Ko Samui

Wednesday October 25, 2006

Well, time to leave the island and move to Ko Samui for the night. Still undecided about whether or not to return to Koh Phangan, go to Bangkok early or even head back to Hanoi for the weekend. So many decisions to make, so wait till tonight.

Spent the day by the beach swimming while Mel went shopping with Sally in Thongsala, where she found herself a beautiful ring - a momento of her time here and a chance to replace the rings she lost in Vietnam.

Goodbye to our little spot of paradise.

Said goodbye to everyone, and John even gave me a present, the CD of one of the bands who played at the concert the other night. Then before we knew it, time to catch the taxi back to Thongsala to catch the 4pm boat to Ko Samui.

We were dropped at Maenum beach, a place recommended to us by a coupleof travellers we met in Bangkok. Bom boooooooom... bad advice. We got there and the room was more than a little dodgy, which provided a few laughs.

Went down to the beach and sat on the sand for a while, it was quite beautiful but the water was quite murky - Mel and I went for a swim and it didn't quite feel right. I was suss on it and saw what looked like a dip in the sand further along. After spending some time in the water went to investigate. It was a dirty polluted river spilling out into the ocean. Ew!!!

We rushed back to the rooms and rinsed ourselves and spat a few times before getting organised to go out for dinner and explore the place. We felt so jipped after swimming in the crystal waters at Haad Son. Damn!

We went for a walk and were greeted by dogs, dogs and more dogs. I'd read that the island had dog issues but this was just ridiculous! They didn't do much but lord knows what we'd do if one started growling and got viscious. Never mind any issues with rabies!

We wandered around a few stores and went to organise getting our photos burned to CD (had to return at 9pm) before heading to the beach where the infamous chill out cafe was. We had our last delicious Thai dinner together in very cool surrounds - so we went Thai curries all the way - yum!

We returned to the internet cafe to have our CDs burned and the man in there was crazy. He became really rude and got irate because I wanted to put both our photo cards onto one CD, then get two copies, so Mel and I could have one each, and I told him I could do it all and save him the time... but he decided to be continually rude to me.

While I reassured him I knew what I was doing after lecturing and teaching multimedia for years, he turned it back on me and started saying I was lying and that I was nothing but a bum backpacker. I fired back at him, true to form. But he was certainly a screw loose and he freaked me out to no end.

He started saying all sorts of things to me and when I questioned him about the burning software and what he told me, he put his fist up to his face as if he was about to hit me.
He then later told me if I was not a woman he would hit me... what a gentlemen eh - real charmer. He was doing this manic laugh the entire time to "oh, you teach computers... hahaha... I do not think so... hahaha... you crazy lady... hahaha.."

WIERDO. He failed to see the irony of him calling me crazy.

During this time, when he asked me my age and I asked him what his was. I noticed there was no ring on his finger and made a distinct point to ask him if he was married, knowing this would be a sore point with a man his age. His response was "No ladies think I'm crazy like you think I crazy." Yeah, no shit sherlock.

Unfortunately we spent time there copying photos across and then waiting for them to burn, in which there were many verbal transactions between me and him. In the end I just decided to ignore him because he was freaking me out - so I spent the last 10 minutes there ignoring his crap, with which he realised he was getting nothing and stopped.

Meanwhile Mel has been off at the markets and was growled at by a dog as she went past. So as soon as we could we were out of the freaky, mean man's store and back to the room - we were stoked.

But god we laughed. When I went to the bathroom and couldn't open the door, we just lay on the bed pissing ourselves. It was the most amusing, hilarious few hours in Ko Samui and definitely won't stay there again. Would stay on the island again, but not in Maesum beach that's for sure!!

But as we said, we've had such an amazing run - we had to have some dodgy stories to tell and our stay certainly gave us plenty of material to run with :)