Koh Samui

We figured we would be leaving Cambodia in serious need of decompression and relaxation so we scheduled Koh Samui as the next stop. Koh Samui is an island located in the Gulf Of Thailand, (also known as the Gulf of Siam), about an hours flight south of Bangkok. It is surrounded by sixty other islands. It’s a hot spot for honeymooners and partiers alike but this being the low season; we figured we would have it pretty much to ourselves.

We flew in on a Bangkok Airways Turboprop and arrived to find that it had rained for several weeks prior. Flights hadn’t been allowed in for days. Almost all the low-lying areas were flooded but they seemed to have it under control. We brought the sunshine with us.

We had decided long ago that we had no desire on this part of the trip to be in a resort so we went with the option of renting a private villa. Villas can be a risky proposition when you book them blind as the pictures on the web often are not really representative of the villa. You know….they took the photo 22 years ago and have not cleaned the place since sort of thing. This is NOT one of those.

Tassana Pra Villa is located on a mountaintop overlooking Bo Phut and Big Buddha Beach. It is a large Thai/Balinese house on an acre of lushly landscaped gardens with koi ponds, streams and flowers. The views are breathtaking. The whole front and back of the house are kept open all day long so that a breeze can blow through off of the waters below. There are large Balinese daybeds on the porches to lie in and stare off into space. There is a swing for 2 hanging in the gardens. Oh, and there is a free form infinity pool as well which brings you to the edge of the mountain. If you can’t relax here, you can’t relax anywhere.

We arrived and met the staff. Oi and Wally are the main caretakers of the property. They have been married for 40 years, and live here along with their dog, Dolly, and cat, Tassana. They act as hosts / parents to their guests. Oi cooks and Wally brings drinks and helps everyone with directions around the island. They make it feel like home.

Upon our arrival, Oi prepared a lunch of green papaya salad, marinated pork, fresh jasmine rice and pad thai. Each dish was more outstanding than the last. Patti immediately made plans to go shopping with Oi in the local market and watch her make dinner while we’re here so that she can learn her techniques and recipes.

Dade and Corey decided to take a ride down to Chaweng Beach, which is the main tourist area around here, to pick up a few things we’d need during our visit. Chaweng is what you might call slightly sleazy yet completely gentrified. While walking down the boulevard in search of a liquor store they were offered Thai Weed, Massage with happy ending, girlfriend for the week and, of course, transvestite hookers. Who could ask for anything more? Since we were not in need of those particular services, we settled for just the booze.

We had discovered that Samui is also a Mecca of sorts for great food. Chefs from all over Europe have moved here and opened restaurants catering to the tourist crowds. We had heard very good things about a place called Prego, which is run by a Roman expatriate chef and decided to give it a try. It’s funny how you can crave the flavors of home when you’ve been away for a few weeks. We managed to find our way there and enjoyed a traditional Italian meal in a spectacular open-air setting.

After dinner we took a drive through Chaweng to see if there was any good night-marketing to be done. Dade and Corey had assured the women that they had seen good shops that afternoon. Things must have looked really different during the light of day. What we found was a lot of seedy he-shes (lady-boys as the locals say) who seemed as curious about us as we were about them. The drive was fun but we kept on moving.

The following day we decided to not do anything. We needed to just chill so we scheduled two-hour Thai massages at the house. The ladies ranked right at the top of the massage food-chain. They were outstanding. We laid on the outdoor daybeds with the sounds of Buddhist Monks chanting in the background while they worked us over and twisted us around. It was absolute heaven and we immediately scheduled them for the following day.

The rest of the day was filled with swimming, eating and general relaxation. We sat on the patio in our daybed watching a movie while bathing in the warm breezes of Samui. It could not have been more sublime.

PART II

We went to bed very early, so we were up early. After a great breakfast we had the follow-up massages. Everywhere we have been we have found a pattern with the masseuses. The first time they massage you they do a great job but once they get to know your body and how flexible you are, they tend to turn up the heat on the second one. This was, once again, the case. Our ladies broke out new moves and had us all twisty and stretched by the end of the two hour session. If for no reason other than the massages, Thailand rocks!

Next on our agenda were lunch and a little adventure. Lunch was a breeze. We settled on a little waterfront place not far from the house and had a romantic little meal. Adventure was next. We found out that there was a canopy tour operating in the area and having done the “same thing” in Jamaica, we thought it sounded like a good idea.

Canopy Adventures advertises their canopy tour as if it just like the ones in Jamaica or Costa Rica. For the record, the Costa Rican canopy tours are the gold standard and the Jamaican ones are run by the same outfit. This however was something completely different.

Oi made the arrangements for us and gave us directions to the starting point. They went like this: Go down the main road until you see the Bank of Siam and the big sign for the tour and turn left. It sounded simple enough, right? Wrong!!!

We eventually found the road we were looking for due mostly to blind luck as the “big sign” was tiny and hidden and there was a bank on every corner. The good news was that we were now on the right road and had only four kilometers to go. We followed more signs, (the road signs, that is. Had we followed the cosmic signs we would have turned around long before), and came to one that told us to turn left. The problem was that the road we were now looking at was completely washed out by the rain. Actually, we don’t know that for sure, but we’re giving them the benefit of the doubt that the conditions were caused by recent weather, otherwise they were just plain crazy to think people should be driving down that on a regular basis. It was literally falling away from both sides and was so deeply rutted that it looked like you would need a monster truck to make it down the first section. We were in a 4WD Isuzu but had serious reservation about trying it. If the worst that could happen was getting stuck that would be one thing but this looked like death was lurking right over the edge.

