Surat Thani

Finally getting to Surat Thani, it was wonderful to see A. I hadn't seen him in 2 years. We had so much to catch up on.

We did some shopping in the market to get some food for dinner and then he drove us back to his mothers house. He works with Sak for a month and then on his rubber plantation/with his mother for another month, then its back to Ko Phangan and Sak's ice factory. I had been to his mothers house before, about 7 years before. I forgot how far it was from the port, probably because I was living on the ferry boat in the dry dock at the time and the dry dock was half way there.... I met his mother again, stuffed up my Thai greetings and wais.... then A showed me around. He is currently farming white snapper and some other fish Thai's love which he doesn't know the English name for. We also checked his crab nets, but the crabs were a little on the small side A released then into his dams so he could catch them again when they get a little bigger.

Shopping in Surat Thani

at the petrol station
Once it was dark I had a 'shower' - read buckets of cold water..... then we cooked dinner, or more precisely A cooked while I watched. A's mother and brother had eaten earlier so it was just the two of us for dinner. It was all lovely food, but A was a little disappointed, his panang wasn't all that hot and he knows how I like it.

The next day I woke up at 6:30 am - strange after only going to sleep at 5:30am the day before - everyone else in the house was already up. A's mother had gone to visit one of his cousins, so A and I had to look after her shop in the morning. There weren't many customers so we closed it up at 9am and A took me on a boat trip around Surat Thani. Surat Thani is the Venice or Amsterdam of Thailand. It was amazing, the canals kept splitting, I'm glad I didn't have to find my way back.
Monks on their way to the temple
the corner shop that comes to you
I liked the shrine at the front of this floating farmRiver wildlife
Finally we reached the sea, although not very deep and hence were spotted fisherman's houses on stilts and lots of fishing boats.


This one wasnt in great condition, a wall had blown awayWe visited some people fishing, either with nets or by building false shelters for the fish - this was really interesting - to me anyway. They would throw logs into the water - it was only chest high - then stick longer poles into the sand to form a tee pee around the logs - to located then again and also keep the logs together. These were left for an amount of time, to attract fish to live there, then the fishermen would return, roll bamboo walls around the tee pee enclosing themselves inside, throw out the logs, in the process building a new tee pee,

then use nets to scoop out all the fish.


It was amazing how many fish they caught from one such tee pee/trap. This was only a small part of the catch.


They kindly gave us some fish to take home, which A put in the bottom of the boat.

After watching this for a while we headed off, back through the canals, we saw some gibbons at one point and pulled up to a tree nearby to have lunch, my second lunch with gibbons, the first being just before I met A, all those years ago.


We then had to head back to reopen the shop. Luckily we arrived back half an hour before sky opened and bucketed down. A's mother came back early as his cousin wanted to meet me. This time I got my basic Thai phrases and my wai right.... While A's mother tended the shop we mended his fishing net. A was constantly concerned that I was bored, I assured him I had come to see him, not be entertained. It has obviously been too long since I spent two weeks on ferry boat in a dry dock with him and 17 other Thai guys.... I love seeing how other people live. Back then they all thought I was crazy to spend my holiday scrubbing a ferry boat, now A was just concerned I was bored.

Unfortunately A thought I was staying for a few days, and if I wasn't about to fly out to Sydney I would have. He was very upset he couldn't take me to his farm or to meet his sister. I assured him that next time I would spend more time on the mainland.

Now all I have to do is work out when I am returning!

Samui 2009 Take 2

Ok lets start again, without the Royal Thai police censoring my post....


I arrived into Bangkok at 6 am but couldn't get onto the early flight so had to wait 10 hours for the afternoon flight. Fine, Ill go into the city and do some shopping. Shopping done, back at the airport, checked in, at the gate, having told Dennis I would arrive on Ko Samui at 5pm. He called me back at 3pm to say I wouldn't be flying to Samui that day, there was a storm on the Island and instead of waiting 15 min for it to clear the pilot decided he could land the plane. This had devastating consequences for the pilot. From his balcony Dennis could see the runway full of ambulances. No one else at the gate had any idea they weren't leaving Bangkok.



