Long-tail boat, snorkelling and more delicious breakfasts

Yesterday morning, we had another brilliant morning thanks to the delicious breakfasts served at Fai restaurant. We ordered a pomelo, mango and pineapple salad to share, along with pancakes and maple syrup for Luke and a full English for me.

After breakfast we decided to walk the two miles to Thong Krut, where we heard there were many local restaurants. We debated taking an umbrella (huge ones are provided in the rooms) but decided against it and set off on the walk.

One of the first things we saw was a bull making a lil pal.

(Hint: it's on his back)

It did end up raining, but it was nothing heavy so we were fine. We saw lots of macaques tied up to trees or coconut stalls. We learnt at the sanctuary that this is because they are trained to climb the trees and get the coconuts down. It's horrible seeing them chained up, unable to move far, especially after seeing how active they are when they're in proper enclosures. 

We walked down to Thong Krut beach, to the end and back, before having lunch at an Italian restaurant.

(The sun even came out for all of five minutes!)

After lunch we popped to 7/11 for noodles and snacks.

And then walked back to the resort.

Back at the resort, we had pot noodles for dinner, it's expensive here so we can't afford to eat out every night! We want to save a bit of money so we can eat at Fai on our last night. After the noodles and watching Inception, we went down to the gym around 9.30pm, and then finished off with the steam room before heading up to bed.

This morning, another amazing breakfast at Fai! This time we ordered the pomelo and orange salad, and switched yesterday's order (so I had pancakes and Luke had the full English).

The half day longtail boat trip was already included in our package, so we booked it for today at 10am. Straight after breakfast we headed to reception, and we were taken to our boat. The driver (or sailor?) was a lil friendly Thai man, and after sitting under the cover and getting splashed A LOT, he told us to move up to the front of the boat so we could stay dry.

 

(On that blue bit in the photo)

He took us over to the island opposite Samui which is called Koh Tan. When we stopped, he got out a loaf of bread, breaking bits off and throwing them into the water. At first we were confused but when we looked into the water, there were hundreds of fish, and the water was beautifully crystal clear. He opened a trap-door style cupboard in his boat and bought out snorkels, to which I wanted to kick myself for not wearing my bikini. 

Luke's shorts were trunks, so he got straight in the water, while me and the Thai man threw bread so that the fish would swim close to him.

He popped his head out of the water and said it was the most amazing thing ever... So I ended up in the water in my clothes. Luckily my skirt has slits in, so the Thai man helped me tie it around my legs so I wouldn't be flashing my knickers to everyone and I got in the water. Luke was right, it was amazing, there were literally hundreds of fish and they all came so close, they would eat the bread right out of your hand, nibbling your fingers in the process.

We got out of the water and sat there in the sun for a while.

Next, the Thai man took us to a small island called Koh Mat Sum, this time not to go in the water.

He let us go for a walk up the beach, before showing us to a bench and giving us our 'picnic'. We were expecting sandwiches and fruit, so we were pleasantly surprised by tasty duck fried rice and tuna salad, with ice cold fresh orange juice. 

We then went and sat on the beach and went for a paddle, taking in the amazing surroundings. The Thai man bought us drinks from the cooler box, perfect in the sunshine!

The ride home was as lovely as the ride there, sitting at the front of the boat in the sunshine with the light spray of the sea felt amazing.

After we got back, we binge watched Big Bang Theory in the room and got room service for dinner. 

The triple decker club sandwich is very very impressive.

Also we noticed my new white crop top I acquired from today!

Oops! Luke is a little burnt too but nowhere near this bad. It's so painful! We just went down to the pool for a while because Luke wanted to swim and watch the sunset. It is an amazing view from the pool.

I think tomorrow we might get our massages (could be slightly painful with my sunburn), and then have our last meal at Fai! Have a look on the website for Elements Boutique Resort and Spa- the menu looks amazing. 

Room service and steak for breakfast!

So last night after sleeping the whole day, we didn't really want to get ready and go to one of the restaurants to eat, so we chose to order the equally overpriced room service. I ordered spaghetti bolognese (for the millionth time since we've been in Thailand) and Luke ordered the salmon, mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich with fries. 

We were very impressed, and being able to sit in bed watching TV whilst eating was brilliant. The rest of the evening was spent watching odd, dramatic American television programmes on the few English-speaking channels we can get in the room. 

This morning we got up and were pleasantly surprised to see that the rainstorm had stopped.

We went down to have breakfast at 9.30 in the restaurant called Fai, and we were definitely not disappointed by the menu.

We ordered coffees and fresh fruit juice each, and then Luke opted for the steak, while I chose the American pancakes with maple syrup and bacon. After being prompted by the waitress to order something else, we chose fresh mixed fruit to share.

After breakfast, we went for a stroll to see the pool and the private beach- both beautiful. We then decided to go to the gym because the weather had again turned. 

