10th to 15th February, 2025
I am typing this from Koh Samui, we having successfully made it from Hoi An last Thursday.
We had another nice farewell from Palm Garden Hotel in Hoi An. The staff had become very familiar (in a nice way!) and we were sorry to say goodbye to them. We had a last game of table tennis with Vy (he won again!), we played pétanque on the beach with Vu, one of the pool ‘boys’, we thanked the lovely Hien for the dance hall tip and everyone else for their help, not least with Val.
Our penultimate evening we went back to Chien, the restaurant we went to on the first night (with cash this time) for another wonderful home-cooked meal. We were ‘entertained’ by some music from their neighbours which sounded decidedly home-grown that was easily loud enough to be heard from where we were. So, as we had to pass the neighbours on our way back to the hotel, we paused to listen, just as one of the family came out, spotted us and immediately told us to come in. It was very ‘lived-in’ inside with about 7 men, one woman and a large pile of beer cans and other bits and pieces on the table. There was also a very large screen for the karaoke!
It was very funny, especially as we had a major language barrier and a large amount of beer had already been consumed, but they seemed genuinely delighted that we were joining in. I managed to play Teddy Bear (Elvis) on the guitar, all I could remember at the time and then it was time for karaoke (they were very insistent!). Inevitably it had to be Sweet Caroline, which seemed to go down well, not least the ‘so good, so good, so good’ bit! All slightly surreal.
Further down the road was a restaurant with a great name….
We said our goodbyes to our laundryman, the lady at Mi Casa restaurant, the lovely couple at the pizza, pasta restaurant, Rosemary at the tailors/dress shop, the lady at the Golden Nut restaurant and, of course, Lily at her restaurant/spa/nails/fruit/taxi/tours/laundry shop.
We had a 6.30am pick-up to get to Da Nang Airport on the Thursday, which, as ever, meant a rather disruptive night and an early start, but all went well. We had good assistance at the airport and took off with Air Asia for Bangkok and our flight then to Koh Samui. We were late taking off however which made our transit a bit of a rush as we had to get through Immigration, pick up our bags, go to check in and security and thence to the gate. Luckily, once again, we had a wheelchair organised for Val the ‘driver of which went at a good pace through all the various parts of the airport and although it was a bit tight on time, we did make it to our flight with Bangkok Airways.
Arrival at Koh Samui was great, we picked up the car and set off into the traffic once more. We are staying in a different hotel to the one we stayed in last year. This one is called MAI Samui and is a bit further up the island, pretty much at the northwest corner.
We seem to be picking hotels that need a bit of TLC and Mai Samui is no exception. It actually needs a LOT of TLC. We were a bit despondent on our first night because the accessibility of the room and the hotel in general leaves a lot to be desired and after our disrupted night and rather stressful journey, Val was struggling and we were both very tired. We really thought we would have to find somewhere else, but in the end the hotel has been really helpful with all our requests from more lights in the bedroom, a fan, more pillows and towels to actually making a couple of handrails (from wood) for Val’s use in the loo. So we are still here and have settled in OK. And there are some compensations…..
We have ventured out to try and see some of our old friends from our visit last year. It did not start well… we first stopped at Tui’s spa – padlocked! Sam’s restaurant, Cali’s, next door – shut because the roof is falling in! Sabai Sabai, where Val always got her daily coconut (and who cooks fried rice (almost) as good as Val) – closed! We did drop by our lovely laundry lady, Oi, who was in, along with Kevin, her 2 and a half year old son, which was lovely and who welcomed us literally with open arms. Her husband, Win, was not there, so we will have to drop by another time. A little bit further up is Samui Buri hotel, where we stayed last year, so we thought we would say hello to any of the staff we met, but there was only one person at reception as everyone else was in a meeting. We did meet a waitress at the restaurant who said she recognised Val, but I am not entirely convinced.
The good news was that we did see Tui eventually (she had moved her premises) and we did go to Sabai Sabai, who only open after 1200, so that was lovely. And we had a coconut at Yoi’s, whose matriarchal proprietor, Mama, also threw her arms around Val.
We drove quite a long way to find the table tennis club, where a less than enthusiastic lady told us that we could play for a fee, so we have planned to come back. We explored further down the west coast as far as the rather tatty looking town of Nathon, where we found a market next to the ferry.
We had a couple of snacks and a not-so-good coconut and then went in search of a restaurant, which we found, which had some excellent food and fabulous views…
Ok, another post completed, more soon…
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