Lots of street markets, tuktuk taxis and bright coloured taxis and food stalls.
We spent the first night at the night bizarre sussing out prices and the battering technique (which i hate and completely suck at!!!). Didn't buy too much this night but had fun and a good look around. There was live music, bars and lots of food places to choose from. So of course i enjoyed several yummy thai samples!!!
While in Bangkok we also went to the floating markets. It was really fun on the boats amongst the chaos, very hectic boat jam!
After that we went to the temples, it was nice, but a little commercialised. The goldern buddah was enormous! I liked the little quieter temple.
We had a yummy dinner at this groovy restaurant that specialised in salads like green mango or green papaya salad. Then spent the rest of the evening wandering around saium square and saw more street markets.
Flew to Koh Samui on a really small cute little plane and landed in a really little airport that was instantly so relaxing. Got a car and went to our resort---yey yey yey i got to drive again!!!!
Settled into our place, checked out the beach, went for a swim and later headed into the busy area with food, bars and markets stalls. It was so busy, i couldn't believe how many tourists are on the island!! Koh Samui was really nice though, island breakfast, relaxing in the sun, reading and swimming was really what i needed, but the best of all was the thai massages--i am totally addicted!! They are so relaxing and calming, but at the same time leave you feeling alert and refreshed.
During my entire stay i had 5 massages in total--2 in bangkok and 3 in koh samui!!!
We went and checked out parts of the island and a detox type of retreat, then had dinner at Big Johns and were fortunate to be there when they put on a cultural dance show. It was really nice to watch, but it was staring to rain and get a bit stormy.
My favourite day was when we checked out "the grandparents" (bizarre rock formations in the shape of male and female genitalia), went for the elephant ride in the jungle to the river and then we trekked up to this waterfall and had a swimm. I thought i was going to die getting up there--it was so challenging, but the waterfall was so awesome to swim in, so invigorating and a perfect reward! The elephant was really cute her name was "lady" in english and she was 35yrs old. I got to feed her bananas too, their trunks are amazing and she had really long eyelashes and pink spotty ears. I can definately say that horse riding is much more comfortable! We were so lucky too, we were able to ride her sitting on the neck with her ears flapping!! It was so fun, i loved it. We had yet another yummy thai dinner that night. I think Hadi had Tom yum every chance he could get and lots of fresh seafood too. I especially loved the fresh fruits during the day. There is something about thailand-- i think it casts a spell over you because i definately want to go back!! Even certain smells remind me and make me think of how awesome it is. Its was an excellent week away. I will have to go there again because there is so much more to see.
