January 27th, 2018
I really enjoyed this day. So did Brooke, I think. I woke up early and sat out on my little porch with my instant coffee and maps to plan out what we'd be getting into. I could see both mountains and ocean from the little nook or a balcony. It wasn't blistering hot yet, it was perfect.
This was the first day that Olivia and I would have a separate day.
Kiana expressed concern that we were spending too much money, understandably. See, her situation was quite different from ours. She'd been traveling for five months and still has a couple of months to go. Brooke and I only had two weeks and had to do everything we could before we had to leave... Then we'd have to wait another year to go anywhere else. So, with different money strategies we decided to split up for the next couple of days. It turned out for the best!
Koh Samui is a loungey place to begin with. There's no hustle and bustle, nor any serious MUST SEE spots. It's a vacation destination. I chose it out of the plethora of Thai islands because it seemed to be more up our alley than some of the other party destinations. We wanted calm and beautiful, not backpacky and wild. I will say for the record that Koh Samui was the location I was least stoked about out of all the places we'd planned to visit. Mainly because I was worried there wouldn't be a lot to do. However, as I was sitting on my porch this morning with my coffee, I hit gold. I can see myself looking back to that easy morning for some time in the future. It was serene. The view was inspiring. The night before I felt wretched in my sinuses. I still couldn't hear myself and I was a bit disoriented still, but I was struck by a flash of optimism that led me to planning a great couple of days... Which was something I'd already given up on in all my ill moodiness.
With Brooke still resting, I devised our plan. I scheduled multiple activities for the morning, then zero activities for the afternoon. This 0 activity time had two functions: 1) to appease Brooke, knowing she'd be tired and knowing of her fondness of lounging, and 2) to let us honestly rest up for the crazy long day I had planned for the NEXT day.
Ok, up and outta there. We stayed in Finsherman's Village on the north side of the island. Knowing what I know now, I know this was a mistake. Though not a huge mistake. I know now that it should have booked us a room by Lamai Beach on the east coast of the island. BUT ALAS here we are in the north and we need a taxi. Same taxi guys worked at the entrance of Fisherman's Village every day we were there (and probably every day we weren't there). The head honcho was a trip. Always asking too much. Then I'd LITERALLY WALK AWAY and he'd call me back saying "ok, ok." He'd snap at one of his boys and they'd run go get their cars to take us for the price I'd offered. We'd do this dance multiple times a day. Same thing. I'd LEAVE. Turn my back, GOODBYE. And he'd holler after me. He never acted like I was familiar though...
Anyways, Brooke and I hopped in the car and we headed clockwise around the island- we went from 12 o'clock to about 3 o'clock. He let us out at the restaurant I'd planned for us to have breakfast at, Wild Tribe Cafe. Nice looking place!
And the food was good too. Brooke and I both got yummy juices to help fix our immune systems. She got french toast and I got avocado toast. Here's a picture of it. Can you tell that it's avocado toast??
After eating I ran across the street to ask a travel information person about which would be the best way to get to our next location. Aptly named Overlook Stone, this little spot seemed to be omitted from many tourist itineraries... So I was worried a taxi driver wouldn't know where to take us! Plus, I knew the road to it was too steep for cars to drive on... So I really was at a loss for what to do. But I was gonna figure it out. Brooke knew none of this.
The tourist info woman was very sweet and assured me that the taxi drivers would know what I was talking about when I asked to be taken to Overlook Stone. Great!
Brooke and I scoop up our things and head out to find a taxi. Easy enough, the young man knew what I was talking about and we got on the road. He promptly let us out at the wrong rock though... Uh oh, this was Valentine's Rock. So now we have confusion. No worries, just have him talk to the woman working at this rock's front desk! I sent him off after having a discussion with her about how the taxi wouldn't be able to take me all the way there... on and on. He came back from her knowing where to take us now! Great! Off we go again!
He seemed very nervous... The woman told me we'd have to park on the side of the highway and walk up hill, so I wasn't sure why he continued to drive up the steep mountain road as far as he did. But again, he seemed nervous. So did Brooke! Remember- she didn't know what we were doing. I was kinda on the side of- ok let's just let him drive as far as he will... but eventually we got to a place where the road was so steep that it would break his car. He told us he would wait for us there.
We hopped out and followed red signs up.
This hike was DIFFICULT. Brooke was NOT happy with me AT ALL. She had no idea what we were doing. Not that I was holding it from her. I just kept saying, "There's a really good view up here!"
