track our trek

day three we jumped on a bus bound for the beach at koh samed...we found a room at sinsamut, a guesthouse on the beach... not the beach front bungalow we had envisioned, but quite adequate for what we had in mind (except for the mosquito colony breeding in the bathroom)...so we spent the second half of our week soaking up the sun, getting massages on the beach, and swimming in the south china sea. so lovely!! 

we rented motorbikes one day and went off to explore the island...sadly, we have no pictures as we were too busy fearing for our life and limbs to remember to break it out! ryan and i had never ridden scooters before, so daryll bravely volunteered to ride the manual bike and leave the automatics to us...and we quickly discovered koh samed is utterly devoid of paved roads! so our introduction to riding scooters was on rocky, windy dirt roads with cavernous potholes... (does it qualify as a pothole if the road isn't paved in the first place?) ...inching along and moving out of the way of bouncing pick-up trucks which sometimes seemed to be having enough trouble of their own navigating the roads! did i mention there are no helmets or waiver forms in this part of the world?? (sorry mom!) ryan and i gave up at one treacherous stretch and headed back for the last beach we'd passed...daryll ventured on in search of a beach at the end of the island...he made it back to us safely after an hour reporting that ao wai was no great shakes & we hadn't missed anything...he'd given up going further when he reached a steep road & watched a couple on a bike attempt to make it the top & fail...they stalled out twice, then tried pushing the bike, and he decided he'd had enough! jokes!

we spent another day on a snorkeling trip to islands around koh samed...a bit of a bust, as they failed to mention most of the coral reefs around samed island are dead before taking our money...but dp got to drive the speedboat, there was no shortage of beaches, and the bbq & fried rice lunch was tasty! besides...the motto for the week was "no worries, man!" alas, the week came to an end all too quickly & we headed back to bangkok in time to have dinner & one more massage before ryan headed home...ry, thank you so much for coming! it meant the world to us to have you here! can't wait to see you at the next rendezvous!