Finally, Honeymoon on the Beach!

After almost 8 months of discovering new places as part of our extended honeymoon, we have finally been able to bring ourselves to the beach. Last Saturday, we once again crammed our backpacks to bursting capacity and traveled to Koh Samed, an island in the south of Thailand facing the gulf. It was going to be a brief vacation as we wanted to be home by Monday, a holiday, to get some rest before having to get back to work again. But no matter how brief a vacation it was, we made sure to enjoy it. We lived the life.

We were able to get a really charming cottage room in a resort, with a rustic style, sunlit bathroom. Lucky for us, most of the resorts were fully booked and the resort that we went to had only two rooms available, one was the newly built cottage that we took and another was a really dingy one uphill. And so we made no haste in grabbing the cottage. As soon as we got in, we changed into our bathing clothes and went out to the beach.

We had lunch first, and then we went to the Ao Sangthian, the beach on the other side of the hill from where we stayed (the beach where we stayed – Ao Vongdeuan – is the more popular one, thus filled with tourists, but it has the restaurants and the nightlife). Our friend, Faith, advised us that Ao Sangthian was quieter and more private and she was right. We had the beach almost to ourselves, save for about 8 other people, and the sea was not littered with motorboats so we had a great view of the horizon.

We claimed two lounge chairs and an umbrella for ourselves and sat the afternoon away, only occasionally getting up for a dip in the water or to get some drinks. To make our lounging true to the theme of living the life, JM guzzled a beer while I sipped buko juice in its shell. We fell asleep to this utterly serene environment. Late afternoon, we rented a kayak and gave ourselves an hour of work out.

Before dark set in, we trudged back to our room to get ready for dinner. We were supposed to have an early dinner but we fell asleep waiting for the clock to tick 6, so we missed the sunset and our reservation for beachfront seats. Nevertheless, we still had dinner on the beach, under a beautiful starry sky. And we had a feast! Baked mussels, grilled pork neck and kebabs.

We moved on to have drinks after dinner. We got to the bar just in time before happy hour came to a close so we hoarded two drinks for each of us that made the waiter react in astonishment. I sipped my way through three cocktails as we lazed on the bamboo platforms under the moonlight. We had some entertainment in the form of our waiter, too – he was actually an expert at swinging chains with fireballs on the end. And the loi krathongs that flew up into the dark sky were a pretty sight.

Next day, we tried to get up as early as we could to see the sunrise, but we were never morning persons and besides we were supposed to be living the life, remember? So again, we missed what must have been a fantastic view of the sunrise. We managed to bring ourselves out of the room by 7. We were still able to catch the sun on the rise and were able to take good pictures. I wanted to have a delicious breakfast, but as it turned out the restaurants were still closed – there was only one that was open and the breakfast they served was so-so but I had to make do with that.

After breakfast, we once again lazed on the beach until it was time to check out. We had decided to take the 4pm trip back to mainland so we had 4 hours to spare after checkout. We each had a massage amid the chatter of the old ladies providing us the service. Then we went back to Ao Sangthian for lunch and in the hopes of once more "owning" the beach. We were disappointed though as at this time, all the tourists seemed to have settled in. We were lucky enough to find two lounge chairs to sit in. Before taking our final shower, we went for a last dip in the clear waters and enjoyed a banana shake.

ANECDOTES:

On the trip back to mainland I was taken aback when I saw Caucasian foreigners literally getting up from sunbathing and boarding the ferry back to Banphe. I was like – what the??? – they didn’t even bother putting on a shirt to cover their two-piece clad bodies. Well, I eventually learned that they were on the island on a day tour from Pattaya and were going to be herded back by van.

Did you know that…a lot of Thai people go to the beach wearing high-heeled shoes and sweaters? If they are afraid of getting tanned, why bother going to the beach in the first place? Oh yes, to enjoy fresh air, something that is missing in Bangkok. But that thought didn’t stop me from thinking that the meager number of lounge chairs was just getting wasted on them if they’re not out to do some sunbathing.