It was a bit like taking a walk around the South Circular (albeit with much better scenery and much bigger hills....). There is one main road that goes around the island and is busy with cars, mororbikes, buses, lorries and tuk tuks. Very few other people were walking, so much so that as I struggled up hills, various locals on mororbikes very kindly stopped and asked if I wanted a lift... the walk felt a bit dangerous at times, traffic, not people, but perching on the back of a local bike was probably even more so..... The local viewing spots provided respite and water but I have yet to spot the "Elephant Rock" shape at one of them, with glasses or without! I achieved a total of six miles to get there. Ant tells me his record for this is 48 minutes - it took me a little longer..... I had, very briefly, toyed with the thought of hiring a motorbike to get around, but sensibly decided against it taking all the warnings into account. The wisdom of my decision was brought home to me very graphically whilst I stood on a corner checking my map, and a young white guy comes careening around the corner, skids on some sand and falls off. He was wearing no helmet, no shirt and listening to his iPod at the same time time. Luckily he seemed to have suffered no more than a monumental loss of dignity and a horribly scraped back as he cooly got back on and drove off, but I guess that badly scraped back will feel a lot less cool later on today, and his dignity may take even longer to recover. I am continually surprised that so many European families hire these things and follow the local tradition of no helmets, two adults and a tiny baby tucked in the middle, madness.
There were lots of interesting places to peer at on the way, local restaurants, homea, car repair shops, 10 Baht stalls and my favourite, the colourful Spirit House Wholesaler.
But a welcome Starbucks and a ruinous chocolate lamington awaited me on arrival, as well as a "farmer's tan". I had piled on the sunscreen but was out in the sun longer than intended so now sport an unusual tan pattern. Lovely brown legs up to the knees, so much so that I think tomorrow I will look as if I am wearing a rather unfetching pair of American tan popsox - nice! Perhaps I should do as others, mainly Russians do, and wander along the streets in a small, very revealing bikini, really taking note of local cultural sensibilities.... It's interesting, this time in Koh Samui, there are very few British voices, the German's and Scandinavian's are still here, but there are many more Russians and surprisingly, French voices around. Chewang Beach is as I remember, the fake shops (that is, shops selling fakes as opposed to shops pretending to be shops if you get my drift) are still there, LV, Chanel, Hermes, Bally and D &G abound as well as Rolexes by the dozen. The tat is disappointingly the same as in Lamai... but still fun to browse through. Business seems to be booming though, the only closed down shop I saw was Boots, but no matter, there were three more along the street I could visit to get both a welcome shot of aircon and a bargain two for one on Soltan. Only downside is they don't take my Advantage Card! Not that I knew that until I had paid. The one difference here from last time is that most text everywhere (including till receipts) is in Thai, where I remember it before being in English. And as you know, my knowledge of the Thai language is limited to "why why", so a till receipt is way beyond me. I also discover a new hotel rating catergory as on the way to Chaweng, I pass a hotel describing itself as "budget luxury"...
I walk to the far north of Chewang Beach where it is sheltered by a small island and has powdery white sand, very pretty.
The one downside is that the airport is situated just behind here, handy for tourists if a little noisy as Bangkok Air planes arrive every hour.... but having said that, their planes are rather pretty to look at, painted with orchids....
I did think about walking back but decided that the outlay of a £1 was worth it...
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