ISpyShanghai

It seems like a long time since I was on the beach at Koh Samui, listening to the sound of the waves and waiting for my Tom Yum Goon to turn up (a kind of soup, not a male prostitute).

Koh Samui is a beautiful island- Palm Trees everywhere, the main industry until the tourists arrived was Coconuts.

The temperature was around 29 degrees with a slight breeze the whole time I was there.  Perfect.

Sandy beaches with shallow warm water ring the island, there are Butterflies everywhere (cool little Geckos eat most of the Mosquitoes). I saw some local kids ride a water Buffalo into the sea and a Monkey climb a tree to pick Cocunuts for its owners- it could be anytime over the last 150 years if there wasn’t a Starbucks.

We stayed at Emma’s parents house, a gorgeous place that has speakers outside so you can listen to Shaggy as you play Water Volleyball in the pool.  

 

 

The house is at Mae Nam, the pick of the beaches on the island- and since Emma’s parents (thanks Alan and Helen!) lent us their car, we drove around the whole island a few times to see what was around.

There are a couple of bigger resorts including Cha Weng where we met a bunch of 10 year old kids that play Connect 4 for money. Our buddies Yi and Joern were visiting the island at the same time, and Joern was mouthing off about how great he is at Connect 4. He was still a bit edgy about playing the kids though.

Come on man, don’t be scare!

Said the kid. Eventually, after I offered to put up half of the stake (the winner gets 100 RMB), Joern went for it.
 

He lost, obviously. The kid’s a professional athlete for flip’s sake.

Other things I saw on Koh Samui include (can you tell I’m running out of lunch hour?):

 

 

 

 

Ahh Thailand…