Ahh the island of Koh Samui. A time where we lived like Kings and Queens in villas. Spending days on the beach, hiking to waterfalls and roaming the island on our scooters….and one very, ahh intriguing ladyboy encounter.  And our nights spent with personal chefs, playing cards, pulling playful pranks of ‘icing’ one another and taking late night dips in the pool.  This beautiful island in the Gulf of Thailand is surly where one must go to make lasting memories with friends and explore a  luxurious beach life on the dime.

1/19/14 Taxi+Plane+Bus+Ferry+Tuk Tuk=Koh Samui

Yeah, you name it,  We took it to Koh Samui.  It was a long day of travel to this beautiful island and I loved every minute of it.  Staying entertained on this long travel day was no problem in my group.  From busting out in song of a little “Don’t Stop Believing” on the bus to playing Titanic with Sonny on the Ferry to the island, we made the most of our day.

We were to spend the next 5 days on this little island.  We rented out this amazing villa for 5 days, right on the beach.  However, due to a small booking error we had one night unaccounted for.  So we spent our first night in a fairly nice and cheap hotel in the downtown area.

It was sunset and we were ready to take on the Thai beach night life.  This is when the whole ‘icing’ first began.  For those of you that don’t know…. getting ‘iced’ means that someone bought an awful Smirnoff Ice bottle and placed it, cleverly, into your life.  If you see it or touch it then you have to drop to one knee and chug it then and there.  There are many rules but we kept ours simple.  It became a quick theme to this trip and made for a lot of good laughs.  Giving his experience, my friend Sonny was a pro at delivery.

After dinner we all relaxed at the many beach front bars/restaurants.   We sat on massive mats, kicked back with some hookah and a few Changs (Thai beer) as the waves crashed in.

1/20/14 My Spa day/Kevin’s fry day.

Today I woke up with horrid tummy cramps (pad Thai overload=no poos to be pooped).  Sorry for the honesty here people.  So while everyone else went to enjoy the beach I went to the spa for a detoxing body wrap. (Aka relax heaven)  Sonny came with me and got a mani/ pedi with a message.  I booked my wrap and was hauled into the back room.  Normally, they ask you to undress and leave you with a robe and walk out of the room…normally.  But this is Thailand.   They said undress and stood two feet from me and just watched me.  I’m not the most comfortable person with nudity and my body, so I was mortified, but did it without a fuss.  The next two hours I received a full body scrum/message then a mud message by two Thai women.  About 90minutes later, one woke me up from my slumber to tell me “we leave now, you go nite nite.” I obeyed.  I woke up, showered and 45min later felt refreshed…. and relieved.   The best part… the whole thing cost a total of $42!

It was late afternoon by the time Sonny and I met up with everyone else. I almost didn’t recognize them! I saw three little tomatoes standing next to Shaho.  They were using 30spf every hour but still turned into cute, little cherry tomatoes.  We all cleaned up and started heading to the beach front villa we would call home for the next 4 days.

Ahh I am forgetting one hilarious detail.

Our walk back to the hostel (to pack) we ran into a ladyboy.  Thailand actually recognizes 5 different genders and the transgender (he-women) is the most popular. This person with a four o’clock shadow, a boob job and a mini skirt saw us coming and decided to flash us their new crafted breasts and grind on the closest telephone pole in site.  This of course made us all go hysterical.  Which, of course made her/him proceed to hump everything they could wrap a leg around as they walked back with us to the hostel.  It was disgusting, hilarious and so random all we could do was try not t laugh and proceed to to our hostel.

The best… was every now and then he/she would pull their shirt down (show the new job they got done), dry hump the wall all while holding out a book and pretending to read…like they were casually catching up on the latest Meyer best seller. We learned to just adapt to seeing this kind of sighting, as they are very common. This is Thailand…land of a thousand smiles…and a lot of culture shock!

The Bungalow:   (message me if you want details on the location and prices)

This bungalow is located on Bang Po Beach.  With this villa we could order in-house messages and chefs.  It had a master bedroom jacuzzi/ full outdoor bathroom (amazing)/3 bathrooms/ 4 bedrooms/ furnished kitchen, dinning room and living space.

Our first night in the villa we all went to a local restaurant on our newly rented scooters.  It was run by a German man that fell in love with the country so much on his vacation that he decided to never to back.  He and his chef did an amazing job with the food.

