21st Dec. - 04th Jan. Koh Samui

Temperature: 32 degrees
Sea temperature: 25 degrees
Rainy days: 4
Carl's mosquito bites: 0 (no insect repellent)
Vik's mosquito bites: 10 (loads of insect repellent)
No. 7-11's per mile: 3 (American convenience stores)

The journey on the bus took around 9 hours to arrive at Surat Thani where we were to catch the ferry to the island. We had to wait an extremely long time on the boat waiting for all the other buses to arrive (more backpackers), but in Thai style, we had a bootleg, latest film to watch while we were waiting.

The boat took one and a half hours but the scenery was great as we hadn't seen the sea since Goa. There are many islands jutting out of the sea, and Vik saw a dolphin.

Our bungalow was on Lamai beach which is south east of the island and considered one of the most scenic beaches on the island. Admittedly we were a little disappointed with the resort in general and our bungalow. The bungalow was part of a terrace and a minute's walk from the beach. We had a picture in our heads that it would be on the beach as a little wooden hut. It seems the days of bamboo thatched huts have gone from Samui.

Even though we hadn't slept for 2 nights solid (including the trip down from Chiang Mai), we wanted to explore the area and have a dip in the sea. We walked for miles in the sun but we forgot about putting sun cream on and Carl felt the effects for days after with a very sun burnt back.

We had booked a solid 2 weeks on the island so that we would be secure in knowing we had somewhere to stay during Xmas and New Year, so we had plenty of time to explore the island and do practically everything you could do as a tourist. We ticked off nearly all the boxes including:

• Saw a mummified monk (a bit morbidly weird)
• Visited a waterfall (with not much water)
• Biked all around the island (moped not bicycle - that would just be crazy in this heat)
• Snorkelled off a few beaches and saw loads of fish and coral
• Visited a really big Buddha
• Had a posh meal at a local celebrity chef's restaurant
• Shopping (Carl bought a new 'beach' wardrobe)
• Ate lots of lovely seafood (massive prawns and really cheap - 1.30p per 100g)
• Sun bathed and swam in the VERY warm sea
• Jet skied (1600cc 20v EFI Wave Runner - that was really fast according to Carl, Vik didn't go)
• Carl got his hair shaved off as it was looking bad (which maybe more backpacker than tourist thing to do)

On the second day, Vik wanted to show Carl where she stayed 8 years ago in Bo Phut. It was a really quiet fishing village with Chinese style houses and only a couple of restaurants and bars. Karen and Vik stayed in tiny huts on stilts on the beach which was the only place to stay at the time.

To say Vik was shocked to see the place was an understatement. It was almost unrecognisable. The only thing that was the same was the market place. The little huts were replaced with posh resorts, boutique restaurants, bars and coffee shops! It is apparent that this development has happened across the whole island (there's even a huge Tescos), and we later learnt that it's also part of a tax dodge to build unnecessarily large resorts. No longer is the backpacker welcome as the money is with the 5 star boutique resorts, which is a shame in some ways, as Samui has lost some of its charm.

Christmas day was spent doing the usual thing, eating turkey with all the trimmings (at a local Irish bar/restaurant), then having a snooze. Only difference being, the snooze was on the beach instead of in front of the TV. In the evening we watched a live band and drank draught Guinness (first since home). Oh yeah, on the way to Christmas lunch Carl realised that his credit card was missing. It hadn't been used and therefore was lying forgotten in a spare wallet, in a small bag at the bottom of his rucksack. Although, as mentioned previously, we were warned not to leave any valuables in our bags during the bus journey from Bangkok, this had been missed… and as a result, stolen! It was cancelled straight away, but they had already spent 1,900 GBP in Bangkok the previous day - all on food, for some strange reason. Lesson learnt.

New Year's eve we got some drinks in and sat on our veranda with our neighbours Evan and Jackie (lovely Canadian couple) chatting until our meal (9pm). We had booked a buffet dinner at the resort which they had laid on especially and quite expensively. The meal wasn't really great, and there wasn't much in the line of entertainment (compared to the resorts next door), but it was nice being a part of something.

Afterwards, we all went down to the beach to see the entertainment that the other resorts had laid on. The beach was where everybody was celebrating New Year and you could see all along the beach many lights and lucky paper lanterns that people had let off. Also people were letting off their locally bought fireworks which were a bit pooh as they all ended up falling down into the sea before banging. We'd also bought some and let these off after singing "Auld Lang Syne" (which Evan and Jackie didn't know). We finally crawled back into bed around 3am after nearly all the partying had finished on the beach - no need for taxi here! It was a nice chilled out beginning to this New Year.