Enjoying Thailand’s Island Life

Koh Samui, Thailand
9.5120°N, 100.0136°E

Thailand has hundreds of islands spread across the Andaman Sea to its west and the Gulf of Thailand to its east. Many of these islands have been developed to cater to visiting tourists, and the island life in Thailand is something Sarah and I knew we wanted to experience.

One of the largest and most popular islands is Koh Samui, located just off of the Gulf of Thailand about 470 miles south of Bangkok. After a lot of research (on Sarah’s part), we decided that Koh Samui had the right mix of outdoor activities, cultural attractions and white sandy beaches for us to settle there for two weeks.

Flying domestically is pretty cheap in Thailand so we booked two last minute tickets on Air Asia (instead of the more scenic but much longer train to ferry option) and arrived at Koh Samui’s airport eager to be in one place for a few weeks.

We split a cab to our Airbnb with a guy from Istanbul who was supposed to be traveling to Thailand with his wife, but when something with her consulting job came up last minute she couldn’t travel and told him to “go on without me”. That’s exactly what he did, although he didn’t seem confident he made the right decision.

Fisherman’s Village

Sarah did a lot of Googling and TripAdvisor’ing to figure out where to stay on the island. Koh Samui is about the size of Martha’s Vineyard, roughly 90 square miles. It has a bunch of different towns, each with different vibes. Chaweng is the party town with the nicest beaches, Maenam is more remote and popular with backpackers, and Lamai is more geared towards families. We opted for a little area in Bophut Beach called Fisherman’s Village because we heard it had a little bit of everything with more of a community feel than some of the other towns and villages.

Sarah booked us for two weeks in a room above a bar called the Billabong Surf Club, located right on the main street in Fisherman’s Village. We met Deano, our host, and the manager at Billabong, and he took us up two floors to show us our room. Deano hails from Birmingham, England and thanks to my love for the show Peaky Blinders, I was able to converse somewhat intelligently about his hometown (well, at least what it was like in the 1920s).

You may have guessed from the name that Billabong is an Australian-owned bar, and its clientele included a lot of expats from Australia and England, with the occasional American thrown in the mix. We dropped our bags in the room and went downstairs for our complimentary first drink at the bar, and met the rest of the bar staff, most of whom were immigrants from Thailand’s neighbor to the north and west, Myanmar. Everyone was really friendly and we enjoyed Billabong’s great food and ice cold beer many times during our stay.

The village was much different then Cha-am and was clearly set up to cater primarily to tourists (actual fishermen in Fisherman’s Village were hard to find). There were probably 50 restaurants within the half-mile that made up the village’s main drag, and in between each of them were either spas, tailors, small convenience marts or tattoo shops. Our favorite feature of the village was that the entire area sits right on the beach, so nearly all of the restaurants have amazing views of the Gulf of Thailand. Oh, and this was this view from our room:

Billabong was one of the few bars in town that had live music almost every night, and over the course of our stay, we heard a few really good musicians.

Night Market

Each town on Koh Samui has its own night market different days of the week. We had heard that the Friday night market at Fisherman’s Village was the best on the island, so we were excited to experience it a few days after we arrived. The streets are closed to motorized traffic and hundreds of vendors sell everything from meat on a stick, to cheap beers, to clothing and souvenir trinkets.

A lot of our time on Koh Samui was spent catching up on some projects we are working on, enjoying the natural beauty of Thailand, and me recovering from a little stomach issue (which was fortunately only about a 3 on a scale of 1 to Fiji belly).

We did take the time to check out some of the island’s main attractions, such as Big Buddha Temple, Secret Buddha Garden (our personal favorite), and the 18 arm Goddess of Mercy at Wat Plai Leam temple.

We also attended a local Muay Thai fight. The entire time we were on the island pickup trucks with billboards advertising local Muay Thai fights would drive by blaring from a loudspeaker AC/DC’s Back in Black, shouting through a megaphone something to the effect of…

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight! Come see the world’s most devastating martial arts. Muay Thai! Nine o’clock at Chaweng Stadium.”

It sounded pretty similar to those old “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!” monster truck rally commercials, only unfortunately we couldn’t just turn off our TV to escape the announcements. After hearing these guys every 15 minutes for the last two weeks there was no way we were leaving the island without going to see one of these fights (so I guess this form of advertising works?). On top of that, we did have a lot of genuine interest to see what the sport is all about.

Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand and is an impressive display of strength, balance, and overall athletic ability. It’s referred to as “the art of eight limbs” because you can use your fists, elbows, knees, and shins to fight your opponent. It has centuries of history in Thailand and is popular throughout Asia and other parts of the world as well.

On to the next continent…

Our last few days in Thailand were spent mostly making sure we had our shit together for our travel to Africa. We were double checking when to take our malaria meds, what the visa requirements are for Kenya, and where we were going to stay for our first few days in Nairobi. Oh, and we figured since we are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in less than a month we should probably look into purchasing some hiking boots (whoops!).

Sarah and I were equally sad to leave Thailand and close the chapter on our three-month tour of Asia. Throughout this trip, we’ve found it hard to process a lot of what we are experiencing because we are constantly moving on to the next country, city, etc. But we know that the past three months in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand will stick with us for a long, long time. And of course along the way we’ve found so many more places in Asia we want to visit down the road!

I also found out that Sarah for the last three months has been taking pictures of me squeezing into small chairs. Evidently, judging by her collection below, this is also something she will miss about Asia.

Gerry in Small Chairs