Waiting for the boat to leave Koh Tao we saw a dog digging into the sand. Wondering what he was doing, we kept watching him. He eventually dug it deep enough to sit in, with his head poking out the top to have a look around. He'd dug himself a little hole to curl up in! It was so cute and obviously we had to take a photo!

Shortly after this, the sky became very overcast and it started to pour down. We don't know what it is, but whenever we need to catch a boat, it always rains! And it was really heavy this time too, making the sea look very rough. Not really something you want to see when you're not too keen on getting on boats anyway. We all started to pile onto the pier to walk to the boat, we both had to walk incredibly slowly though as the surface was so wet and as we mentioned before, this pier wasn't exactly the most stable one we'd come across! We eventually made it to the boat, the plank wasn't as steep as before but we can't say it was anymore steady. But we clambered on and found some seats,looking forward to returning to our next stop.

When we arrived in Koh Samui, there were various taxi drivers offering rides to hotels and areas. We found a woman who said she could take all four of us to our hotels (we were staying at two different places) she said they were near each other so she could do both drop offs. We managed to barter down to 100 baht each and all loaded our bags into the car and set off. About 20 minutes into the journey, it became apparent the driver didn't know where she was going. She asked again where we were staying, when we told her she didn't seem to recognise it. We told her what beach it was on and she suddenly clicked where it was, telling us it was on a different beach to the gingers accomodation. Which we knew anyway! But she'd told us that they were next to eachother so we'd though nothing of it. Now she said that they weren't close to each other and it would be another 600 baht on top of what we'd agreed! We all refused this and she ended up pulling over on the side of the road, where started to negotiate. We all said she had agreed to take us to these places for the agreed price, but she was claiming she didn't realise how far apart they were. After much discussion (or arguing, however you want to put it) we agreed an extra 50 baht each, which wasn't too bad but that wasn't the point. She was trying to get more money out of us, it was just the start of the general experience of Koh Samui.

The gingers were dropped off first, we said bye and we'd arrange to meet up later that day (this was when we still believed our accomodation was a 10 minute walk from eachother) We then had another 30 minute drive until we arrived at our hotel! So maybe we wouldn't be seeing the gingers any time soon... The hotel was set back from the main road, amongst little shops and massage parlours. In other words, a really bad location. There were no restuarants or bars of any kind. There seemed to be pretty much no atmosphere there at all. It was depressing. A completely different vibe from any other island we'd visited and for the first time, we were really disappointed when we got out of the taxi.

The hotel itself wasn't much better. When we checked in, they told us that they had upgraded us to a bungalow 'so please give us good feedback on booking.com' - basically, we will upgrade you for free but you need to do us a favour in return. We just said thank you and went to our room, which was fine but not great. We say fine, infact the bathroom was dirty and the sheets were stayed with holes in, so we weren't very happy. But it was the location of the hotel that was the biggest let down. We walked to the pool to find about 8 workmen and women laying flooring slabs around it whilst people were attempting to sunbathe and get in the pool. So things weren't exactly looking up! We were just debating what we were going to do as we were meant to be here for 6 nights when Candy got a text from Kelly, asking if they could sleep on our floor that night as their hostel was so bad they'd left! We thought we'd had a rubbish deal, they'd had it far worse - dirty sheets on the floor, old beer bottles littered about, stains on the mattresses and a pile of bed bugs! We said of course they could come and stay with us, we'd wait for them outside out hotel.

We waited for nearly an hour but the girls hadn't turned up. Emma text Kelly to find out what had happened, it seems the girls ordeal was just getting worse, their taxi driver had just dropped them in the middle of the town, not giving them any idea where they were meant to go to reach our hotel! They'd managed to find someone to ask who had pointed them in the right direction, they had found the beach and were walking along it to get to us. We went down to the beach and looked for them, there was still no sign. We walked along a bit and sat on a rock, looking across to the horizon for them. After 10 minutes or so, we saw two gingers with big bags walking towards us! They were easy to spot, they were the only people on the beach who looked like they wanted to kill themselves. We went up to meet them and took some of their bags off them. We all started to walk back to our hotel, we were nearly there, we'd walked up the steps just past the pool when Emma realised Candy wasn't with them. She then heard a quiet 'Emma' and she looked around, she knew it was Candy but couldn't actually see her. Hayley was standing at the top of the stairs looking back down, Emma went over and found Candy lying on her side with Kelly's bag. She'd lost her footing in the sand, had gone over and now couldn't get back up. She was lying on her side with her legs kicking like a little bug. An old man was rushing over to help her. He must have been about 80 years old. Emma went down to help her up (this was after she had burst out laughing) she hauled her up and checked she was ok, then we all set off again. The girls decided to check in for the night and stay in a room, just incase we got caught out and plus, the floor wasn't too appealing to sleep on. After that experience, we were all in agreement that maybe Koh Samui wasn't for us...

Luckily, the hotel had a restuarant so we had dinner there that first night. We sat out on the decking outside looking out to the sea. It was nice, and the food was actually ok aswell, but other than that, Koh Samui didn't have the same vibe as the other islands. And the location we were in, even though it was meant to be on one of the main beaches, had nothing going on and nowhere to go. We were sitting talking and eating, when a woman walking along the beach approached us, she was carrying red lanterns. The idea is that you pay for them to light the lanterns in the middle and you make a wish, they then let the lantern go into the sky. We said we'd all split one as they were big lanterns, and as we're travelling we need to watch out money! So we all went onto the beach holding a corner each of the lantern. We all agreed to make our wishes silently otherwise they might not come true. We all held it, the woman lit it and when she said it was time we all let it go. We watched it glide up into the sky and float away, our wishes going with it....

The next day we decided that we wouldn't stay in Koh Samui for 6 nights. We found an internet cafe and started looking for accomodation in Phi Phi (our next planned stop) we were always going to go there, just now we were going a bit earlier than planned. Luckily the hotel in Koh Samui had a policy of free cancellation or amendment as long as you give them notice and as we hadn't paid, we were able to change it and not lose money. Phi Phi is notoriously difficult to get accomodation as it is such a small island and it was now the start of high season. It took ages to find anywhere within bugdet and in the end, we just ended up panic booking a place called Golden Hill Bungalows. We booked it for 4 nights even though we were intended to stay on the island for 8, we were hoping that once we were on Phi Phi we could go to the hotel we'd stayed at last time and book a room there and then as it wasn't coming up on the internet. The girls booked 5 nights, as after Phi Phi were going our seperate ways for a while as they were heading back down to Malaysia. So with that booked, we also booked a boat for the next day to leave Koh Samui.

Looking back, we've both said that maybe we should have given Koh Samui more of a chance. It was probably down to the location of the hotel but when we were driving round it didn't seem to have the same vibe as other islands. There weren't any 'centres' or main areas with bars and restaurants, just lots of shops and occasional pharmacies. We were warned that Koh Samui was dirty and not a great place to stay, we have to say, from our experience we agree. But if we'd been in another area then maybe we could say differently. If we'd stayed a bit longer we might have changed our minds but at the time, we felt like leaving was the best option. Plus we got to spend more time in Phi Phi!

So all four of us are about to set out to get the ferry at the wonderful hour of 6.30am...