Koh Samui - Two Top Tips!

I arrive in Koh Samui on Sunday morning, about 9am. The plane flew over the Eastern side of the Island, before landing at the small, single strip airfield. I could see the horse-shoe shape of Coral Beach as we descended and could already see the fish and coral and feel the warm water in my mind’s eye. After a short walk through a relaxed immigration and customs area and a 10 minute mini-bus ride into Chaweng (its tackiness is growing on me), I’m at the Hostel and immediately recognised and greeted with a big smile by the girl on the small, knee high reception desk. By chance, she’s the one who translated to the cleaner on my departure that I was leaving stuff for her as a present, to save carrying unnecessary weight (including a book on Thailand, as I didn’t think I’d be back again! Tim, I’ll get you another!). I hire a bike, drop my rucksack in my room and head off down the road to swim.

Getting back to Coral Beach was like seeing the face of an old friend! I couldn’t help smiling to myself! It was fantastic to slip back in to the warm water. There had been very heavy rain the previous day which had carried a lot of sediment into the water and it was grey and overcast, so visibility was very poor and nothing like the crystal clear clarity of my last visit. Instead of crisp, bright shades, I could only see imprecise colours and patterns of coral and the vague images and ghostly outlines of indistinct fish in the gloom. Due to the indistinctness, I keep scrapping my thighs on the edges of coral and rocks, as it is more difficult to judge narrow passages and shallow spaces. Still, it was nice to say hello again to my old favourites, those cautious, beady-eyed, bony scuttlers, scrabbling in retreat from the water line as I approach from the sea, with emerald green sides and mottled green and brown backs, purple claws and black legs that I can hear grating on the surface of the rocks as they march side-ways away from me, watching me all the while. I spend less time in the water than usual, so notice things about me on the beach. Birds with bright yellow legs and beaks, brown and black feathers and yellow masks peck the sand and search around the deserted tables of the beach bar for non-existent scraps. I see a crab emerging from a hole in the sand in the distance, repeatedly coming to the surface to throw a fist of sand from the small burrow and then returning hurriedly. Thick, succulent bodied, black and white butterflies, their bodies so large in relation to their wings that they are almost too heavy to fly, rising and falling as they take frantic beats and then rest their wings for a second, seemingly exhausted with the effort of flight. The occasional sound of shoals of small fish, leaping out of the grey water in unison and returning with a group splash, energetically evading a predator below. Despite the overcast weather, the tightening skin on my back reminds me that it is still possible to get sunburnt beneath the clouds.

I have breakfast as usual at the beach bar. There are a few ants, about 5mm long, a combination of what looks like a browny-green colour initially, but when they are on the edge of the table and seen in profile, they are a subtle lime green. Some of them walk with their abdomen raised at a right angle, like a flag. That unusual gait and the fact that sometimes they stop and sit upright, with their rear on the tablecloth and front legs straight down in front of them, like a dog begging for food, didn’t seem that encouraging somehow, but I figure that if I ignore them, they will ignore me. After my food has arrived and I’ve opened the plastic container of strawberry jam, there are quite a few more, but in a spirit of international entente cordialle, I just guide them gently away from my plate, although one on my finger refused to move when I blew on it and then shook my hand. It was clamped so tightly, so I had to forcefully flick it off. The same with a few on my leg. It was about an hour later that I realised that my benign gesture towards world peace and inter-species harmony had been cruelly betrayed! My legs and feet were covered with bites that continued to itch all that day, despite the anti-septic cream, and seemed to get worse throughout the night, different parts of my body taking it in turns to itch like crazy for what seemed like hours. Top Tip Number 1: Avoid at all costs green ants carrying flags!

In the evening I am greeted with surprised smiles from the lady bar owner who beats me at pool and who also, I have subsequently found, teaches me dubious Thai. My suspicions were aroused when I replied, as I thought correctly, to a guy asking me if I needed a taxi and his colleagues immediately burst into laughter when they heard my response. On another occasion I was offered some drugs and again I replied as I’d been advised and the person looked taken aback and said sorry straightaway (That’s the sort of polite drug dealer they have in Thailand). I asked a Thai woman at another bar what it meant and when she heard the phrase she turned to her colleagues, said something and they all shrieked with laughter and then she looked slightly embarrassed. She wouldn’t say what I’d been saying, but instead gave me a ‘more polite’ phrase. I now use the latter and the reaction I get is much more positive, so goodness knows what I’ve been happily saying to people! Top Tip Number 2: A bar owner may not be the best language coach!

Coral Beach - Good to be back!

Coconuts drying on the beach

The lady who taught me a more polite phrase

Men, women and children construction workers, Chaweng

One is a Liverpool supporter. Still!

Tacky Chaweng. Tim, I see you have branched out!

Lovely sunset from the hostel pool!

More pool life! Errr, why?

Travelling even lighter now

Local bar and language academy

A room with a view

Combination of coral and ant kisses. Mostly coral