Saturday, January 23, 2010

We Love Samui!

Settled and not sick!

We had a rough start here in Koh Samui, but after a few days of laying low and hanging on the beach we all started recovering. Steve (that we met at the food market one night) told us about these chill apartments up in the mountains/hills/whatever they are so we checked it out and it turns out we'd be saving a lot of money if we just rented a place together for a while, and since the 3 islands we wanna see are only a couple hours away we decided to make Samui our base home for the next month. The place is nice, it's a big room with 2 singles beds and a bathroom, but there's hot water and AC, and we got a little fridge and a tv. Downstairs the owner and his friends hang out all day, there's a murky pool, but it's all good cuz we're 20 minutes from the beach, so who really needs a pool? There's also a community kitchen which we've yet to try out, but today some of the ladies that work/live up there made some amazing fried rice and chicken and a salad and they let us all join them for lunch. The walk down is a little annoying at times...it's about 15 minutes through the jungle (which is what we call it, but it's not as intense as it sounds haha) and then there's about 15 more minutes down this big road/mini hwy which is a little scary sometimes because people FLY on the roads out here. then you're on the main Lamai road where all the shops, bars, etc. are and that's usually where we hang out, eat, meet people. We've become excellent at budgeting for food. We mostly eat at 7Elevens and at night this little food market opens up in the center of Lamai and it's famous out here. It consists of about 11 karts or so of pad thai, chicken cooked all different ways, crepes, skewers, soups, and it's all delicious and cheap! A big plate of pad thai with shrimp or chicken is 50 baht. (I forgot if I mentioned it but 100 baht = $3.00 give or take) Also, thanks to some friends we met, I've been getting these 20 baht fruit shakes every day and they're incredible! They're super fresh and you can pick out of 20 different fruits or so or get them mixed.

So we've been meeting the locals and making some friends! The other night me and Trevor came down to get some food and met group of 4 Canadians and 2 South Africans that were all hanging out around Thailand like us. They were all in their 20's so we started chatting and it turns out they were headed to this big beach party that we had seen advertised all around town for a few days, so we went with them and ended up running into Brandon and Than who had been in the room all day and wanted to get out. It was a really fun time and the guys we met turned out to be really cool so we got their information since we're all gonna be traveling in the same spots for the next month or so. The party went on until 7 am and we all watched the sun rise over the ocean. Than and Trevor met some very nice Thai ladies and hung out with them the rest of the night.

The next day was a little rough but we met up with 2 of the Canadians and walked around all day. We went to go the grandfather and grandmother rocks, which are an attraction here in Samui. They're these big rocks right on the shore that are shaped like genitals, supposedly of two spiritual leaders that lived in Samui in ancient times. We swam in this little lagoon formed by the rocks for a while, then headed back into town and got some food. That night we met up with them again, because they were headed out to Koh Phanang the next morning for the half moon party. Our other friends from the party are also out there now, and the party is tonight, but we're gonna meet up with them in a week or so for the full moon party. Chris and Nick are supposed to be heading down south too, so hopefully we'll run into them too. Last night we met up with Steve again who treated us and a couple of his friends to this big Thai dinner in this little local restaurant. I don't even know what we ate but it was all very good, as most of the food we've had has been.

Overall we're having a really good time! The living arrangements are a little rough at times since there's 4 of us in a room, but it's worth what we're saving and it hasn't been so bad at all.
I always try to tell the guys they should post something too, maybe they'll crack soon lol. Love you all!

Jewel

Clip from the We <3 Samui Party

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