Koh Samui - A Little Bit of Paradise

For the last leg of our trip, Helen and I check into the Silavadee Resort on Koh Samui, a little island on the Gulf of Thailand. After traveling through towns and cities, great and small, we were looking forward to a week of just chilling out and not doing much at all. Island time.

 

We decided to treat ourselves and end off our honeymoon with a stay in a villa with a private pool. I'd like to say we spent much of our time out in the pool, but unfortunately it rained a lot during our stay. But we made the best of i when the sun was out:

We very quickly fall into a routine on our island getaway. Our days start off at breakfast with a view:

Then we get back to more pool time, spa treatments, or just hanging out in our villa where we catch up on email and messages with friends. We are relishing our down time within the grounds of our very secluded resort.

On our second day, we rented a car and explored the island ourselves. Like the British, people drive on the opposite side of the road here. Having never driven in this manner, I had a crash course in left-lane driving. Fortunately, we made it through our day without incident... a few close calls, but without incident.

The island is basically a collection of beach communities, connected by a major road that rings the island and intersperses off to smaller roads that lead to resorts, villages, and markets. Many of the other tourists are seemingly transplanted from lost episodes of The Jersey Shore. It was quickly apparent to me that the closer we got to the beaches themselves, the more of these characters there were. Coincidence? I think not

The beach villages really are just communities of bars and massage parlors with names like, Wayne's World, Super Girls Bar, Camel,s Toe (spelled exactly like that), etc. Certain people with certain dispositions could quickly find themselves in a heap of trouble here. But not me. I'm married.

Our first stop is the Samui Aquarium/Tiger Show. The aquarium was... basic. Imagine connected high school hallways, in the dark, lit by faint blue fluourescent bulbs on one side, and random tanks of local fish on the other. The walls are black, and we just move on from one tank to another, all without any placards or any sinage that indicates what you are looking at. However, despite not following the regular aquarium format, the tanks were filled will interesting and very active aquatic wildlife, including a fish with a giant cranium and would follow you if you make eye contact!

The marine show consisted mainly of 3 well-trained seals that did many tricks with beach balls, music, and hoops. It was quite entertaining, even if it really was the bootleg version of Sea World.

And, the tiger show is much more than our original impression with this facility. The bleak aquarium gave us the impression that the "tiger show" was not much more than a sad old tiger too slow to run from it's own shadow. We would have been very wrong. The facility housed about 6 or 7 adult bengal tigers, and a couple of cubs. Very cute. We entered an dark chamber that opens out to a caged area in which 4 of the tigers were kept. They are HUGE! At one point, two of the cats aggressively sparred with each other and the roars seemed to shake the walls. It was enough for me a Helen to cower back away from the open cage. The power of these tigers had us convinced that steels bars may not actually be capable of holding them back. It was a scary but exhilarating experience.

We then rode an elephant. I guess we figured it was the tourist thing to do. It was an interesting experience, but probably one that neither Helen or I would do again. Riding an elephant is like riding an open topped pick-up truck with one speed and no suspension. The elephant, while docile and cooperatiive was not an easy ride. It waddled left to right and vice versa the whole time, and the pitched us forward with little warning when it found its footing working down a small hills. I am not usually prone to motion sickness, but this nearly got me there, thanks to the wavering ride and the trail being peppered with elephant doo doo the size of cannon balls.

My next and last post will be of our last meals here on Samui. Some of you have commented that you like the food posts so I'll go out with a bang. For those of you who aren't interested in food posts, then you can end your read here. Thanks for checking in on us! See you all when we get back! Cheers!