The year 2017 was slowly but surely coming to an end and it was about time to make some Christmas plans. The travel fam and I decided to rent an Airbnb on Kho Samui. Finally an opportunity to cook for ourselves, a comfortable bed, showers (proper water pressure!) and as an icing on the cake: a pool just for ourselves...high five, life! I mean, I adjusted well to the hostel life, living out of a backpack, in shared dorm rooms, and shared bathrooms. I actually adore it! But the outlook of having a legitimate house to stay in for a couple of days was super exciting and made me realize how I appreciate things I took for granted even more now.
Kho Samui itself is not the prettiest island. It has a lot of resorts and hotels on it and is well-known for co-hosting full-moon parties with its sister island Kho Phagnan. But since I was not there to explore the island, it didn't really matter.
Arriving in the house late in the evening, I was stoked to reunite with the remaining members of the NapPark crew. Knowing that I will have to travel the whole day to get to my destination and knowing me, I asked Yaron before my arrival to chill some Gin and Tonic for me. So first things first, I fixed myself a drink and caught up on what everybody else was up to in the last weeks. On this night I met Brian, Yaron's and Danny's friend from home, who joined their travels for several weeks. He is another wonderful person I was lucky enough to come to know during my travels.
So here I was: A drink in one hand, sitting next to a pool, swapping travel experiences like war stories. And it gets better (not that I want to brag or anything): The guys not only did the grocery shopping already, but THEY also started cooking my first homemade dinner in a long time. Our executive chef Brian and his sous chefs were preparing a perfect meal: Salmon with vegetables and pasta. I did not have to move a finger. Heaven is sometimes a place on earth!
The next day we chilled hardcore. In turns we jumped into the pool, ate, had drinks and chats, took naps. The only time we actually left the premises was when we had to get fresh groceries for our Christmas dinner. Oh, did I miss grocery shopping!
Agreeing that Brian was going to spearhead the dinner preparation, I volunteered to be responsible for the dessert. Since we did not have access to an oven, I decided to prepare chocolate pancakes with banana, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate chips. In the end, it wasn’t the prettiest of desserts (pancakes had all kinds of shapes), yet still super delizioso. After our fantastic Christmas dinner, we had a couple of drinks and launched around the pool area for the rest of the night.
As for Christmas Day, we were invited to Tony's restaurant. Tony is an ex-pat from the UK, who cooked the most typical British Christmas lunch including turkey, roasted potatoes, stuffing, sausages, and Yorkshire Pudding. It was finger-licking good, let me tell you that, but it was sooo much that I actually had to walk off some of the calories. Kudos to our friend Mo, who managed to eat almost three plates!
On the island itself, you should check out the Red temple (Wat Sila Ngu) and the Na Muang Waterfall. The former is a quiet temple completely covered in terracotta red, close to Lamai Beach. Since we went on a rainy day, we had the whole temple for ourselves and enjoyed a moment of peace and bliss.
If you have enough of the beach, take a dip in the above-mentioned waterfall or practice your waterbomb by jumping off the nearby rocks. Besides these two sights, there was not much exploring we did, so we bid au revoir to Kho Samui pretty soon.
A couple of weeks later my friend Viki and I traveled to the nearby island Kho Tao. While everyone raves about this island, we actually didn't vibe with it as much. Maybe it was the rainy weather, the prices or the fact that we weren't there for diving (which is the main thing to do there). One thing we wanted to see though was Nang Yuan Island. It houses supposedly one of the prettiest beaches in the world. And we can only second that: It is really pretty and due to the unique sandbank, which connects two little islands, something special! Again, the weather was not on its Sunday best, but we still had a great day. When there make sure to check out the viewpoint on top of the hill. Be prepared that it gets really crowded and you are not allowed to bring plastic bottles.
After three days we swiftly switched islands and took a ferry ride to Kho Phagnan. Kho Phagnan is a beautiful and chill island - if you are not there during the full moon parties. We stayed close to Malibu Beach, which is a gorgeous strip of white sand, palm trees, and crystal clear waters. Since we still didn't get over ourselves and didn’t start riding scooters, we walked everywhere, which was a bit cumbersome but good exercise. Thankfully the weather got better for most of our time here, so that during the day we just launched at the beach, ate fresh fruit from local stores, and in the nights we ate fantastic food at Woodstock Bar @ Chaloklam Beach. The sunsets were surreal on this island. I saw all kinds of red and purple, all appearing with a blink of an eye and equally disappearing within a couple of minutes.
Spending quality time with my friend, was the best part on these islands. For our last night, we decided to walk up to the 360° bar, which is on top of a hill with an awesome 360° view over the island. After a gruesome hike up to the hill, I was dripping with sweat. Like so much, that my make-up and mascara were in places they weren't supposed to be. Oh well! It was our last night here and we didn't really care. We wanted to have a nice night before Viki was off to Germany. So we paid 900 TBH admission (we didn't care, as I said!) and - oh surprise - more stairs. To be fair the bar rewarded us with some great reggae live music and some pretty strong Gin and Tonics. It's all good in the end!
Up next: Cambodia.