So I stayed the night in Bangkok, but not in Bangkok at the Novotel at the airport. I didn't have my bags so couldn't even go into the City! Also we were given a 6 am wake up call so we could check out by 7 and be on the plane by 9am. 9am became 9:40am, which became 12pm, which finally became 2pm. But of course in typical Thai style, there wasn't just one plane flying down to Ko Samui at 2 pm but 6..... hence once we finally got to the Island we had to circle for 40 min while the other planes landed.... There are no maintenance hangers at Ko Samui so the plane was still sitting beside the control tower it crashed into and will be... until it falls apart from rust.



Aside from having a very boring night in Bangkok, I missed out on my welcome party however not to let a good party go to waste they carried on without me and had a brilliant night! Probably lucky I didn't arrive in at 10 am. Upon my eventual arrival - Dennis told me just to sms when I had finally landed on Samui - Dennis took me to his house and installed me in the freshly pimped out room - he didn't like waking up in the morning and seeing himself naked so he gave me the room with the mirrored ceiling. We had a couple of drinks on the balcony, Colin came over, then we went out for dinner, went to a cabaret show, where I met up with Dan and Scotty, went Christies where Nu invited me to dance on stage during the show - she was very excited to see me, however I declined the offer - and finally on to Green Mango and Sweet Soul where I met Pan. It was wonderful to see everyone.



Other highlights -



As I mentioned last post - Meeting some friend of Colin's for lunch before they got on the plane to come back to Australia, after 8 bottles of Pinot Grigio they extended their stay..... we were full of plans for their extra few days but that only lasted until the next morning when the hangover got them on the next flight out.....



Boat trip to Ang Thong National Park. We headed to Ko Phangan to pick up some friends of Scott's, I slept the whole way there having gotten home from Sweet Soul at 5:30am.... an hours sleep and a few beers was all I needed to come to life. The beautiful snorkeling spot also helped me wake, especially the few laps I did. Strangely enough I was once again the only female on the boat..... Colin wasn't swimming, but was playing with his new camera lens. It was a fantastic lens, unfortunately lost 400 photos, partly my fault, should have checked he changed the setting back... oops! At our new beach someone noticed a football stuck up in the rocks, so we spent the rest of our time there trying to get it out. All we succeeded in doing was putting a coconut up there with it. How the coconut was supposed to get the football out is completely beyond me, obviously someone thought it was a good idea at the time. Once we gave up I had a little time for swimming, before we boarded the boat and headed back to drop the boys at Ko Phangan. On the way back to Samui we stopped to watch the sun set and unfortunately Colin noticed me dancing on the back of the boat and took some photos.... bugger.

leaving Dennis' still a little tired

New snorkelling spotLunchtrying to get the football down.... Aung Thong
The captainColin
On board
I met up with Renee again, and it was around her birthday, by around I mean she celebrates for two weeks. Part of the celebration involved partying with 100 Melbourne DJ's at Beach Republic, being extras in an advert filmed at Nicki Beach and having a couple of Long Island Ice Teas before midday on empty stomachs of course - tea for breakfast darling! She also went to Ko Tao for a long weekend, but I was happy to stay on Samui.

I had a night out with Pan, Dee and some other girls. I met them at Pans house, they were already trashed, so we didn't last all that long at Sweet Soul once we finally got there. Well we did, but I was scared Dee was going to fall off the stage at one point.... Another night Dee and Pan cooked for me. It was fantastic food. I should have kicked Pan out of the kitchen so I could watch Dee cook....

I also cooked at Colin's one night for 10 people, we spent $35 on seafood and a little more on wine and fed everyone! Of course we had about twice as much seafood as we needed.... Its amazing. I was going to cook again but we ran out of time.....

