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.