Chaweng beach - I heart

Thursday, October 23rd

It was a pretty sluggish morning after the partying the night before. By the time we rolled out of the guesthouse it was 11ish. We had to go figure out how to get to phuket the following day, as we are flying out of there to singapore on the 26th. We decided to do the cheap-o way, which is bus, ferry, and then bus for 800 baht ($24). The journey will take us 7 hours. Yep, true backpackers here! I wonder if I can ghetto it this way again after this trip. I will be a pro at it.

Steph tried to dispute wrong charges on her card with capital one before we headed out. But it wasn't too successful because capital one is a bit retarded. We learned that capital one and commerce bank are a bit crappy compared to other major banks. Although you get good deals like no international surcharges for atms and withdrawals, the whole customer service part is crap. So be wary of what you sign up for. While steph did that, I booked us a room in phuket on hostelworld for 450 baht ($13) a night.

After all the morning admin stuff, brunch was much needed. We borrowed towels from the guesthouse and made our way to the beach. Ko samui reminds us a lot of mexico. Very developed with tons of shops and restaurants and a nice beach. The unfortunate part was construction. If you want to see thailand before it loses its exoticness, you should pay a visit soon before it becomes way more commercialized. We walked far away from the chain saw and hammering to a nice lounge by the beach for lunch.

The lounge was miami-like. Modern leather sofas with lush pillows facing the beach, and fun music playing in the background. Food was a bit pricey, but we figured we could use the sunbeds and pool afterwards. Steph and I both got sandwiches, and watermelon fruit shakes with ice. Oh we heart the watermelon shake. It was so delicious and perfect for the beach. When we were done eating, we saw a dreadful black cloud approaching us, so we decided not to move and just stay under the umbrella to read our books/write my blog. Fortunately the cloud eventually passed away with no downpour and we were able to lie on the sunbeds.

Before napping, checking out the water was a must. The water here is supposed to be legendary, super clear...and it was. The white sand beach gradually met the clear shiny green water. The water was refreshing. Not cold. Not warm. Perfect temperature. It was pretty shallow (up to my chest) for a long stretch, so I liked that. It was much nicer than ko pha-ngan, but less deserted.

You can rent wave runners here for really cheap - 400 baht ($12) for 30 mins. Given I can barely bike, I didn't think it was a good idea to chance it. We hung out in the water for a while chatting, being zapped every now and then by jellies (not even remotely close to alan's jelly incident).

Eventually we were prune-ish, so we went back to lay in the sun under the umbrella. I spoke with erik on the phone, while steph was reading/napping. After an hour or two of relaxing, we jumped into the pool at the lounge. We were living the high rollers life without paying for the hefty hotel price. Nice! At 5ish, we decided to go do some gift shopping and dinner. Steph and I decided to get thai fisherman pants for our friends back at home, and planned to get 10 pairs in total. We stopped by a stand to negotiate a good price for 10. Unfortunately they didn't have 10 clean ones, so we wanted to get 5...and the lady got really upset and wouldn't give us the negotiated price. Whatever, so we left. If she wouldn't sell it to us, someone else would.

After picking up a sarong (since we need it for australia), we went to nice italian restaurant for dinner. Yes, we were in our bikinis and scrubby beach outfits at a really nice restaurant, but it is a beachtown. Steph and I decided we're going to share portions from now on to lower the calorie intake, so we shared a salad with shrimp, corn, tomato and lettuce, and a penne dish with mushroom and sausage in a cream sauce. It was very good and authentic. It felt like we were back in new york again.

With a full tummy, we went back to the shop steph bought her fisherman pants yesterday to buy our gifts for our friends. It was pretty heavy once we piled it up, but we plan to seamail it home. So all the ladies getting gifts from me better pretend to like it because not only am I carrying it all the way to singapore, I'm shipping it to new york.

We then took a leisurely stroll back to our guesthouse and packed our bags for our early 8am departure to Phuket.