Yes, I know, 'Courtney' and 'exercise' don't usually go in the same sentence, but it was actually fun. We went on the running machines, cross trainers, rowing machine, and Luke embarrassed me by showing me how much more he could leg press (double what I could manage!). We then went in the steam room, and left after approximately two minutes, as we were completely dripping with sweat. 

Lunch was room service again, this time I was unimpressed by my cheese and cream penne pasta with morning glory, and envious of Luke's huge club sandwich and fries. We spent the afternoon drinking tea and playing cards, before going down to Bamboo, the Thai restaurant, for the two course meal that we had included in the price we've already paid for our stay. 

It was still raining, but we had our own little beach hut with cushions, so we could sit cross-legged or stretch out whilst eating. Apparently Wednesday is 'Thai night' so there was live Thai music and traditional Thai dancing which was good.

For starter, Luke had seafood salad, and I had creamy coconut chicken soup.

For main, I had chicken Pad Thai and Luke had duck red curry.

We both enjoyed the food a lot, and the atmosphere and music on the beach is amazing. After dinner, we went to choose a DVD from the collection at reception, we came back up to the room with Inception, some weird horror movie and The Police CD, so we've been dancing around the room to Roxanne whilst getting ready for bed.

Elements Boutique Resort and Spa Hideaway

So yesterday we checked out of the hostel after having one more delicious breakfast there. After this, all we needed to do was kill time until we needed to leave for the airport. Our flight wasn't until 6am today, but rather than pay for another nights accommodation and have to leave and rush in the early hours of the morning, we thought it wouldn't be too bad to spend the night in the airport.

To kill time, we walked up and down Khao San Road and Rambuttri Alley until we were sick of being asked to buy a suit, and ran out of witty replies/excuses. We met up with Gemma, our Aussie friend who we met at WFFT. We had lunch with her and caught up with all the gossip, and she showed us how to use BTS, the sky train, which is a cheaper alternative to getting a taxi to the airport.

After saying our goodbyes, we hopped on the sky train to the airport, costing us 45 baht each (less than £1). We had to stand for the whole journey, and it was very crowded but as it's high over the city, the views are enough to keep you occupied, and it took less than half an hour. As we looked down to the highway and saw the bumper-to-bumper traffic we were thankful for Gemma introducing us to the BTS! 

We arrived at the airport at 6pm, just twelve hours to kill before our flight. We had already checked in online, so we only needed to put our luggage through, but this wasn't until 4am, so we made ourselves comfortable in the seating area, playing endless games of cards and alphabet games until we were hungry enough to get some dinner. The food court in the airport is somewhat unimpressive before you go through security. Like airports everywhere, everything was overpriced and crowded. We stumbled upon a small stall selling Thai meals for 80 baht, so we sat down and had sticky rice and pork, proud that we had managed to avoid Starbucks and the overpriced Japanese sushi restaurant.

Ten minutes later though, Luke was hungry again, so we ended up in Burger King! I didn't eat there, but Luke demolished a double fish burger meal. At this point, it was around 10pm and we were starting to get tired. We walked back to the seating area and played more cards, more alphabet games, and killed more hours. 

At 4am, we almost cried with happiness as we put our bags through and walked through security. 

On the way to the gate, we saw signs for Subway and McDonalds, but everything was closed until 6am, so no breakfast for us! We boarded the plane at 5.30am, a small Bangkok Airways plane with friendly Thai staff, and both fell asleep before takeoff. Luke had just enough time to take a picture of the beautiful sunrise before we both passed out.

We awoke to find a Thai air hostess thrusting trays off food at us, 'free meal', which we weren't going to reject. It turned out to be an unimpressive noodle and saucy salad combo, but we were hungry so we ate most of it and fell back to sleep.

We landed at 7am, in the middle of a thunderstorm. The airport is tiny and the rain was so heavy, it definitely woke us up! We were met by a Thai driver holding up a sign for Elements Boutique Resort and Spa Hideaway, and we climbed in the huge car for the 45 minute drive to the resort. Neither of us could keep our eyes open and slept for the whole car journey, despite trying so hard to keep them open as I really wanted to see what Samui looked like! On arrival, we were met by William, a friendly member of staff who told us the basics of the facilities and restaurants and showed us to our room. 

It's beautiful, but all we wanted to do was climb into the huge comfy bed and go straight to sleep! That was this morning, it's now 6.20pm and I've since got up and showered. Luke is still sleeping (and snoring) heavily.

The minibar and room service meals are very expensive, and we suspect the hotel restaurants will be too, we didn't expect the resort to be quite so secluded! We need to eat though, so I'm going to wake Luke up now and see if we can decide where to have dinner.

Hopefully tomorrow we will actually see daylight and sunshine, and take more pictures of Koh Samui.