A week in paradise

uhm... 12 months later?

So, it turns out that I didn’t press publish on this piece while I was travelling through Asia last year. Its the weeks diary for my stay in Koh Samui. Well, no sense in wasting the work. Here is is, a year later!

Monday

No need to leave the reservation. None at all. And I haven’t for nearly three whole days. We were planning to do a day trip to the local run distillery, but it was closed so that will have to be later in the week.

I’ve been up in the morning doing laps of the pool, eating plenty of good food, probably drinking too much and catching up with old friends.

And the massage. Thai massage is not to be missed here. Its my third visit to this fabulous country and each time I’ve indulged. This time, the masseuse  - a tiny Thai Mama with a power to size ratio that would put olympic weightlifters to shame - managed to stretch things that had never been stretched before. And I say that as a former freestyle and greco-roman wrestler. In fact I genuinely tapped out at one point, when I thought my knee was going to pop out of its socket. But aside from that it was amazing.

I seem to have a previously unknown pleasure centre located in my lower spine. When she applied a certain amount of pressure there the world around me changed and there was heavenly music in my whole body.

And despite what I said about my knee… I’ve not felt this good in the general knee area for years. I’ve not felt the need to use my cane once since I got here (although I will take it with me when we inevitably go somewhere like a night market)

Tuesday

A boat excursion after breakfast. I nearly didn’t make it… woke up in the middle of the night with rocks in my stomach. Possibly something I ate? Probably. Almost certainly. So I decided to have an easy day. Oats and toast for breakfast; Minimal lunch.

It took an hour to drive across the island in four minivans (there are 40 of us) to the north side docks facing Koh Phan Yan (our destination). We had a luxury catamaran with catering and DJ set up for the majority of the day, which promised snorkelling, beaches and fun…

it would seem that monsoon season had other ideas. Only a few hours in and the rains hit us. But not to worry - the boat was covered, spirits were high and the weather HOT (as always). so we hung around off the coast of the island and partied on the boat.

Looking out at the island, you can’t help but think what it would be like to be a classic bond-esque super villain with a volcanic hidden layer. I mean, why wouldn’t you, if you could?

Or maybe just settle for a secluded property somewhere in jungles. I’m sure the local wildlife is very friendly.

We were hoping to go to a night market when we returned but that was too ambitious. I was dead to the world by 9:30… everyone else stayed up and partied in the pool and the beach until 1:30am.

Wednesday

Very close to Villa Kaylana is a rum distillery - Issan - so that was the focus of Wednesday. I have to admit a bit of mild disappointment in-so-much-as we weren’t there to see how rum is made. But that was more than made up for in the tasting sessions. There were two local rums to try, along with locally made syrups. A pure cane rum and a molasses based rum, the latter being my favourite. I preferred the slightly smokey ,milder flavour of it and it paired very well with the ginger syrup. The syrup thing seems to be a local affection, but rum aficionados feel free to correct me on that.

The distillery was originally started by a french couple (who I believe are still running it) and had a great food menu, with representative dishes from rum producing locations in the world. I settled for some Caribbean fish cakes, but there were a variety of curries, tagines and more.

Thursday

Party day, again. This time the big one on the beach. The entire reason for this trip was to celebrate The Helen’s 50th birthday. And celebrate we did. A beautiful spread in the early evening with a cocktail bar and rotating DJs. The food was epic. 

The whole evening was unimaginably scenic, with what some people described as a ‘comic strip full moon’. I even managed to avoid getting bitten to death by the local wildlife (thanks to those amazing anti-insect stickers).

And this is where my not-quite-complete post ran out. thinking back a year, the we left the following day, so not too much to write about a day in travel land - I spend 12 hours getting back to Tokyo.