Friday, Another Windy and Cloudy Day on Koh Samui

It's still windy and cloudy here on the island, and the surf is too rough to swim.  It's actually a little cool, too!

We had a very relaxing day today, starting with coffee on our porch, reading and enjoying the ocean view.  I could just live like this:

Here we are, having our morning coffee:

We had breakfast at the small open air restaurant at our hotel, it's about 20 steps from our bungalow.  Breakfast is included in our room price, and it was really a pretty good one.  A couple of Thai dishes, lots of fresh fruit, and toast.  Here's their toaster--I've never seen one like it before,  looks  like a hibachi.  It made perfect toast:

After breakfast we took a walk, venturing off the main drag into a residential area.  We enjoyed a nice walk down a dusty dirt road.

We saw two men picking coconuts and bananas to sell:

Maybe they sell them to this small store:

There were many, many chickens:

One very, very flat frog in the middle of the road:

And a small neighborhood store that had some birds for sale, they were in very pretty cages:

We came back to the main street, and I decided I needed  a pedicure, and a spa is not hard to find here--just about every other business is a spa and/or massage place.  I found a nice spa, and got a great mani/pedi for $12! While I was getting pampered, David was on a mission to find some coffee beans.  He found a Starbucks several blocks away, but the coffee beans were $30 a pound!  No thanks, we'll be drinking instant coffee for the next week.

We met back up at our bungalow, and relaxed on the porch reading our nooks.  Then we wandered over to our hotel cafe and had a light lunch,  enjoying the beach scene.  Look what we saw:

Beach vendors! For a minute there, I thought I was back in Mexico.  I need my dear friend Donna here to bargain for me, she can always get a better price.

Our bungalow had been cleaned while we were eating lunch, and here's the "towel art of the day"  A cute little elephant:

After lunch, David went for a walk up the beach, and I took a nap.  It feels great to relax and be lazy.....

After David's walk and my nap it was late afternoon.  We decided to explore a small town called Bo Phut, about 10 miles from Chaweng.  They have a Friday Night Walking Market in an area called Fisherman's Village.  It's supposed to be great fun, so we hailed a songthaew on the street, and away we went.

Our driver let us off at one end of Fisherman's Village, and we quickly found a nice beach front bar to have a cold beverage.  We like the beach better up at that end of the island, it's "flatter" and more sheltered, and no waves!  Didn't seem quite as windy on that side of the island, either.  Here's the pretty view:

After our drinks, we noticed that vendors were staring to set up, so we started strolling along the narrow street.  I found a really cute blouse that I couldn't resist.  It was now dinner time, and our plan was to munch our way through the market, trying new and different street food.

Our first course was a chicken satay, served with a very good peanut sauce:

Next up, steamed fish cakes wrapped in banana leaves.  They were quite spicy, and very good:

Ahhhh, more squid-on-a-stick,!  Usually we buy the smallest ones, which are mostly tentacles. We decide to try the bigger ones this time:

The first bite, the tentacle part,  was delicious!  The second bite---yuck, it still had the innards, all slimy and icky!  We spit it out and tossed the rest in the garbage.  From now on, only the small ones for us!

We came to a vendor selling nice looking fresh spring rolls, and shared one--it was delicious:

Something we've not seen before, a strange version of french fries.  They're spiral cut potatoes, skewered on a stick, then dipped in batter and deep fried:

They come out looking like this:

They were very tasty, but a bit greasy.  We rationalize eating this fat bomb,  it's a serving of vegetables, right?  We only ate about half:

We tried these tiny fried fish, they were crispy, crunchy and very good:

And another serving of veggies, grilled corn on the cob.  The corn we've had here is more like feed corn, old and tough.  It's pretty chewy, but actually very good:

We had a great time munching our way through the market, shopping and enjoying the festive atmosphere.  As the evening went on, there were more and more people.  As the sun set, the sky was very pretty:

We'd shopped and strolled for a couple of hours, and we were thinking it was time to head back to Chaweng.  But first, we "needed" some dessert!  David chose a fried rice cake with coconut milk.  A batter is poured into a very hot griddle, and as it cooks he adds thinly sliced green onions on the top.  Sounds strange, but these little things were delicious!  We agreed it was the best dish of the evening.

 When each little cake is done, he puts two together to make a delicious little round of yummy, gooey goodness:

I chose fresh coconut ice, topped with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk, fresh strawberry, shaved fresh coconut and a couple of gummy candies.  Served in a coconut shell, complete with a little umbrella.  It was very good:

It was a fun evening, and we'd enjoyed all the new foods we tried.  Well, except for that squid-on-a-stick!

We negotiated with a taxi driver for our ride back to Chaweng, and in a few short minutes we were "home".  It was a nice, lazy and relaxing day on Koh Samui island.

 We're hoping the weather improves tomorrow, we haven't even used our sunscreen yet.  Keep your fingers crossed for sunshine and no wind!