The day started out great, with the sun finally out, and beating down on the damp island. After a huge buffet breakfast, we finally got into the water, which was still chilly like iced water, but at least the sun was out. We skipped the beach because the water was still a bit murky, given that the flood waters were still draining into the ocean.
We heard that during the flood crisis early this week, our resort was waist deep in flood waters! I have no idea how that might’ve looked. It was like their Ondoy, they say the worst flood they’ve seen in 40 years. And we missed it by a mere 3 days. Now we have a better idea just how lucky our timing actually was. What we thought was crappy timing turned out to be great timing. Weird though, everyone in Koh Samui tells us November is really typhoon month, but our Lonely Planet book said that November to April are the best months to visit the island. Apparently NOT.
But nevertheless, it was quite a bummer because the sunshine only lasted about 30 minutes, replaced by cloudy skies and the occasional drizzle, but we didn’t let it dampen our spirits. For lunch, we decided to to walk the streets of Chaweng Road, the city street parallel to the beach. It was such a delightful road! I don’t know what it was, but it had a dainty quality to it, lots of nice shops and restaurants, in Tagalog, maaliwalas, and I had so much fun just walking around aimlessly, looking for a nice place to eat. One sign though, reminded me of home:
Trying to budget our money, we opted for a hole-in-the-wall joint and we feasted on spicy squid salad, more tom yum, and fried glass noodles with pork. For a mere fraction of what we’d pay for had we eaten at the resort, it was delicious! I guess what made it extra tasty was the fact that it was so cheap. We had to stop ourselves from buying stuff because I’m sure most of what we see here, we’d see in Bangkok, and cheaper.
And check out the Thai Coke Light:
We went for a Thai massage in the late afternoon and I turned into jelly when my calves were massaged. It was such a relief after all that walking. On our way back, we ate dinner in another small restaurant, and the papaya salad was the spiciest food I’ve eaten to far. Literally, it felt like someone punched me in the chest! My mouth was numb for half an hour. I was talking like: “Bith, cad ay hab a glat ob wadduh…” I swear my hearing was cut in half after that meal. It was too much. So not going back there. Just looking at the photo makes my tongue tingle again.
The other stuff was good though, some noodle thingy and some pork with veggies thingy.
Then, on our way out, we saw that they were also serving shark on the menu. Sad though, because I know all shark species are already endangered, although I don’t know if rules are different here in Thailand. They didn’t seem to mind me taking pictures of it, so I guess it isn’t illegal here. Then I saw at least 5 more restos serving the same thing.
Walking at night was even more spectacular: bright neon lights, trannies passing out leaflets for their burlesque shows, drunk foreigners making asses of themselves…fantastic! Of course I was glad to see my headache tonic, Starbucks, but it was surprisingly empty. The streets were crawling with throngs of people, but Starbucks was empty. I guess it’s not as popular here as it is in the Philippines. I grabbed a latte, the caffeine of which, will hopefully keep me headache free for the rest of the night.
Mighty pissed though because I completely forgot that tonight was the premiere of Nat Geo’s Great Migrations! We planned to watch it here at the resort, but we completely forgot. จิ๋ว!
