**please go back to the march posts and read Halong Bay by Ghost Ship (Vietnam) since it's a recent post that somehow backdated itself...it's my favourite one!! i posted it a week ago.
we opted to concentrate on the three main islands on the east side of the country since we had been doing a lot of stop and go since feb 1. we were giddy when exiting the plane since we had left from hanoi (northern vietnam, cool climate) and landed in a heavy tropical humidity. roel immediately said that the open concept airport and surroundings reminded him of hawaii.
we had not booked a room in advance and only had a couple of hours before dark. we decided to stay in the heart of the action (chaweng). all affordable rooms were sold out (so much for beach hut paradise) and there were very few viable alternatives. four star $150 rooms are not what we had budgeted for. after our marriage nearly ending (not really) we decided to just book a decent place that was one street over from the all-night outdoor clubs. it was a looong day so we just crashed despite the thumpin' bass.
to summarize our time on this island i would say that we had fun dancing a few nights and had some great relaxing beaching days. we were disappointed with the complete lack of culture (including good thai food). the island was expensive, dirty and lacked any authenticity or tradition...a la cancun, mexico.
we had clearly scheduled way too much time (and budgeted not nearly enough money) for this leg of our trip. since i'm writing this post almost six months after the fact i'll just go through a few different moments that still stand out to me (lazy way out, i know).
we rented a motorbike/scooter for a few days and did a few laps of the island so we could explore different towns and beaches. one beach we stopped off at on the southeast side of the island (lamai beach):
their 'lady-boy' shows are amazing. full on professional stage productions with lights, costumes, dancers and decent choreography. it puts any north american shows roel and i have seen to shame.
most relaxing beach of the trip, maenam beach. can you see me floating?
this was the beachfront of our second locale on koh samui, bo phut. after this cheap place we decided we were going to enjoy the rest of our time regardless of budget. this place had great sunsets but the beach was disgusting which kinda defeated the whole purpose.
our next stop was back to chaweng but beach front resort this time for a couple of nights. interesting note that at this area is pretty quiet until 5pm when everyone is waking up from the previous night. we had a few fun nights out but were relatively lame since we didn't want to be too groggy knowing we would have to deal the the heat the next day. it's nice because you have the beach to yourself but is frustrating when restaurants and shops don't open until late.
the night club area the streets are lined with pole dancers for hire. it reminded me somewhat of downtown sosua dominican republic after dark but not quite as dirty or desperate.
the water was nice and warm. on any given day the waves were either non-existent, body surfing size or just plain scary. lots of fun in the water at this beach. after one night of sweaty dancing we snuck in a skinny dip. ha!
we were good and ready to head to our next island: koh tao. known for rocky shores and world class diving & snorkelling.
i have no idea what blogspot has done to the editing functions but i'm about to throw my laptop out the window. i'm well aware of how poor the layout is on my posts on a good day... i don't need any help from you blogspot. thanks.
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