It's been a long time since I last posted, partly because we've been so busy doing things but mostly because I've had my head in a book that Mickey gave me. I've just finished it and was a bit disappointed by the ending, but was transfixed by the rest of it! All the Falangs (English people) here seem to be reading murder thrillers!
Anyway, we moved on from Sumat and got the tiny ferry back to Pattaya. The men running the boat were very lovely as they carried Heidi and my bags down the rickety, portable ramp that they positioned from the ferry onto the dock. I would have fallen in if they hadn't because of how steep it was! We were all in fits of giggles as I tried to get up onto the taxi (an open roofed van) from the dock to the mainland with my bag on, falling over and landing on my knees. The 3 Malaysians that we shared the taxi ride with were not impressed with me! We then got a minibus back to Pattaya to stay at Mickey's for one more night. Daa cooked us our last meal of Thai pork chops and rice which was delicious and probably the only Thai meal I could have stomached at that point. The Thai food is lovely but the herbs are so distinctive and I can't get used to them! We watched some more Thai tv and went to bed in the comfort of a house that we had grown to know. I slept on the floor as we had all been taking turns but I was so glad not to be sleeping on the beds in the bungalows on the beach because they felt like massive sand bags. In the morning Daa cooked us Thai breakfast which is food that the English would eat at lunch or dinner, it was a massive plate of rice with onions and carrots in it. I couldn't get enough of it! I had to pass on the pork and vegetables that she cooked because I had just woken up and it felt weird, but the others told me those dishes were equally delicious. Mickey then dropped us off at the bus station so we could start our 13 hour bus journey, starting at 4pm and after getting the ferry to our destination, Koh Samui, we arrived at where we wanted to be at 8am. The guys left me in the hostel to sleep a bit while they checked out the beach.
The beach - beautiful. The best beach we have been to so far. The sand was white and the sea was a transparent blue/green. It was what I imagined Thailand to look like. On top of this, the weather was like it was in Bangkok with no rain at all and a heat that made only sunbathing bearable. Of course I stayed in the shade because of my ginger genes (thanks gpa!!) but still it felt like paradise. The hostel was also lovely, a 4 person dorm for £3.75 a night which was very clean and with our own en suite. 2 of the beds felt like concrete but we swapped around to make it fair and we couldn't really complain.
We took motorbikes out one day to see the whole of the island which was a lot bigger than Sumat and so had proper roads and lots of Falang. We went to numerous beaches and travelled to see a giant Buddha. We hadn't visited any religious places since Bangkok so we all really enjoyed that as it took us back to the first place we visited. The view from where the Buddha was took my breath away as you could see all along the shore and it was getting dark.
Here it gets dark at about half 6, which we were surprised about, so we went for dinner at an American restaurant and met the owners. We were brave to go back on the motorbikes considering the massive gash I got in my leg the first time round but the roads were like in England, plus the crazy driving of cours. If you drive "too slow" some crazy motorbike driver will keep beeping at you to drive faster but you constantly hear beeps along the road anyway. Taxi drivers will beep at any pedestrian to get them in their cabs so you just have to ignore them and keep walking. We also visited a butterfly farm which I surprisingly enjoyed and got some good photos which I know my Grandpa and Dad will enjoy ;)
We met quite a few friends whilst in Samui as we went to a bar called lipsmackers that was run by a few crazy people, one called King who looked like he was always on drugs and probably was. You would spot him one minute and the next he would have disappeared. It was here where we met a lovely Malaysian called Josh who was very intelligent and great to have a conversation with. Matt and I ended up having an hour-long friendly debate about religion which was more interesting than anything else. He had 2 tattoos on his fingers; Roman numerals. One was V. for the film V for Vendetta, which was the film that inspired him to become a film maker, the other was I. to remind him of when he was Catholic.
Heidi and I also met 2 Israeli guys who were equally as nice but not quite as good at English. It was extremely interesting listening to what their life was like in comparison to ours. They had both served 3 years in the army in order to get their further education at university at a discounted price. The guy I spoke to is now in construction and although it is considered a good job, he is paid a considerably lower wage than he would be in England. Whilst in Sumat, Heidi and I spoke to a Thai who owned a pub on the island. He informed us that he had visited England and said he hated it because it smelt like cheese! There isn't much cheese around in Thailand due to the bad grass and so he was not used to it when he visited the UK. He also had a 2 year old baby with his American girlfriend who he met when she was holidaying on the island. His child and girlfriend both lived in America because the schools are better there, and it was sad to hear he could only see them every 3 months. He was happy to show us photos of them and they really were both gorgeous. He offered me and Heidi some food that we had never seen before and I was happy to try it. I am still not entirely sure what it was but I think it was semolina and coconut in sugar, as you can see in the photo. I enjoyed it because it was so sweet, but after one mouthful Heidi refused the rest.
In Samui we went out a couple of times, starting the night at lipsmackers and ending it at Ark Bar. The latter consisted of fire throwing and dancing on the beach which allowed the club to be seen from miles away. On the "dancefloor", a collection of young girls between the ages of 3 and 12 would walk around trying to sell flowers to the men to give to the ladies. The sad part about this was how young the girls were, and how they were working in a space full of drunk young adults. I had not experienced a place like this until I was 18, and they were working every night there from such an early age. One young girl selling flowers, however, showed her mental maturity by completely out-smarting Matt. As he had refused to buy me any more flowers, because he bought me a rose in Pattaya for a laugh, the young girl became very annoyed with him. Why she didn't pick on Nathan I don't know. She then challenged him to a thumb war, at which he refused, but was coerced into through physical force. Of course the young girl won because she had been doing this all night every night for a very long time. When Matt outright refused to buy these flowers she took Heidi's beer to smash on top of Matt's bottle causing it to foam out of the bottle neck. For the rest of the night this girl followed Matt around making sure he wasn't causing trouble. This included taking some glow-in-the-dark glasses off him and tearing them to pieces once checking with her friend that Matt had found them rather than purchased them. The next night I rewarded her for her good judgement by giving her a bracelet that a random man had bought me. I also made deals with the girls that allowed me to get a hug off them if I managed to get people to buy flowers! I told many of them how pretty they were, and the young ones loved it, although to my dismay some refused to accept the compliment as truth. I don't know what their lives are like, and their job was not particularly unsafe, but I believe all little girls should be told how pretty they are so I said it and genuinely meant it.
One of our friends from lipsmackers told us that the island of Samui was quickly becoming less backpacker friendly and was expanding its market to more wealthy customers. We saw many extravagant and expensive looking hotels as we went around the island, and it seemed that these places were quickly replacing hostels and pubs. The 2 lipsmackers bars will soon become only 1 as the owners have been forced to shut down the one in the street (the other being on the beach) to make a grand entrance into the town.
After one night out, Matt and I got a motorbike taxi ride back to the hostel, with both of us on the back. It was such a funny experience as we were driving so slow, this made it safer which made me happy, and I had my arms wrapped around the driver's stomach and Matt laughing in my left ear.
We have now left beautiful Samui and caught a ferry to Koh Tao where we will stay until Saturday morning when we will take yet another ferry ride to the full moon party!! Wooo!! Oh, also, the burn on my leg is healing nicely and I don't even think it will scar :)
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