It’s a bit of a “blog desert” at the moment, but blog after blog of I walked along the beach, I looked at the shops, I went to the night market and I had a nice Thai tea with a glass of wine for less than a fiver would be as tedious to write as it would be to read. But don’t get me wrong, the 3 weeks here are well planned and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Aeons ago when I was planning this trip (actually when Ant and I were at Railey beach in Krabi), the thought came of how nice it would be to be a beach bum for a month on a Thai beach – and that’s what I’m doing – just chillin’ out, reading and watching the ever changing world go by. But today I decided on a bit of action. Sightseeing is not a big thing here – the two main sights seem to be two big rocks shaped like male and female private parts – Grandmother and Grandfather rocks (perhaps that was the start of the sex trade here…!) and a dead monk on display who is still in the same sitting position as he was when he died 30 years ago – frankly in the sightseeing stakes, I feel they are scraping the barrel somewhat! So I went to Nathon, the main town on Koh Samui – I was actually heading for Chaweng Beach, the biggest resort area on the island, but during the day, transport is a little thin on the ground – this really is a “night” place. There are no little tuk tuk’s here, only “shared vans” (but they still call them tuk tuk’s…), a bit like the bemo’s in Bali. They are small pick up trucks that pick up and drop of as they go along. Apparently they can’t have real tuk tuk’s here as they would never get up the many hills. The two other options are expensive taxis or mototaxis – still not convinced of the safety of popping on the back of a motorbike without a crash helmet on these roads! I waited for a while till one came, but it was going to Nathon, not Chawneg (totally the opposite direction), so decided to go there instead – why not, Chaweng will still be there another day. Nathon, on the West coast (I am on the south East coast) is more of a workaday town – not so many tourists as at the beaches, but it is the home of the ferries that go off to the other islands. The shops there are hardware, tuk tuk repairs, general food stalls, pharmacies with none of the tourist tat you get everywhere else – and of course, Tesco’s! And this demonstrated the love they have for their Royal Family – at the door of Tesco was a condolence book for a Royal Princess who died recently. But even though there was a lot in Tesco the same as home, there was one significant difference, not an Easter Egg to be seen – shame really as I was really looking forward to treating myself to a Green & Blacks Organic Easter Egg… There are also 5 Boots stores on the island, but all centered on the tourist area of Chaweng, not here, so obviously a brand targeted at tourists, that was another disappointment, I wanted more Soltan! Mid afternoon in Nathon as the fishing boats come in, little stalls are set up selling the catch – the king prawns are the largest I have ever seen – like lobsters at home, and a lot also make it to Lamai – the restaurants all display their seafood at the front and you buy by weight. At least I find a tuk tuk going back to Lamai early evening – and it was a bit like one of those film spoofs “how many people can you get in a mini”. Luckily I was first on but as we waited as one of the ferries disgorged its passengers it got fuller and fuller – luggage was thrown on the top and people were squeezed in. I have decided that there is nothing here about “maximum passenger capacity” as whenever anyone flagged it down it stopped and yet another hot body was squeezed in – there were people hanging off the back like a streetcar in San Francisco for the 20kms journey. And at 60 baht (£1) a passenger, the driver was on to quite a nice little earner…
