To get to these islands we had to catch a ferry from Surat thani. Our first stop was koh Samui. This is one of the original islands that started the backpacker migration to Thailand and is now an all-purpose beach resort. Samui has a great variety of beaches but we picked chaweng beach to stay at. Its a 6km long white sand beach and is considered the centre of everything! Our first night in Samui we heard the news of the malaysian earthquake and Samui was currently waiting for the all clear as tsunami warnings were issued. We had left phuket 10 hours earlier and heard that the whole island was being evaccuated. 10minutes after we arrived at our hotel the power to 80% of our area cut out. Our only option was to wait next door at a bar and receive free shots. Once the power came back on we went back to our hotel to check in where we were informed the girls next door are Ladyboys. - I swear I couldn't tell. Samui had made a great first impression.
We hired a scooter from our hotel for $7.50 for 24hours. We decided to drive until we found something interesting. We followed signs to a waterfall. When we got there we parked our scooter and walked passed a few elephants and tigers. We got a 4wd truck ride up the steep hill to the waterfall. The area was seperated into two waterfalls, one small and one big. We had to climb a little further to the top but once we got there we could swim and hang out underneath the waterfall. This was really pretty. They also had a 60m long waterslide on one side of the waterfall which went down into a small pool. The scooter was heaps of fun and allowed us to see alot of the island. During our stay on koh samui it was Songkran festival Which is the Thai new year celebration. To celebrate, the whole town has a big waterfight with water pistols, buckets and hoses. They say the wetter you get, the more that will be washed away from the previous year and brings you good luck for the new year. We spent the morning out on the street with our waterguns and buckets saturating people from head to toe. Of course everyone would do the same to us. As the day went by, the locals continued and even started adding ice to their water and would pour buckets over people on the back of trucks. It was so much fun and it was great to see everyone getting involved. Due to the continuous waterfight going on outside we were forced to stay inside if we wanted to stay dry. We had booked or open water dive course on ko tao so we left samui when the water fight was over the next day.