I went up to the Jungle Club twice, as soon as I got there the first time one of the guys at the bar comes running out yelling vodka redull, vodka redbull.... well I could hardly refuse then. Seems I made quite the impression when I spent my year in Samui..... and Aung was still trying to make passes at me, some things never change! He is crazy that guy, we saw him driving a scooter up the hill to the Jungle Club with one hand while drinking a beer with the other. If you have seem the road to the Jungle Club you would understand how impressive this is! One night we were up there a South African joins us.... he was already fairly drunk by the time he arrived, so we offered to take him home. Unfortunately he had no idea where home was, we spend a great deal of time trying to find it. This was most hilarious for the first 30 min, but then got a little boring and sobering so we got Scott to take us home before finding the other guys.

We had a few of those night up on Dennis' balcony - "don't want a big one as I got home at 2:30 this morning and have too much work to do" - but it was the last night both Dennis and I would be on Samui together (until I next visit) so of course turn into the biggest nights of all. This particular one saw Renee and I head out for noodles at the end of the evening and not getting to bed until 5:30am. Normally (aside from when I'm getting on at boat at 10am) I sleep in, but the next morning I was heading to Surat Thani to see A. I did sleep in, but only until 10:30am....

Ill leave Surat Thani for another post as this one is getting a little long.

Colin said he would pick me up from the port which was lovely I was getting a little tired of haggling over the price of every taxi trip. Chok met me at the pier and was amazed that I was sober.... this is a little concerning to me.... I assured him I had only had 2 beers in the last 36 hours even though I had been offered more. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, a friend of Colin's owned it and had decided to retire... after dinner Colin was all ready to go out, but at the last minute decided not to. However he wanted a drink before I did... I had promised Nu I would go to Christies that night, but forgot it now started half an hour early.... I managed to see half the show. I was devastated after teh show when Nu told me they had rehearsals that night. They didn't finish until 1:30 am! Thankfully Pan came out to Sweet Soul with me for one last dance....

The next day Colin, Peter - Colin's latest Australian project - and I went to the Pier to say good bye to Ilsa - they left the Mangrove and moved to a fantastic location in fisherman's village. Then I had to pack before we headed up to a villa in the hills for one of Mad Andy's parties. It was a spectacular location, we could see fireworks going off on Chaweng Beach, at the Lake and at Bang Rak. The DJ was brilliant, it was fantastic to dance to something other than the terrible - but somehow great at the same time - songs played on a loop at Sweet Soul and Green Mango! We danced all night, and I mean all night. Those of us still up gathered around to watch the sun rise over Chaweng. Colin asked Tawan to come and get me at 8am, the party would have continued until at least Monday... I said my goodbyes and went to Colin's for a shower before Tawan took me to the airport.

I tried to sleep on the plane, but its only an hour flight..... When I arrived at the foyer of Dennis' hotel he declared he was hungry and we headed to yum cha at the soffitel. We had meant to go to the wine bar/restaurant, but it wasn't open for lunch.... Yum cha was all you could eat for about $A25, however when we ordered Peking duck they only gave us the skin. We finally convinced them we wanted the meat and then went on to order serves after serve after serve of it. The yum cha restaurant closed an hour before the wine bar opened - they obviously haven't come across people like Dennis and myself before, or maybe they have. We asked if we could sit quietly at our table and order another bottle of rose and wait for the wine bar to open. they weren't so keen on this idea. Having been thrown out of the yum cha restaurant, we went to another bar with another amazing view had a few drinks by the pool before finally heading back to the wine bar. The view was amazing again, the food was delicious - it was tapas set out in a little tree, very cute - and the wine was lovely..... we watched teh sun set over bangkok while making chatting to everyone from the wait staff, to the DJ to other customers - We finally forced ourselves to leave at 9pm, otherwise I wasn't going to make my flight.

I really don't think Dennis and Colin could cope with me staying any longer, both wanted to go on a diet, stop drinking and exercise, which didn't really happen while I was around. I did play tennis a couple of times with Dennis, but probably not enough to have any real benefit.

A little misadventure at the airport saw me spending time with the tourist police, therefore having only 20 min to board the plane and no time to do any duty-free shopping - next time!