Good Bye Chiang Mai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hello Koh Samui!

We work this morning to clouds in Chiang Mai, fitting weather for our departure, as I was feeling a bit gloomy to be leaving.

But we're off to another adventure, the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.

We had a noon flight from Chiang Mai, and after a quick and inexpensive taxi ride to the airport, we quickly checked in and made our way to the appropriate gate.  We had a bit of a wait, as our flight was about 30 minutes late.

For this leg our our trip we flew on Bangkok Air and were happy with the flight and the service.  They even fed us lunch on a two hour flight, a pretty darn good panang chicken.  Not quite as delicious as what we cooked up yesterday in our cooking class, though!

We landed in Koh Samui to find more clouds and wind.  It's still quite warm and humid, though.

The airport here is tiny.  It's very tropical looking, and yes, this is the entire terminal!

There are certainly no jetways at the Koh Samui Airport, so we rode on these cute trolleys to the terminal:

 They let us off right in front of baggage claim.  There is just one luggage carousel:

We wanted relaxing and tropical--and I think we've found it!

A 15 minute taxi ride to South Chaweng beach, and we are at our "home" for the next 8 nights.  Our hotel is down a narrow lane off of the main road, so it's nice and quiet back here:

After the quick check in process, we were led through the lush tropical grounds to our bungalow, right in front of the pool and the beach!  Isn't it cute?

I think we'll be enjoying this little porch a lot this next week.  We'll be having our morning coffee right here:

Inside we were greeted with the usual "towel art" on the (very hard) bed:

Here's the view from our porch:

This is the view up the beach.  Notice that the ocean is very rough today, with red flag warnings.  It will have to be much calmer than this before I even dip a toe in it!

We quickly unpacked and set out to explore, and most importantly, find a cold beer!  Here's the view up the main street.  It's kind of old, rustic and has a certain charm.....

We found a nice looking little "bar" right up the street, ordered a cold beer for David, and The World's Smallest Margarita for me.  Seriously, it was positively miniature!  And NOT inexpensive...but at least it was a good one:

After that very quick sip, we cruised up and down the main drag, looking in the little shops.  David found a tank top, and I bought a beach sarong.  

We came across an open air vendor market with several food carts, and had a little snack.  Yup, squid-on-a-stick again; good stuff, and only 35 cents each!

We cruised around for a couple of hours, getting acquainted with our neighborhood and looking for a likely spot for dinner.  We passed up this pork dish:

Would that qualify as pig-on-a-stick???

We also passed up these,  because we had no idea what they were, and they looked a little scary.  We asked the nice lady, and we think she said crab, but our Thai might be a bit rusty.........

For Brenda:  Look what was right next to those scary looking critters--club sandwiches!  We passed them by, too.

We settled on a hole in the wall Thai restaurant down a little alley, and had a good pork and basil stir fry and some fried calamari with garlic and black pepper.  We do love our squid.........

After dinner we found a small grocery and stocked up on beer, pop and water.  And don't forget the sun-screen, because I'm sure it's going to be sunny tomorrow!  

Tomorrow in Koh Samui: Lay on the beach, enjoy cold drinks and relax. 

WARNING: This blog may be boring for the next week, as we don't have much planned other than lay on the beach, drink cold drinks and relax!