Saturday, August 12, 2006

finally got out of bangkok and the traffic in the morning was significantly better than the afternoon. we were on our way to what, for me, i was looking forward to the most...4 days on a tropical island with nothing but sun, ocean, massages, beer, and food. in other words, paradise.

we made it into ko samui around noon and a hotel staff member kindly picked us up from the airport. as we drove into the island, the first place you pass is chaweng beach, the main drag. more developed than youd like, filled with banks, fast food joints, tourist agents, bars, and clubs. not exactly getting away from it all...until we got to our resort, which was thankfully on chaweng noi, away from the main action but close enough to share the awesome scenery and go to the main area at night.

the resort was wonderful, the room was bright and clean, the beach impeccible. the sand was silky white, and the water was like heated mineral water...it was that good. there was a shell or rock under your foot in the ocean either, just a perfect place to go swimming. so after a quick rest thats what we did. the routine was thus: go swimming, get out and rest on the beachchair, apply sunscreen, get a beer, repeat. perfect.

for dinner we headed into chaweng and found a great seafood restaurant that had live thai dancing (no, not the naughty kind). afterwards we walked down further and found a pub that had aussie rules football on, a game between brisbane and richmond which turned into a blowout by the end of 2 quarters. still, she got to show me what aussie rules was all about...and its a pretty spectactular sport.