Sunday, December 17, 2006

koh samui / koh phanang / koh tao

We flew onto Koh Samui on Friday morning and quickly found some accomodation, thanks to the Lonely Planet "southeast asia on a shoestring". Next thing was to hire a moped to get us around and a visit to the beach. Unfortunately we haven't seen the island at it's best due to the weather, which has been overcast with occasional glimpses of some blue sky through the clouds, or bucketing down with the monsoon rains.

We're hoping our next week on Koh Phangan and Koh Tao will give us a bit of that swimming and snorkling weather we had on Boracay. It sounds like they're receiving the weather here coming from China, so I guess that's a good indication to take on, as well as site we have been checking for weather warnings.

After our experiences with the typhoons in the Philippines, we're trying to stay clear of those strong weather conditions. I'm really not looking forward to getting cabin fever!

Last night we went to the well-advertised Thai boxing event (read: loud-speaker from the back of a jeepney driven around and around town announcing "tonight, tonight, 9pm, 9pm, get the seats earlier, get the seats earlier, fight, fight, tonight ..."accompanied with music I associate with a 'Jaws'movie), known as Muay Thai. We saw eight fights, with the competitors age starting from about 6years old. The main event was held at about midnight, and we stayed until the end seeing three full-on knockouts where the loser was carried out of the ring. Not normally the type of sport I would be interested in, but it was a good event even to watch the punters at ring-side. Maybe if it were a blood-sport I wouldn't have stayed, but this is part of the Thai culture, and the amount of training and committment that surrounds the sport has to be respected.

Tonight we're going to a dinner and Thai dancing show. Gotta keep the balance : )
posted by megnmog at 6:11 PM

1 Comments:
Anonymous said...
Meg - we are loving the photos. Not so sure about all that pork. Thank you very much for your card and photos and gifts for the girls. They are on our photo board in the kitchen. Pop will get a kick out of the koala on a straw. He had a great day on his 80th. We all did. Lots of love to you and Henry from all of us. xxxx The johnsons.
8:09 PM