At one point I looked back and realized our taxi boy was following us! I guess in all his confusion he was ready to figure out what all the fuss was about with this stone. He was taking pictures the whole way up. Also smoking a cigarette. Which I found astonishing based on how hard my lungs were working to just walk. It was so steep. He called for us at one point. I stepped back and met with him. He tried to tell me that we took a wrong turn. I disagreed, but he persisted... So Brooke and I both turned back with him to look. She was so irritated that we hiked all that steep mess for nothing... So imagine how irritated she was when I reached the bottom of where we just descended and I realized that he'd actually been wrong and we needed to hike it all again! Ooooh I was scared to talk to her!
So at a point we made a left from the path into a person's yard. Signs confirmed that we were headed the right way. Taxi boy still taking pics of himself and us.
It was a beautiful walk.
Then, we ran into it! The Overlook Stone! Magnificent! So Huge! How is it sitting there like that?! Look how high we are! Look at the vast ocean and island beach that goes on for miles!!
Brooke's like, "We came here to see a rock?"
Yeah we did! This isn't a normal rock, baby! It's like, sitting there! Up high on this ledge and it's looking out across the gorgeous Thai landscape! No one else is here! No tourists! It's magical!
Later Brooke posted a picture on her Instagram that featured Overlook Stone. It was captioned, "I present to you: A rock." I was laughing hard at this.
Anyways, we took lots of pictures and our taxi boy took lots of pictures. Then we headed back down for the next activity.
Our boy and I arranged a payment plan for the whole day. Now he was taking up back over towards our hotel, but to a wat. Imagine Brooke's excitement when I told her.
HAHA just kidding, she was fine about it! I know my "but this wat is different!" comeback had lost its effectiveness at this point, but this wat really was kinda different!
For one, its ground was boiling hot enough to have a sign out front that warned us not to take off our shoes in the daylight hours. For two, it looked different!
I liked this wat. It's called Big Buddha!
Final activity was more of a chore. Brooke and I stopped into a tourist info booth to sign up for tomorrow's activities. We would go to Angthong National Marine Park on a speedboat. Stay tuned. Booking this kind of thing in advance is key, but generally (depending on the tourist season) you can book the day before and be fine. Same went for Peru. I'm getting more comfortable with booking things on the spot.
After this, we were actually done! Food, views, and wat. That's all I had in store! I paid our taxi boy and said farewell. Thanks for sticking with us.
The rest of the day was for relaxation. Brooke and I napped for a while and waited for Olivia and Kiana to get back from their day.
Luckily they survived and made it home. They'd rented a motorbike. Which is all fine and dandy, I knew Kiana was very experienced at this point with driving... But Olivia...
Kiana and Olivia had come up with a grand plan for dinner. In their adventure day they'd come upon a mega grocery store. I have always had a special fondness for foreign grocery stores... But within the past year I have realized I have quite the little obsession with grocery stores in general. (Only after watching hours of grocery hauls on Youtube did I really discover this in myself. That's what your 20s is about though, right?) So I was faaaaaairly excited to hear more about this plan.
So their idea was for a couple of us to go on the motorbike back to the grocer to pick up some items for a homemade dinner to have on the roof.
Olivia wanted to shower and chill, so I hopped on the back of the motorbike and road with Kiana to the store.
The grocery spot was massive. We parked in the motorbike parking lot and headed in. I had to leave my bag at the counter for pick up afterwards. We had specific orders to bring hummus and crackers home. Olivia wanted wine. Everyone wanted something substantial and vegan (Kiana isn't vegan but Olivia would be happy with vegan food, so it was her MO to bring some back). All we had to work with back home was a water boiler. So this was fun.
Zooming around the store we finally found hummus. Picking crackers was easy enough. The Hot Bar they'd heard about wasn't actually hot.. so that threw a wrench in the plan. Finding vegan ramen is near impossible (though I think we could have done it with more time). We weren't sure where to go from here, having no microwave or heating top to make hot food!
But eventually I came up with a plan. Reaching back into my research of hiking the Appalachian Trail (a dream/obsession I had for a very solid 4 months in 2016 that was eventually spoiled by a job offer), I decided making spaghetti would be perfect. All we'd need was noddles, sauce, a bowl, and boiled water. Pour the boiling water from the pitcher into the bowl of dry noodles, cover with a cloth, let sit, stir, then repeat once more after a few minutes. Bam, spaghetti. We bought a large bowl for soaking, a few forks, and and some little paper serving bowls. We actually found Prego too. Kiana picked out a baguette. Pay, then back on the motorbike.
