Category: Personal

I’ve uploaded a few videos. I have more but they take a long time to convert and upload, so I had to pick these four.

The first two are of the party’s warm up entertainment. There are many fire shows but the most entertaining one by far is the fire skipping rope, where drunk people (sometimes 7 or 8 at a time) try to jump a skipping rope that is soaked in fuel and lit on fire:

The next two videos are just 2 minutes of the better moments of the party:

The doing-absolutely-nothing attitude continued today. It took me quite a while to recuperate from the very long sleep of last night. I sat by the pool and did some online reading. Then I went to have breakfast and for a walk on the beach. Chaweng beach is very long and curvy so it’s nice to walk the length of it. I didn’t walk all of it, though. After about 10 minutes of walking I was so sweaty I turned around and walked back.

After that Neil and I moved to a different room. The room we had stayed in the previous night was booked for today so we got a better room – a bungalow with a window facing the pool. It’s funny how that works – the people that pre-booked the lesser room got exactly what they wanted, while we were upgraded to a better room for the same price because we walked in without pre-booking.

Anyway, after that we went to lunch in a very stylish restaurant called “Chef’s Table.” The food was really really good and the service impeccable. We really enjoyed that meal and will definitely go back, even tonight.

Tomorrow is my last day in koh Samui. The following day I will be heading back to Koh Phangan. While Koh Samui is nice, the tourist population here is older and while the restaurants here are better, it’s nothing I care much for (Neil loves it, though.) I prefer sitting in a restaurant watching endless reruns of “Friends” with people my age.

Here are some pictures I took today:

Neil and I took the ferry boat, that was way overloaded, from Koh Phangan to Koh Samui. We got a room at a place called Tango Resort on Chaweng beach, which is a very nice place to stay – A/C, free WiFi, hot water, big pool and immediate access to the beach. We didn’t even go out of the resort’s area (except for the beach) because we were both dead tired. The resort has a very good restaurant (and substantially more expensive than Koh Phangan’s restaurants) called “Lazy Wave”. We had both lunch and dinner there and then crashed. Our plans to go to a party on the beach later were foiled by sleeping through it until morning (and that’s why the late update.)

Neil got back from the Full Moon party at about 5:30am and woke me up. He was wasted, so it was a funny (unfortunately I can’t go into details because I care for his privacy.) I slept for 2 hours and had a shower before I went to sleep so I was refreshed. We went outside to see the party still going on. The sun was about to rise at about 6:30 and breakfast at the resort was served at 7:30 so we decided to wait for both.

The sunrise was really nice (see pictures below) and then we went to breakfast. I wanted my eggs sunny side up, so I tried to tell the extremely nice hotel employee but he didn’t understand. I started describing it to him and then he asked me if I wanted an “eye egg.” It took me a few seconds and then I asked him if they call it an eye egg in Thailand as well but he said no and that he only used that term because I’m an Israeli. So that was kind of funny (and shows you how much Israelis affect the locals here. The same guy also knows quite a bit of Hebrew.)

Neil and I both crashed after that only to wake up at around 2pm, go to eat, go jet skiing (and for me actually to get in the water for the first time since I got here) and go to eat again. After that I went running and after that I ate again (add 3 showers in between some of these activities.) Another satisfying day.

Neil really wants to go to Koh Samui and I like hanging out with him so I’m going to go there until he goes back home on the 15th. After that I plan to go back to Koh Phangan for a few days and then go to Koh Chang, which unfortunately doesn’t get me closer to Bangkok as I had originally thought (it’s a 6-hours bus drive to Koh Chang from Bangkok.) But like all plans on this trip these can change too. The only certain thing right now is that I’m going to Koh Samui tomorrow. We already have the boat tickets. This means I need to pack, which I hate, but hopefully will be easier since I sent about 4kg of stuff back home.

Here are some photos from the past few days. The videos I have are much more interesting but I can’t upload them from here because it takes forever. I need to find a way to deal with that and upload them.

