open beach bar/restaurant attached to the Baan Samui Hotel and came back to got me. And finding that turned our day around. We were greeted with dry towels and made confortable on an outdoor U-shaped sofa with a table. Outdoor pillows were brought for our comfort and we kicked off our sandals, put our feet up and ordered the local Tiger beer. We sat there, dry and cozy, still outside but under cover, watching as the waves intensified. 

Eventually we ordered fries and calamari, and more beer, and, in total, we sat there for two hours, enjoying every minute. When it was time to pay, my credit card couldn’t be used because internet was down, and we gave them the last of our Bahts and US $10 and they seemed happy. Several Thai thank you’s and head bows, palms together later, it was time for us to leave. We were sorry to go. 

Settling in for Tiger beer, French fries and calamari on a beach on an island in Thailand. 

Life, even when it rains (torrentially) is so, so good. :-)


Does it get any better than this?

Heinz ketchup in Thailand ;-)

The rain was still coming down in sheets, and we had occasional claps of thunder, too, but I never actually saw lightning. We were a little bit worried about the drive back to the tender pier, thinking that even more rain would be coming down from the mountains, and it was much worse right around the beach area, with almost constant flooding, but once we got out on the main road it was actually a little better than it had been hours earlier. By the time we reached the pier, the rain had slowed a little, but the tender lines were long and while we waited, it picked up. Thankfully, we were under an a canopy but it was heavy with water and every so often would let lose and drench someone. Not that it mattered, of course; everyone was soaked already, but electronics aren’t as inured to getting that wet. 

More of the same on the way home

I haven’t see rain like this since I lived in Florida!

We were seated on a local tender for our return to the ship, and it was much more comfortable than the ship’s tender on which we had gone ashore. Still, I felt some relief when I finally stepped back on the ship. This was a challenging day for the Deck Department, and I’ve been stuck on shore before when tender operations have been shut down due to weather. Though it was slow, they kept it going today. 

We cleaned up and washed out what we had worn today, and dressed formally (seriously. It was a formal night) and went to dinner at 5:30pm. Captain Ravera made an announcement thanking all the crew involved in the tendering process, commending them for doing it safely in adverse conditions (they had been impressive), and sail away was over an hour late, about 6pm. It sounds like tomorrow’s weather won’t be much of an improvement, but that’s fine by me. That’s why I love ships with a covered pool area. It gives the passengers space to spread out in inclement weather. 

Tonight’s entertainment was vocalist Karen Beckett from Australia. She was excellent, and we made it almost to the end of the show when I was overtaken with a coughing spell and we left (we had sat in the “just in case” seats just in case that happened). I am still struggling a little with that, but feel better overall, so it’s just a matter of time. 

But time is running out. It’s hard to believe that, three weeks from today, we’ll be watching NFL playoffs on TV while looking out at the beach in Hawaii. As appealing as that sounds, I think we’ll also be missing the Sapphire Princess and Southeast Asia and the very kind people- passengers, ship’s company and locals- we’ve met along the way. 

Life is good. :-)