[YEAR 7!] Quit our jobs, sold our home, gone riding...

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Anton and Mel are treating us to a few days stay at the Renaissance Hotel and when we pulled up in the taxi, Neda and I were wowed by the opulence and luxury. After living in tents, hostels, friends couches and AirBnBs for the last four years, our eyes bugged at how nice everything was!

This was our room! I cried when I saw that the nightlights that lit up the path to the bathroom were little tea candles...

Hmmm, shall we hang out at this pool just outside our rooms....?

Or head down to the beach and drink some beers while sitting in the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand?

Even with my lack of verbal skills, I was able to make a new friend down at the second pool

 

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The beach by our hotel

Sun, sand and suds. This is the life!

This is what Thailand is famous for and after four months, we've finally experienced it. What a difference from the mountains in the north. We love it here!

Screw Chiang Mai. We're going to live here instead!

We just have to figure out how we're going to be able to afford this very lavish lifestyle...

Vendors sell gasoline by the bottle. Are there no gas stations here?

For the evening, we decide to head down to Lamai Beach to check out the action. It's about a couple of kms away from the resort and we took our time and walked all the way there, chatting about all the peculiarities of Thai culture that Anton and Mel had discovered in their short time here. Although we're definitely not old hands here yet, it was still interesting seeing Thailand from a brand new set of eyes!

Also, it was nice speaking English again. And joking around in English. I really miss that. A lot.

The main strip of Lamai Beach. So touristy!

The strip is littered with restaurants, pubs and of course, go-go bars. This one was called The Sexy Sex. I wonder what goes on in there...?

After seeing so much of Thailand, it's unfortunate that this is what farangs know about the country.

 

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We head down to the beach for a seafood dinner. Anton is picking out the crabs and fish we'll be eating. I sense that Neda is hungry...

We gorge on so much crab and red snapper! SOOO GOOOD!

Good food with great company! It's so nice when friends visit us while we're on the road. This is Mel's second time coming to see us. She rode out to Nova Scotia way back at the beginning of our trip to ride the east coast of Canada with us!

Another beautiful day hanging out at our hotel

They had a mixer at the hotel bar. With free massages and cocktails!

 

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The next day, we booked a kayak tour of the Ang Thong National Marine Park. The Park is actually an archipelago of 42 islands, some of them very small, so the actual number varies by how you define an island. We spend two hours by boat getting there, enjoying the tropical weather and salt-water breeze on our faces. This felt like such a vacation. Then it struck me that coming to Thailand in the first place was a vacation from our vacation. So really, this short trip to the islands was a vacation from our vacation from our vacation.... 555!

The boat anchors off one of the bigger islands and we're off to do some kayaking!

Some of the interestingly shaped islands in the Ang Thong Park

The park is about 50 square kms and the islands are really these huge limestone formations that jut out of the water. Time, weather and erosion have carved amazing nooks and crannies in the rock above the waterline, and kayaking into these naturally-formed grottos, shelves and hidden lagoons is a popular tourist activity.

Neda paddles out of one of the caves while I take a picture of her strange hat. I made her paddle in and out until I got the shot just right...

Neda paddles our kayak under these neat shelves that the tides have cut into the limestone while I take more pictures

Neda paddles out to one of the more unusual rock formations. I take a picture of the cool sharp jagged edges right at the top.

 

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Neda paddles our kayak into a small lagoon inside one of the caves. I take a picture of our fellow kayakers

The boat takes us to a couple of different islands and we can stop and walk around some of the secluded beaches.

Neda and Mel getting some girl-time in. I think Neda really misses female company.

Back out on the kayaks, Neda paddles us out through some narrow canyons. I take more pictures.

By the end of the day, Neda is asleep on the boat ride back to the Koh Samui. That girl is so lazy.

 

[Dave P.]

"It was bound to happen. After 18 years together, 12 years married and almost 4 years on the road joined at the hip for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...

Neda and I hardly talk to each other any more."

After seeing that..... and your earlier post about enjoying sweaty man hugs I though for a minute you were
going to "come out" and tell us you were gay!

 

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Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/293.html

Clear blue skies, golden sandy beaches within walking distance and friends to share it with. These warm island winds have a way of washing away all thoughts and concerns about yesterdays and tomorrows. Every morning we congregate over the bountiful and delicious breakfast at the luxury hotel where we're staying.

