Housekeeping in Koh Samui

Most people come to Koh Samui for a romantic getaway or on their honeymoon. There are some unbelievable 5 star resorts here where you can achieve that sort of luxurious lifestyle.  For example, the resort next to us – which we have dubbed The Angus Resort – because it’s just “a little bit fancy”!  The staff get up super early in the morning and go out and sweep the sand of their private beach (yes I did say sweep) and put out the towels on all the beach loungers etc.  The pool is about as big as a football field and some of the bungalows have their own plunge pool or jacuzzi.

Yes, we did bite and ask the age old question that tourists ask in this country – How much?  Probably quite affordable if you were just doing a little 7 day soujourn at $350-$400 a night but what you can expect when the sand has no footprints!

We decided to stay on our side of the fence and continue to pay our measley $100 a day for a 2 bedroom bungalow about 10 metres from the waves.  Really it’s not too shabby and we pay 40 Baht (ie abt $1.05) for fried rice while over at the Angus the patrons are shelling out 250 B.

So, there’s not much to do here which is exactly the idea.  After a couple of days in the jungle and at the lake, we had worn virtually every piece of clothing we owned and we spent our first morning washing. 

The kids loved their classmates soooo much that they had to bring a little bit of Regent College with them and we have been battling headlice ever since we finished school and have lathered them up yet again this morning!

Last night we decided to head over to Chaweng Beach, which is the “touristy” side of the island.  We’re actually on what Lonely Planet refers to as the “quiet, family” area.  So Chaweng – it reminded me an awful lot of Kuta in Bali.  The main street is filled with touts and stalls selling the Billabong ripoffs, bags and bikinis etc.  Then there’s the exciting stuff – 2 McDonalds, a Burger King, Haagen Daaz and Pizza Hut!  We allowed the kids a drink and some fries to quell their McDonalds cravings, prompting Caitlin to plead for spaghetti bolognese for dinner – “Please, pleeeeease no more rice”!

Chaweng beach is promoted as being beautiful and the best beach on the island.  Well I’m going to disagree with Lonely Planet here – yes ok the sand is powder fine, but the water is not beautiful and clear where we are here at Mae Nam Beach.  There are also about 2 million more people all riding jet skis it seems, so our side is definately more quiet.

The restaurants are all on the sand and when the lights are all lit it’s very pretty.  The normal beach vendors come by with the laser lights, ice creams, massage etc.  The one I fell for was the man with the baby monkey.  He draped it over Ashlea, who couldn’t get the smile off her face, and then asked for 200 B to take a photo with his own camera.  If I took it with my own camera he would drop it to 100 B ($3).  So we did it and immediately I regretted it thinking about how many monkeys had been stolen from their mothers to get tourist dollars.  This was further demonstrated when we saw at least 2 other “monkey men” and the last one back on the main street who had his poor monkey smoking cigarettes for tourist photos.

I am having a lot of trouble getting our photos to upload here so please check them out on Flickr at a later date – particularly the one of the monkey so at least it may have been a little bit worth it.