Dade jumped out and walked a little ways down the incline. He came back and said, “There is no way we’re going down that road. It’s dangerous.” We pulled away and decided to look for an alternate entrance. As we were doing so, one of the Canopy Adventure trucks drove by with 2 Australian tourists clinging for dear life to the back. We asked them where the entrance was. They told us that indeed that dirt pit of death was where we were supposed to go. They told us it got a little “rough”, but if we had confidence in our vehicle we could give it a shot. All we could think was, “it gets rough AFTER that first part”? Well, Dade decided that if their truck could make it, so could ours. He swung the truck around and headed in. Rebecca meanwhile decided to cling to the roof and windows while saying, “Hey… 2 minutes ago you were calling this dangerous. Why am I now on this road???” Dade was not going to admit that the Thai could do it but not him.

We shifted into four-wheel-low and down we went. We made it through the first part without too much trouble. Our truck was tilted to angles it never should have been, but somehow we made it to a clearing where there was a sign saying “NO VEHICLES BEYOND THIS POINT” next to a small area where we could park. The sign made perfect sense to us because the path beyond was at a 65 degree angle and was completely washed out. It didn’t even seem possible that we could get the truck up there despite the fresh tire tracks.

We looked up to the top of the path and saw a woman standing there looking down at us. Dade got out of the truck and the woman indicated that she was from the company and he should drive on up. Rebecca’s response was simple. She said, “if that bitch thinks it’s safe to drive past that sign and up that death trap, why would we trust her to put us on a canopy tour”? Needless to say, we parked and hiked because Dade was still not convinced..

We reached the top of the hill, slipping and sliding all the way. The company representative then told us to keep heading upwards. The “office” was “just a little further up the hill.” We don’t know what drugs she was on, but the “hill” was a cliff. We were walking on soaking wet, slippery rocks with a sheer drop on one side of us and no barrier. The few “steps” that they had constructed were a few pieces of thin, rotten wood set 6 feet apart at an incline. Bridges were just a plank sinking into the mud. There were no railings. There was a lovely, though deadly waterfall below us. It was some surreal scene out of a bad horror movie, and Rebecca midway through decided that Dade was out of his mind, and she was about to freak out. Dade asked, “Do you want to turn around?” She thought… “DO I WANT TO TURN AROUND??? The path is too narrow for me to turn around and not plunge to my death… so NO; I don’t want to turn around. I want to get to this office, slap the girl that told us to come up here, kill you for driving me down that road, and miraculously sprout wings so that I don’t have to walk back down this insanity!” We kept hiking with Rebecca in front followed by Dade and the company girl bringing up the rear. At one point she actually reached out and slapped Dade across the ass and told him to hurry up…..we’re not even kidding. All he could think was: thank God she didn’t to that to Rebecca or we would have to explain how the girl was thrown off the ledge.”

Finally we reached the “office”, which consisted of a small shack with a few sets of soaking wet rappelling gear handing from rusty nails. The girl asked a few times for payment and Dade explained our reservations about the safety of this endeavor. Rebecca was making sense. If they thought everything was safe to this point, what could we expect next? Before we forked over a dime we asked how much farther we would have to hike and were told that it was another 200 meters. It made no sense….if we were at the ending point of the tour and the tour was composed of 6 slides at 200 meters each, how could we reach the beginning by walking only 200 meters? What she meant was that we had 200 meters of VERTICAL climb left. That was all it took. GAME OVER.

Rebecca said, “We’re bailing.” When asked why, her response was simply, “because I said so. Gut feeling! My Mom would never let me do this if she was here.” With that it was done. We said our goodbyes to the girl and set off to attempt the climb down. All the while, Rebecca was espousing about all the reasons in which we had made the right decision. She believes she may have saved their lives. Dade had to admit that she had a point. He tried to point out the pretty waterfalls and trees. She grunted and said, “Yeah, I can see them from here. No need to strap myself to a string 1500 feet up.” This was from the girl that had run off the Himalayas when paragliding. This company was a disaster.

Covered in mud from the walk down and a little pissed off, we headed back to civilization as fast as we could. We spent the next couple of hours swimming and watching the sunset with a few cocktails. We had another amazing home cooked Thai dinner and reflected on our near-death experience.

After dinner was done and we were enjoying the evening breeze, Wally asked Dade for his help with creating some luck. Dade and Corey followed him into the yard and saw that Wally had two Thai spirit balloons. It’s basically a large white paper bag with a frame at the open end that holds a flammable fuel essentially creating a hot air balloon. During the month of November, the Thai people set these off in a ritual where they attach their problems to the balloon and send them away. We lit the two balloons, attached all our problems and set them free.

Tomorrow we travel to our last stop before turning for home. Chiang Mai here we come!!

Comments

[honey]

Koh Samui villa is the perfect place for a quiet and peaceful holiday. We will be sure to recommend Koh Samui villa to our friends back in UK.

[Christine Garrison]

I am so happy I taught you something Bex. You are absolutely right--I would never have let you do it. Much better to have Thai massage and sit by the infinity pool with a nice big drink!

Love,
Mom

[sean drake]

hey rebecca & dade,

that was quite entertaining not that the previous have not been. very funny to say the least. next time before you do that balloon thing let me know and I will give you a few problems to release for me. lol

glad to hear your having a great time.

big love
sean