Be Back Whenever

Koh Samui

How to make a bed

No pictures with this – just a pet peeve!

Where have all the sheets gone??  For years, I thought only Germany and Austria used just a duvet on beds without a top sheet. I’ve been known to pack my own flat sheet to get around this problem.  This trip we’ve been in more hotels than not who use just the duvet and forego the top sheets.  These are way too hot for us to sleep but so far I haven’t resorted to one trick – take the duvet out of the cover and sleep with just the cover.

Pillows … way too hard! I was thrilled at the Intercontinental at the Johannesburg International Airport after 3 weeks in Africa to find soft, squishy bed pillows at 3 AM!  The Sheraton and Meridien hotels in Koh Samui have great pillows, too.  I’m enjoying the Aloft pillow in Bangkok, too, for a few days.

10 days in Koh Samui

Sawadee!  We’re back in Bangkok after 10 days on Koh Samui hanging out at the beach.  The weather was pretty warm and humid and rained more than it should have.  The Thais even complained about the heat!  The food was great tasting and cheap. Dinner was a whole $10 total when we did take-away and bought beer at the Family Mart.

 Romantic Bamboo seafood spaghetti

Romantic Bamboo was up the street from our hotel. It’s owned by an Italian guy and his Thai wife. She does all the cooking. He is perfect for a restaurant – personable, friendly, talkative, describes the food well, makes great suggestions. We ate there three nights.

Speaking of beer … Thailand has regulations on what time any alcohol can be sold and we never could remember the times!  The Family Mart and 7-11 all post the times on the refrigerated cases, thank heavens.  I know beer can’t be sold until 11 AM and, I think, it’s until 2 PM.  Then sales can start again sometime in the late afternoon.

We used some SPG points and stayed at two different properties – Sheraton and Le Meridien.  We liked them both but liked different things about each property.  The beach at the Meridien is covered with white soft sand and a reef protects it, making the water nice and calm.  The Sheraton’s water has many more waves, making it a great place if you’re into playing in the waves, but the sand is much coarser with lots of tiny shells in it.

Sheraton beach and waves

This beach is by the Sheraton Samui. The waves were pretty big while we stayed there.

rocks on beach

Soft sand by the Le Meridien hotel on Koh Samui. This beach was easy to walk on in our bare feet.

Sunset on a Koh Samui beach. Must be Happy Hour time!

Each hotel is located in the middle of a little village with restaurants and LAUNDRIES meaning we had clean clothes for about $1.25 per kilo of laundry. We’d waited awhile to do the wash so our bill was about $5.   We dropped the dirty clothes off in the morning and could pick it up the next day, clean and folded.  One day, the drying took a bit longer after the downpour we had in the middle of the night.  The lightning and thunder woke us both up about 5 AM and kept us awake for about an hour.

We took the wine glass from the air-conditioned room to the patio and it steamed up, along with my watch and the camera lens!

82 F feels like 91F

Notice the “Feels like” temp

weather report

84% humidity at 82 F. This is VERY humid!

 

If you need a drink or food at the pool, just push the buzzer on the table by your beach chair.

meridien do not disturb

This is the “Do not Disturb”
sign at the Le Meridien hotel in Koh Samui. It really is NOT a monkey picking his nose.

fungi on tree

We walked by this tree every morning. I have no idea what the fungi are that grow on the tree, but they’re pretty interesting.