Tuesday 16th June 2014
We all awoke at around 430am Bangkok time which counts as a significant sleep in if you think that that is 730am Sydney time. We watched some tele while Yanna procured cups of tea for all. Breakfast at 6am, and in the car again - back to the airport at 7:05am. A quick trip to the airport and as I type now I am sitting at gate A7 awaiting our flight to Koh Samui. The airport is very clean (normal?) and very quiet. I suspect the latter is due to the civil unrest?
Koh Samui prepare yourself, here come the Graltons (not Griswalds).
Good flight - thumbs up to Bangkok Airways. It was a little plane with propellers which was a new experience for the kids. After one hour we arrived on the island of Koh Samui where the welcome was a bit like Fantasy Island minus Tattoo the dwarf. It was all palm trees, coconuts, bures, open walled huts with fans and a steamy balmy sweaty climate. I had always poopooed linen shirts but now they seem little a stroke of genius. Our van promptly arrived and we drove (weaved, braked and tooted) our way from Chaweng (on the east of the island) to our resort near Nathon on the northwest of the island. Again, open walled huts, palm trees by the million, linen shirts and a low long beach stretching for about 200m before you finally meet the pale blue water.
Our accommodation is a two bedroomed villa right smack bang on the beach, i"d estimate that we are 10 steps from a small sea wall then it is sand and blue water for miles and miles and miles.
After unpacking, ordering the two extra fold out beds for the kids room and cossie-ing up, we headed for the 3 pools. We spent a long and overcast afternoon around the pools, on the beach, at the bar and generally relaxing with each other, Gus and Belinda, their families and friends. All really nice and very funny. Extremely hard to believe, but these mostly South Africans are hilarious. Very very funny and laid back. A massive windy storm hit at about 3pm lasting about 30 minutes then it was cool and breezy we headed back to the pools, bar and beach.
A couple of really funny things happened today which have made our stay so far very relaxed and funny.
Firstly, Harper was walking along and didn't realise that the path finished and a bush growing below had been hedged to make it appear as though the path just simply gave was to a leafy groundcover. So she walked off the path and immediately disappeared falling into the hedge below, A woman in the nearrby pool started screaming at us as we hadn't realised that Harper had just fallen through the ground. luckily she wasn't hurt and emerged laughing as the rest of us were in stitches too.
Later in the day, the kids were playing at the top of the beach where a clump of palm trees were growing. The palms were growing at an angle so they decided to climb them. In trying to climb the tree, Yanna was shaking it and a snake fell out of the tree landing on the sand right beside the kids, who all immediately then climbed the tree to get away from the roughly 1 meter long green tree snake (I hope!). One of the Saffers who, by the way, had rolled his minibar before happy hourS at the pool bar grabbed the snake by the head and relocated it. When he relocated the snake he found and injured bird - cue for kids to immediately leave the tree and crowd the p!ssed Saffer begging for a hold of the half dead bird. Then 2 manky foul local dogs came running up. The Saffer says "kids, distract the dogs", so Harper picks up a stick and runs with the stick. One dogs jumps on Harper and grabs the stick. Harps not uninjured but in tears. I was starting to feel more sorry for the Saffer at this stage who now had a throng of kids following him whilst he was holding the bird. From a distance we saw him carrying the probably now dead bird away with about 5 kids following him. He turned, said something to the kids and they all dropped their heads and turned back around and dispersed.
By about 6pm we were all pretty tired and hungry so the 6 of us went to the restaurant and had a nice meal. Back to our room to shower and put buckets of cream on to soothe the sunburns (yes, we underestimated the sun on this overcast day) have big drinks of water and turn in the night. Great day, happy to be here.
We all awoke at around 430am Bangkok time which counts as a significant sleep in if you think that that is 730am Sydney time. We watched some tele while Yanna procured cups of tea for all. Breakfast at 6am, and in the car again - back to the airport at 7:05am. A quick trip to the airport and as I type now I am sitting at gate A7 awaiting our flight to Koh Samui. The airport is very clean (normal?) and very quiet. I suspect the latter is due to the civil unrest?
Koh Samui prepare yourself, here come the Graltons (not Griswalds).
Good flight - thumbs up to Bangkok Airways. It was a little plane with propellers which was a new experience for the kids. After one hour we arrived on the island of Koh Samui where the welcome was a bit like Fantasy Island minus Tattoo the dwarf. It was all palm trees, coconuts, bures, open walled huts with fans and a steamy balmy sweaty climate. I had always poopooed linen shirts but now they seem little a stroke of genius. Our van promptly arrived and we drove (weaved, braked and tooted) our way from Chaweng (on the east of the island) to our resort near Nathon on the northwest of the island. Again, open walled huts, palm trees by the million, linen shirts and a low long beach stretching for about 200m before you finally meet the pale blue water.
Our accommodation is a two bedroomed villa right smack bang on the beach, i"d estimate that we are 10 steps from a small sea wall then it is sand and blue water for miles and miles and miles.
After unpacking, ordering the two extra fold out beds for the kids room and cossie-ing up, we headed for the 3 pools. We spent a long and overcast afternoon around the pools, on the beach, at the bar and generally relaxing with each other, Gus and Belinda, their families and friends. All really nice and very funny. Extremely hard to believe, but these mostly South Africans are hilarious. Very very funny and laid back. A massive windy storm hit at about 3pm lasting about 30 minutes then it was cool and breezy we headed back to the pools, bar and beach.
A couple of really funny things happened today which have made our stay so far very relaxed and funny.
Firstly, Harper was walking along and didn't realise that the path finished and a bush growing below had been hedged to make it appear as though the path just simply gave was to a leafy groundcover. So she walked off the path and immediately disappeared falling into the hedge below, A woman in the nearrby pool started screaming at us as we hadn't realised that Harper had just fallen through the ground. luckily she wasn't hurt and emerged laughing as the rest of us were in stitches too.
Later in the day, the kids were playing at the top of the beach where a clump of palm trees were growing. The palms were growing at an angle so they decided to climb them. In trying to climb the tree, Yanna was shaking it and a snake fell out of the tree landing on the sand right beside the kids, who all immediately then climbed the tree to get away from the roughly 1 meter long green tree snake (I hope!). One of the Saffers who, by the way, had rolled his minibar before happy hourS at the pool bar grabbed the snake by the head and relocated it. When he relocated the snake he found and injured bird - cue for kids to immediately leave the tree and crowd the p!ssed Saffer begging for a hold of the half dead bird. Then 2 manky foul local dogs came running up. The Saffer says "kids, distract the dogs", so Harper picks up a stick and runs with the stick. One dogs jumps on Harper and grabs the stick. Harps not uninjured but in tears. I was starting to feel more sorry for the Saffer at this stage who now had a throng of kids following him whilst he was holding the bird. From a distance we saw him carrying the probably now dead bird away with about 5 kids following him. He turned, said something to the kids and they all dropped their heads and turned back around and dispersed.
By about 6pm we were all pretty tired and hungry so the 6 of us went to the restaurant and had a nice meal. Back to our room to shower and put buckets of cream on to soothe the sunburns (yes, we underestimated the sun on this overcast day) have big drinks of water and turn in the night. Great day, happy to be here.
