Island Time

Exploring, wandering, cooking and eating done in Chiang Mai, the time had come to head South to Koh Samui.  And honestly, after 2 weeks of urban traveling, the hubs and I were beyond ready to spend a full week doing nothing but some serious r&r on the beach.

Flying into Koh Samui, our excitement was through the roof – turquoise waters, tropical trees, jungles and beaches – we literally couldn’t get off the plane quick enough.  After checking into our bungalow and getting settled, we immediately entered what we call “island time.”  Don’t worry about anything – time, emails, what to do, where to go – just relax and enjoy.

We went straight to the beach, grabbed a cold beer and walked up and down, enjoying the warm (84°) water lap up against our ankles.  Turquoise blue waters as far as the eye could see, golden yellow sand, and a pink sunset…what more could you ask for?  We both took in a deep breath and literally felt more relaxed than we probably have in a long time.

The following days became a blur of time spent at the beach, getting massages and eating.   Although, we weren’t total bums, we did make a point to wake up early our first morning and enjoy the sunrise (which was really quite spectacular).  But after that first day, our motivation to wake up to an alarm completely left us.

We laid on loungers on the beach, shared Thai food from the local food trucks, cooled off with popsicles and beer, and literally just checked out.

We also swam a lot, and made a point to try not to get totally burnt to a crisp.   And…I read a whole book in 2 days.  2 days people!  I haven’t had that kind of time to sit down and read in years.  It was great, I loved every minute of it.  (Although my husband was a little like, “ummm…honey, are you done reading yet?”)

We were splitting our time on Koh Samui between two different parts of the Island, and so while we were in the North, we did a little bit of exploring.  But don’t worry, we only made a point to explore when it was a little rainy or overcast.  (Although we did enjoy a really fun swim in a complete downpour one day).

Although it actually worked out in our favor that it wasn’t completely sunny all day every day.  Even though we call San Diego home, neither one of us was ready for the intensity of the sun in Thailand.

During our time away from lounging, we explored a few nearby beaches that were supposed to be the best of the best.  But in the end, we found that our favorite beach was the one at our resort.  (Probably partially because we were being spoiled with tropical drinks.)

As far as food goes, well, we definitely had a few hits and a bunch of misses (as we have found on other Island travel that we have done).  But in the end, it didn’t really bother us.  What we came for was the sun, sea and sand…and that beyond made the mark.

Although we did have one very memorable dinner.  We picked out a restaurant one night that had high marks on Yelp, in hopes that the reviews were accurate.  But since we had already had a bunch of average meals, we went in not expecting much.

The host asked us, “would you prefer to sit inside or outside?”  We kind of stupidly at first chose inside.  However, in our defense, we had been outside in the almost 100° heat all day, and so we were a little excited about air conditioning.

But as soon as we sat down at our table and looked outside, we immediately changed our minds.  Right outside of the restaurant lay about 10 feet of soft golden sand right up until the turquoise water, with just a few tables.  Can something like this even be real?

Needless to say, we had a great, practically private, dinner on the beach.  Aside from the coconut fried ice cream, I wouldn’t necessarily return for the food, but for the experience?  That was priceless.

It felt like we had already shared so many priceless moments in Thailand together, and we kept adding more every day.  At so many points of our vacation we just felt so blessed for the opportunity to be there.  A few days into island time, and we were already charmed by Koh Samui.  We could only imagine what our final stop had in store for us.