Everyone was on board with the plan! I honestly thought I would get more slack than I did! So we started cooking!! As we were getting ready we all munched on appetizers of hummus and crackers. Brooke organized a nice little basket full of supplies- forks, wine opener, tea candles, napkins, lighter. When the noodles were ready, we hauled the whole lot upstairs to the roof. PERFECT timing for the sunset over the mountains. The sound of the ocean and the cool breezes made the whole thing just incredible. It was a brilliant dinner in! We chatted and laughed (uncontrollably at times). Olivia really entertained us. After, we made sure to get lots of rest for the next big day!
This was the first day that Olivia and I would have a separate day.
Kiana expressed concern that we were spending too much money, understandably. See, her situation was quite different from ours. She'd been traveling for five months and still has a couple of months to go. Brooke and I only had two weeks and had to do everything we could before we had to leave... Then we'd have to wait another year to go anywhere else. So, with different money strategies we decided to split up for the next couple of days. It turned out for the best!
Koh Samui is a loungey place to begin with. There's no hustle and bustle, nor any serious MUST SEE spots. It's a vacation destination. I chose it out of the plethora of Thai islands because it seemed to be more up our alley than some of the other party destinations. We wanted calm and beautiful, not backpacky and wild. I will say for the record that Koh Samui was the location I was least stoked about out of all the places we'd planned to visit. Mainly because I was worried there wouldn't be a lot to do. However, as I was sitting on my porch this morning with my coffee, I hit gold. I can see myself looking back to that easy morning for some time in the future. It was serene. The view was inspiring. The night before I felt wretched in my sinuses. I still couldn't hear myself and I was a bit disoriented still, but I was struck by a flash of optimism that led me to planning a great couple of days... Which was something I'd already given up on in all my ill moodiness.
With Brooke still resting, I devised our plan. I scheduled multiple activities for the morning, then zero activities for the afternoon. This 0 activity time had two functions: 1) to appease Brooke, knowing she'd be tired and knowing of her fondness of lounging, and 2) to let us honestly rest up for the crazy long day I had planned for the NEXT day.
Ok, up and outta there. We stayed in Finsherman's Village on the north side of the island. Knowing what I know now, I know this was a mistake. Though not a huge mistake. I know now that it should have booked us a room by Lamai Beach on the east coast of the island. BUT ALAS here we are in the north and we need a taxi. Same taxi guys worked at the entrance of Fisherman's Village every day we were there (and probably every day we weren't there). The head honcho was a trip. Always asking too much. Then I'd LITERALLY WALK AWAY and he'd call me back saying "ok, ok." He'd snap at one of his boys and they'd run go get their cars to take us for the price I'd offered. We'd do this dance multiple times a day. Same thing. I'd LEAVE. Turn my back, GOODBYE. And he'd holler after me. He never acted like I was familiar though...
Anyways, Brooke and I hopped in the car and we headed clockwise around the island- we went from 12 o'clock to about 3 o'clock. He let us out at the restaurant I'd planned for us to have breakfast at, Wild Tribe Cafe. Nice looking place!
And the food was good too. Brooke and I both got yummy juices to help fix our immune systems. She got french toast and I got avocado toast. Here's a picture of it. Can you tell that it's avocado toast??
The tourist info woman was very sweet and assured me that the taxi drivers would know what I was talking about when I asked to be taken to Overlook Stone. Great!
Brooke and I scoop up our things and head out to find a taxi. Easy enough, the young man knew what I was talking about and we got on the road. He promptly let us out at the wrong rock though... Uh oh, this was Valentine's Rock. So now we have confusion. No worries, just have him talk to the woman working at this rock's front desk! I sent him off after having a discussion with her about how the taxi wouldn't be able to take me all the way there... on and on. He came back from her knowing where to take us now! Great! Off we go again!
He seemed very nervous... The woman told me we'd have to park on the side of the highway and walk up hill, so I wasn't sure why he continued to drive up the steep mountain road as far as he did. But again, he seemed nervous. So did Brooke! Remember- she didn't know what we were doing. I was kinda on the side of- ok let's just let him drive as far as he will... but eventually we got to a place where the road was so steep that it would break his car. He told us he would wait for us there.
We hopped out and followed red signs up.