"What do you want to do today?" Shrugs all round. We take the path of least resistance: Hang out at the beach. Hang out at the pool. So easy and relaxing.

Every evening we head down to the Lamai Beach to our favorite seafood place that we found the first night. A nightly ritual develops, involving devouring copious amounts of crab and red snapper to the soundtrack of the dark waters of the sea lapping at the coast beside us. It's so idyllic here, but compared to Chiang Mai, the prices are outrageous! Every evening, I rankle at how much we're being charged to catch a tuk tuk into town and back to the hotel. Over double what we're used to paying in the north!

Sick of haggling with the tuk tuk drivers so...

For the price of a couple of tuk tuk rides, we rent scooters instead! We're mobile again!

Just like we're taking a vacation from our vacation from our vacation, we're now leaving behind a string of bikes every time we pick up and take off, scoring smaller and smaller wheels every new place we land. I feel very recursive, like a Mandelbrot drawing zooming in on itself.

Armed with our 125cc scoots, we set off to discover the island during the days

Through city streets and jungle roads, we roam around all of Koh Samui

 

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Stop to visit some touristy stuff. Like the Secret Buddha Garden.

We dive into the middle of Koh Samui. Our lawnmower-engined scoots complaining loudly as we climb broken dirt roads, overtaking Jeeps and Land Rovers to reach the peaks of the hills. Neda and I race Anton and Mel's scooter but we're hopelessly outmatched on the steep hill climbs as their scooter has a better engine. Either that or I ate too much at breakfast...

At the top of one of the hills, we find the Secret Buddha Gardens. So touristy!!!

A durian farmer named Khun Nim started decorating his land with all sorts of stone statues back in 1976

The large property now contains hundreds of stone tigers, dragons, musicians, warriors, etc. It's a nice place to go for a little hike, there's a stream, some stone houses you can go exploring inside.

But so touristy though!!!

Anton being a tourist

"Does it move or do something?"
"Dunno. Maybe you have to put a coin in somewhere..."

 

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Back on the ring road around Koh Samui

We did a whole loop around the circumference of the island. It's less than 60 kms around, but because we were puttering around on scooters and stopping to poke around all the sights it took us most of the afternoon. Despite the breeze, every once in a while, we would duck into an air-conditioned shopping mall to cool off from the searing sun overhead.

Most of the scenery here has a typical island feel to it - it reminds me a lot of Hawaii. And then the larger cities like Chaweng Beach are very developed, just like Waikiki Beach.

Mel checks her GPS on one of our stops

Neda offered me a chance to ride. Check out our geeky brain buckets!

Most of the scooter riders on the island are farangs (Actually it seems like most of the population here are farangs), and they all ride without helmets. We feel very geeky with our beanies on...

That evening at dinner, Anton announces, "I don't want to go back to work! We're just going to hang out with you guys a little bit more!"

555! That's awesome! Our travel bug is like an infectious disease and we've just contaminated two more people! But having seen the entire island of Koh Samui, where else can we go now?

We abandon our scooters and head to the docks...

(To be continued)

 

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Happy Four Year Anniversary!

We left Toronto on June 14th, 2012. We were on two motorcycles with no plan, no route - just the wide open road in front of us. We could never have guessed at all the places that we'd visit, the things we'd see and the people that we'd meet along the way. One thing for certain is that we never thought we'd be out here for this long. But we travel slowly and there is still a lot of world to see.

To everyone who's following our journey: thank you for all your emails and PMs, all of your comments and your encouragement. We love having you as our virtual passengers and sharing our experiences with you.

Please grab some cake and help celebrate with us!

Neda & Gene

 

[Billhilly]

Congratulations!!

 

[Herbie]

WOW!

Time to get a mod to update the thread title, eh? ;-)

 

[jpc1818]

love the "virtual passengers".. sums up exactly how I feel.
Just a super awesome blog...
Congrats!

 

[profdlp]

Best travel thread there is. That's saying something, because there are a lot of very, very good ones.

 

[JayBlack]

Congrats !! It's funny I have been reading this blog since the beginning and I talk about it so much that my wife thought I knew Gene from my time in Canada !