Sunday 20 July 2008 It had rained all night and all morning. In the afternoon it stopped raining and I walked along the beach into town. I bought a Billabong cap and Diesel bag - both of which I love. I had a banana pancake and coconut juice at Montien on the beach. Later I had a margarita at one of the main bars and it was so noisy with music from several bars creating a discordant sound that was not relaxing. I moved on to another bar and had a mojito and fi...

Saturday 19 July 2008 Samui Institute of Thai Culinary Arts and Natsuda Toby, Anka and I got the free hotel bus into town and the driver couldn't find SITCA. Luckily we left with plenty of time and eventually found it. There was one other person in the class, a Pakistani woman who lives in Singapore. I took a photo of Toby and Anka and the Pakistani woman was upset I didn't include her in the photo and she got one of the staff to take a photo of all of us with ...

Friday 18 July 2008 Lazed around the pool and had a Thai massage for 200 baht ($6) for one and a half hours under a beautiful big tree overlooking the ocean. The ladies were laughing at me for all the sounds I made as I released the aches and pains from the climb to the lake. What a killer climb that was. I met a young German man called Toby when I was booking in to do a Thai cooking class and he decided he wanted to do it with me. Next I met his girlfriend An...

Thursday 17 July 2008 Angthong Marine Park Went on a speedboat to Angthong Marine Park on a boat that takes 35 passengers. There were 24 of us. One of the Thai crew spoke a little English. The boat was full of Israelis, Germans and Italians who didn't speak English. It took about an hour to get there and when we got there we did one hour of snorkelling. The water is green and the visibility was poor due to low tide but with green water you're never going to get...

Wednesday 16 July 2008 Met a couple from South Africa at breakfast. Invited them to join me on an island tour but they declined wanting to laze by the pool as they only had 2 days here, then off to Malaysia. KOH SAMUI TOUR I organised my own private tour with Chai a 27 yo Thai guy. The Big Buddha The Big Buddha is 12 metres high and painted in gold. Looks impressive and you have to climb stairs to get to him. Great view from the top and we rang bells for go...