At one point I looked back and realized our taxi boy was following us! I guess in all his confusion he was ready to figure out what all the fuss was about with this stone. He was taking pictures the whole way up. Also smoking a cigarette. Which I found astonishing based on how hard my lungs were working to just walk. It was so steep. He called for us at one point. I stepped back and met with him. He tried to tell me that we took a wrong turn. I disagreed, but he persisted... So Brooke and I both turned back with him to look. She was so irritated that we hiked all that steep mess for nothing... So imagine how irritated she was when I reached the bottom of where we just descended and I realized that he'd actually been wrong and we needed to hike it all again! Ooooh I was scared to talk to her!
So at a point we made a left from the path into a person's yard. Signs confirmed that we were headed the right way. Taxi boy still taking pics of himself and us.
Then, we ran into it! The Overlook Stone! Magnificent! So Huge! How is it sitting there like that?! Look how high we are! Look at the vast ocean and island beach that goes on for miles!!
Brooke's like, "We came here to see a rock?"
Anyways, we took lots of pictures and our taxi boy took lots of pictures. Then we headed back down for the next activity.
Our boy and I arranged a payment plan for the whole day. Now he was taking up back over towards our hotel, but to a wat. Imagine Brooke's excitement when I told her.
HAHA just kidding, she was fine about it! I know my "but this wat is different!" comeback had lost its effectiveness at this point, but this wat really was kinda different!
For one, its ground was boiling hot enough to have a sign out front that warned us not to take off our shoes in the daylight hours. For two, it looked different!
Final activity was more of a chore. Brooke and I stopped into a tourist info booth to sign up for tomorrow's activities. We would go to Angthong National Marine Park on a speedboat. Stay tuned. Booking this kind of thing in advance is key, but generally (depending on the tourist season) you can book the day before and be fine. Same went for Peru. I'm getting more comfortable with booking things on the spot.
After this, we were actually done! Food, views, and wat. That's all I had in store! I paid our taxi boy and said farewell. Thanks for sticking with us.
The rest of the day was for relaxation. Brooke and I napped for a while and waited for Olivia and Kiana to get back from their day.
Luckily they survived and made it home. They'd rented a motorbike. Which is all fine and dandy, I knew Kiana was very experienced at this point with driving... But Olivia...
Kiana and Olivia had come up with a grand plan for dinner. In their adventure day they'd come upon a mega grocery store. I have always had a special fondness for foreign grocery stores... But within the past year I have realized I have quite the little obsession with grocery stores in general. (Only after watching hours of grocery hauls on Youtube did I really discover this in myself. That's what your 20s is about though, right?) So I was faaaaaairly excited to hear more about this plan.
So their idea was for a couple of us to go on the motorbike back to the grocer to pick up some items for a homemade dinner to have on the roof.
Olivia wanted to shower and chill, so I hopped on the back of the motorbike and road with Kiana to the store.
The grocery spot was massive. We parked in the motorbike parking lot and headed in. I had to leave my bag at the counter for pick up afterwards. We had specific orders to bring hummus and crackers home. Olivia wanted wine. Everyone wanted something substantial and vegan (Kiana isn't vegan but Olivia would be happy with vegan food, so it was her MO to bring some back). All we had to work with back home was a water boiler. So this was fun.
Zooming around the store we finally found hummus. Picking crackers was easy enough. The Hot Bar they'd heard about wasn't actually hot.. so that threw a wrench in the plan. Finding vegan ramen is near impossible (though I think we could have done it with more time). We weren't sure where to go from here, having no microwave or heating top to make hot food!
But eventually I came up with a plan. Reaching back into my research of hiking the Appalachian Trail (a dream/obsession I had for a very solid 4 months in 2016 that was eventually spoiled by a job offer), I decided making spaghetti would be perfect. All we'd need was noddles, sauce, a bowl, and boiled water. Pour the boiling water from the pitcher into the bowl of dry noodles, cover with a cloth, let sit, stir, then repeat once more after a few minutes. Bam, spaghetti. We bought a large bowl for soaking, a few forks, and and some little paper serving bowls. We actually found Prego too. Kiana picked out a baguette. Pay, then back on the motorbike.
Everyone was on board with the plan! I honestly thought I would get more slack than I did! So we started cooking!! As we were getting ready we all munched on appetizers of hummus and crackers. Brooke organized a nice little basket full of supplies- forks, wine opener, tea candles, napkins, lighter. When the noodles were ready, we hauled the whole lot upstairs to the roof. PERFECT timing for the sunset over the mountains. The sound of the ocean and the cool breezes made the whole thing just incredible. It was a brilliant dinner in! We chatted and laughed (uncontrollably at times). Olivia really entertained us. After, we made sure to get lots of rest for the next big day!
Awesome!
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