Not So Sunny Sunday in Koh Samui

Please, could someone send us a little sun?

The weather gods have not smiled on The Lundburys since we arrived on Koh Samui Island.  It's been windy and cloudy each day, and today we even had a few sprinkles.  NOT the tropical beach experience we were hoping for!

But, of course, we just go with the flow, and make the best of it.  At least it's still warm and humid, and that feels quite wonderful.

Our plan for the morning was to go back to where we were last night, Central Chaweng Beach.  We hailed a songthaew, told him Central Chaweng, thinking that would get us there.  Wrong!  He drove and drove, and then stopped right in front of that big Tesco grocery store, and motioned for us to get out.  I'm sure he was thinking he'd taken these two farangs far enough! We got out,  politely paid, and thanked him for the ride to "not where we wanted to go"!

Laughing at ourselves, we find the official taxi stand at Tesco, negotiate another ride, and set off for Central Chaweng Beach, we hope! This time we are successful, and again we pay and thank our driver.

 It's Sunday morning, so it's much quieter, and we enjoy just wandering around,  poking into the little shops.  We find a couple more tank tops for David, and a cute elephant mobile for our patio in Spudville.  About noon it looked like the sun was going to poke through, so we decide we'd head back to our hotel and lay by the pool.  Ahhhh--once again, the best laid plans.........

We hailed a songthaew on the street, and told him south Chaweng, and the name of our hotel.  We thought he understood, but my Thai must be a bit rusty.........


We drove and drove, all the while thinking "this doesn't seem familiar".  And then:  "We are NOT going in the right direction"!  Evidently he thought we wanted to go to Cheong Mon, a small fishing village where the ferry to the mainland docks--because that's where we end up, many miles from our hotel!  Oh well, it's a cute little beach village, so we just hop out, kindly pay him, and decide to find a place for lunch.

We found a nice beachside restaurant, ordered a couple of well deserved cold drinks and lunch.  It's a lovely location on a beautiful bay, complete with pretty fishing boats:

This old, beached boat had some very pretty carving and painted designs:

 We watch some families on the beach, hard at work repairing their nets:

We had a lunch of yummy Thai food, and especially enjoyed our cold drinks!  Here we are in Cheong Mon,  NOT Chaweng!

After our lunch, we decide to try again to get back "home".  We find a taxi this time, and tell him the name of the large hotel next to ours, and that seems to do the trick.  Soon we are back in Chaweng, several baht poorer for our wrong way taxi rides!

We quickly change into our suits and head for the pool.  By now the sun is gone,  it's very windy, and we even feel a few sprinkles.

Oh, well!  We relax and read for a couple of hours, it's still warm and humid, which feels great.  Even with sunscreen slathered on and no sunshine, I still get a little bit of a pink sunburn!

We've been thinking about getting a massage, and today seems to be the perfect day for it.   The massage tent is right by our bungalow, and we've been noticing they stay pretty busy--they must be good.

It's a traditional Thai massage, with a very firm touch, perfect for working out those "knots" I have in my back and shoulders.  We lay side by side, relaxing and letting them work their magic.  Oh my goodness, we've died and gone to heaven! David wonders why we haven't done this sooner.   I'm not sure why we haven't, but I am sure we'll be doing it again! All too soon our hour was up, and we slithered off that table and wobbled on our jelly legs back to our little bungalow.  The cost for this hour of pure bliss?  Less than $10 each!

We took a quick shower, as we were all "slicked up" with that lovely lemon grass oil from our massage.  We needed to relax a while to get our legs back, so we talked about what to do for the evening.  We were soooo relaxed, and really didn't have much energy, so we decide on a quick and simple dinner near our hotel.  No more taxi or songthaew rides today!

We chose a nearby Japanese restaurant and each had a bowl of soothing noodle soup.  It was just what we needed, and we strolled back to our hotel, talking about our fun and adventurous day, and our funny taxi rides.  It's a good thing we can laugh at ourselves.

In the pretty night sky over the ocean, we can see the moon and the stars,  we have our fingers (and our toes, and our eyes....) crossed for some SUN tomorrow!