Koh Samui Adventures

Koh Samui is an island with a lot to do, besides lie on the beach and party. We booked 2 adventure tours, 2 days in a row. The first was around Koh Samui island. They took us to a viewpoint first and then to genitalia rock formations, also known as grandmother and grandfather. I got some classy pics pretending to felate the grandfather rock and inspired some some other tourists to do the same in the process.  The grandmother was vagina shaped so I continued my immaturity, taking pictures of my finger close up, with grandmother in the background. Lucila was hoping to get a "birthing pic" with her as the baby, but a big drop off ledge prevented her from entering the canal.

grandmother

grandfather

The next stop was a monkey show, which sounds more entertaining than it was. Monkeys are used in Thailand to retrieve coconuts from palm trees, so this was demonstrated by a monkey on a leash. The better part of this stop was taking a picture with the monkey on my shoulder!

After the monkey show we headed to 2 waterfalls. We chose not to pay for the ride to the waterfall and make the short, but steep hike ourselves. We were dripping in sweat by the time we got to the first waterfall and were the most eager and first of the tourist group to strip down to our bathing suits and jump in the pool at the bottom. This also meant having the best photo ops before others followed our lead (yay to Lucila for having a waterproof camera!). The water felt amazing. As we tried to get in position for the picture I couldn't stop laughing as I struggled to find a ledge to grab on to close to the waterfall. I kept slipping away because of the force of the water pushing me, until Danielle just grabbed on to me and held me like a baby. We hiked up to the next waterfall, which was even bigger and climbed up a dangerous rocky path to get more great pictures.

Also at this stop were tigers that you could pay 300 baht ($10) to take a picture with. Lucila had a 5 minute photo shoot with a baby tiger while feeding him from a bottle. Pretty freaking adorable. Rachel chose the big tiger which was obviously sedated. They had to pull its tail and keep pushing him to get it to open its eyes and sit up. It was still terrifying and an awesome picture. I sat this one out and took pics from the sidelines instead.

Rachel is a brave soul!!

On this tour, we also saw a mummified monk, a temple, and the big Buddha. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but still made it out to check out the "club scene" in Samui.

mummified monk

We are a creative bunch that love pictures.

Our 2nd adventure tour the next day took us away from Koh Samui by boat to Ang Thong Marine Park, a cluster of nearby islands. This tour started off with snorkeling, resulting in only minor casualties. I scraped my knee on some coral while trying to take a pic of my friends with Lucila's waterproof camera and she also kicked some coral with her foot. We swam away from a giant jelly fish in time to avoid a 3rd injury from the group.

The next stop was a view point which always means a trek uphill. We were rewarded from the many stairs with a gorgeous view, but I also threw in 2 Chang's as reward once I got back down. We had a buffet lunch next, and one more Chang. After lunch, it was time for kayaking, so I teamed up with Danielle. The Chang's must have clouded my better judgement because instead of putting my shorts back on (I took them off to get off the boat and in the water I think) I just tucked them into my life jacket. We kayaked around a set of caves and decided to man overboard ourselves and go for a quick swim. After hopping back on and kayaking further, I remember my shorts, which are no longer tucked into my life jacket! They were my hot pink full moon party souvenir shorts, and only cost me $5 but I still really liked them so we alert Rachel and Lucila's boat and all decide to go on a hot pink short rescue mission, turn around while singing "SOS please someone help me...". Our tour guide is on our tail and yelling at us that this isn't funny, a storm is coming, and we need to get to shore so we are forced to abort mission. Back at shore, another kayaker tells me she saw my pink shorts washed up onto the caves. I have already counted them as lost at sea, waiting on the boat to head away, when someone gets on holding up a pair of shorts asking if anyone is missing them. HOORAY!

from the view point

We made friends with the British guys on the boat and by the time we were kayaking, I had an unintentional, fake sounding British accent coming out of left field. Hopefully they didn't take this as an insult...they also said how much they liked the American accent because it sounds so friendly. Rachel asked, "really? You don't think we sound stupid?" One of the British guys says "oh yea, it definitely sounds stupid" and his friends just yell at him for digging a deeper hole as he tries to recover. None of us are offended anyways, being that we are 2 nearly MD's and 2 nearly PHD's. One of them asked me at one point..."so you are a doctor, should I get a Tattoo here?" There are tattoo parlors all over Thailand which I'm sure are very cheap. I told him "oh sure, if you want a free side of hepatitis C". He decided to wait until he was back home.

Our new British friends

We were being picked up at 6am the next day to head to the next island, so for a "chill" night out, we went to a Muay Thai boxing fight. The first fight was pretty disturbing. The fighters were 100 pounds and looked like they were 12. One fighter was far better than the other one who helplessly tried to prevent the damage from the other 12 year old. It felt like we were from the capitol watching the districts battle (Thailand is full of Hunger Games references). The next 4 fights seemed more evenly matched so I didn't feel as guilty for watching. 3 of these ended early, because one fighter is hurt too bad or just can't take any more they just drop to the floor, admitting defeat. Each match had traditional Thai music playing live with chimes and a very classic sound, and felt very out of place during a brutal fight. One musician puffed away on cigarettes stuck into his mouths as he used both hands to play his chimes. For the intermission, a tight rope walker named Son of Rambo juggled while on the tight rope and even did tricks while sitting on a chair ON TOP of the rope. It was awesome and deserving of a tip. The final match was the best, a girl fight! It also had the only non-Thai fighter, a girl from the Netherlands vs a Thai girl much smaller than her. The first round seemed evenly matched. The smaller Thai girl was feisty! During the break between rounds, the girl from the Netherlands got advice from her Thai coaches and just wailed on the Thai girl round 2, won the match, and it was time to go home. What a show.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn for our 6am pick up. Our hotel (Lucky Mother) was crawling with cats and dogs all over the place. Instead of leaving the hotel our passports as deposit on the rooms, I left 2000 baht ($65) for each room. We told the owner the night before that we needed the deposit back bright and early and she showed Danielle which door to knock on to wake her up. When Danielle was finally able to wake her, she said at least 10 cats came out of the door and 10 more were waiting to go in. It makes me wonder if I would be a cat lady if I lived in Thailand.