It’s 2:45am and I’m just back from the Full Moon party. It is crazy out there. My ears are still ringing and my legs hurt from jumping around. The beach is packed with people, mostly dancing frantically. But some are already completely wasted. This means they are either dancing without noticing their surroundings, walking funny, sleeping or letting lady boys make out with them. The latter are going to have quite a surprise tomorrow morning :)

I have pictures and videos but again I need to sort them out and there’s no way I’m doing that now. Instead I want to share a dilemma I have: I was going to go to Koh Phi Phi, but it turns out the entire area of the western islands is out of the question because there’s a severe warning for Israeli travelers (Hebrew link, IE only) regarding that area. I already considered in the past going to Koh Samui (very close too here, but too western and too much prostitution) or Koh Tau (also close, but too quiet) so I am left with the following options:

• Stay in Koh Phangan some more (or until the 26th, which is when I go to the UK.)
• Leave to Ko Chang, an island very close to Bangkok, from which it will be easy for me to travel out of the country on the 26th.
• Go to Bangkok soon.
• Go north to do some trekking.

Right now I’m thinking on staying in Koh Phangan for a few more days (the prices drop here after the Full Moon, so even if Neil goes home I can stay in the same room, which makes it a comfortable choice.) During those days I will go do some day tours around the island and go see other beaches. After that I’ll go to Ko Chang and then to Bangkok a few days before the flight or on the day of the flight (right now I’m inclined not to visit Bangkok at all, except the airport.) I don’t think I have the right equipment to go trekking in the north and I’m not really in that mindset.

If any of you 7 readers has an idea, please leave it in the comments or email me (my email address is in the About page.) Thank you.

Today I:

• got up at about 9am7am
• ate
• Went to the post office to send some excess stuff back home
• showered
• ate and watched “Friends”
• transferred my CDs to the MP3 player
• ate and watched “Yes Man”
• walked around a little bit
• ate and watched “Family Guy”“Friends” and 30 minutes of “Transporter 3”
• napped for about 3 hours
• ran 5055 minutes
• showered
• watched 45ate and watched 30 minutes of “Superbad”
• got a massage“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button”
• went to the Warm Up Full Moon Party (videos tomorrow)

(Thanks to quickdiff.com)

Today I:

• got up at about 9am
• showered
• ate and watched “Friends”
• transferred my CDs to the MP3 player
• ate and watched “Yes Man”
• walked around a little bit
• ate and watched “Family Guy”
• ran 50 minutes
• showered
• watched 45 minutes of “Superbad”
• got a massage
• ate and watched “Friends”

Now I’m exhausted. That’s what I call a good day. Sweet dreams.

(In reality I was so exhausted I actually fell asleep with the computer next to me before I managed to post this. Now it’s morning already so I’m posting late.)

(I’ll post pictures soon. I’m not so happy with the ones I got so far.)

I got up at 6am today, probably because I napped during the day yesterday, and went jogging on the beach before the sun came up. But I only went for about 30 minutes, which was really disappointing. It was hard to run, though. Probably a combination of me not being used to running on sand and the weather here (very hot and humid.) I think it would be better to try running in the evening because there’s a cool breeze and the sand is wetter. I hope to try that tomorrow.

Yesterday’s beach party was pretty crazy. People get really drunk with the encouragement of the locals that sell “buckets” of alcohol (a bucket is literally a small bucket that is filled with your choice of alcohol, e.g. Vodka and Red Bull.) And then they go dancing to the loud music played all over the beach. So you may be able to imagine what that’s like. I’ll post pictures soon (I tried to take some at today’s party but they came out pretty crappy. I’ll have another go at it tomorrow.)

It’s safe to say that I’ve gotten used to the do-nothing type of vacation. Today I went from restaurant to restaurant, watching TV or a movie, eating and drinking. I also did a little napping and caught up on my online reading as well. Oh, and a massage (they’re dirt cheap – like 9 USD for one hour.) It’s very very hot these days here. Too hot for me to be in the sun, so I just go restaurant hopping most of the day.