That night we had our first house party since living in Korea, we did it up old school with some college drinking games and, of course, ‘icing’ pranks.

1/21 Beach/Villa/TLC

Since Kevin and I snagged the master bedroom, overlooking the infinity pool and the ocean… I woke up feeling pretty dang good.  It was the perfect morning for a run. Before the family awoke, I was out the door with no shoes, running on the beach.  It was beautiful, but the sand was not as soft as I was hoping for. (Nothing will compare to the Turks and Cacaos and the Bahamas’s sand flour. Koh Samui’s northern beach was a little rough on the toes.  But still an amazing view that kept me motivated while I ran.

When I got back the boys had left to grab some breakfast toasties (bread/cheese/ham combo at every Seven11 in Thailand…. I don’t know why but they were obsessed). This was our first day since arrive that we had nothing planned and it was perfect.  This quickly resulted in everyone being beach bums and getting massages.  Kev and I went to a beach hut for a 200Bh ($7) 60min Thai message while the rest order a masseuse to the villa.

The day ended with all 7 of us cuddled up in the living room watching “The Beach” with Leo Dicaprio. How fitting!

1/22/14 Giant Buddha/Waterfalls/Jungle Hike/Scootin Around

It was the second day of waking up to our ocean view bedroom and all I could think was Korea who? I might never leave.  We had quite a busy day planned ahead of us and it was time to get rolling.  The weather was a bit chilly and the clouds had not left us since we arrived on the island.

We packed ourselves up and scooted off to our first destination.  The Giant Buddha.  It was a beautiful ride to this massive Buddha.  He sat on top of a hill on a very small island that stuck out from Koh Samui’s coast line. The road in to it was nothing but a two way street with the ocean on either side.  Just beautiful.  One thing I have noticed that once you have seen one Buddhist temple you have scene them all, but for some reason you are very compelled to see them all.  The Buddha was big, it was gold, and it was bedazzled with many shrines next to it.  Next.

We wanted to ride elephants from the start of the trip so our next goal was to check out this place that lead a track up to one of the two major waterfalls in Koh Samui.  NOTICE: it is very important to do a lot of background research on what elephant/animal excursion you do because Thailand is notorious for torture and mistreatment of their animals for tourist purposes.  The elephant bares the biggest brunt of this crudity.  So please do your research before you pick an organization to ride with. You would be amazed at how unhealthy these animals are and yet some stupid tourist will still support the organization by paying them to ride this poor animal.  The organization that was near the waterfall hike did not look respectful to the animals so we decided to hike up and not ride. GREAT IDEA by the way, the path to the waterfall was beautiful.  I was starting to feel a bit like Moglie from the Jungle Book…surrounded by the occasional tourist.

After, we decided to scoot around the entire island on our….scooters. Renting scooters is a great way to tour the area you are in for a really cheap price, just be careful.  Scooters are the number one cause of death for tourists in Thailand.  Meaning, people get cocky and decided to ride without a helmet or drink and ride. So if you don’t act like an idiot and realize that Thai drivers are crazy behind the wheel it is a great idea for $4 a day.

Haha…his butt says dreams come true (in Thailand…yes, yes they do)

1/23/14 Chaweng Beach/ Peer Shopping/Personal Chef

Today was our last day in the island and I decided to start it out like almost every day… with a run and a message.  Later we went to the most popular beach on the island, the ChanWang Beach on the southwestern part of the island.  We went shopping and tanning until we were either broke or burnt.

Her “senior photo” before starting our ride.

That night we ended our stay in the villa in style. With a local chef coming to cook every tasty Thai dish you could think of! Our friend, Sonny is Laotian and knows much about the Thai language and culture so he helped set up the menu for the nights feast.  Man oh man did he not disappoint! The food was phenomenal we all ate till we were beached whales then the dessert came out.  The best part about the chef is how cheap it was.  It was under $15 a person for this lady to cook and clean for us for two hours. We were well appreciative of her mad cooking skills and thanked her by cleaning up the kitchen ourselves.

That great night wrapped up our stay in Koh Samui. Up next, Kevin and I decided to take a few romantic days to ourselves and head to Karbi/ Tonsai Beach, the hippy paradise.

Continue to follow the journey to Tonsai Beach, Karbi.