To get to Koh Samui from Phuket we had to take a bus to a place called Surrathani where we'd get another bus to the port where we'd then get the boat. Now we thought the first bus would take us to the bus station in Surrathani. The driver had other ideas and instead stopped at a travel agent where we could conveniently buy a combined bus and boat ticket. This is the sort of scam we'd heard about and tried to tell the driver to take us to the bus station but the only person who spoke English was the travel agent who was telling us this was the bus station and the bus would now be going to Phuket! We had no choice but to get off and after talking to the travel agent discovered the bus to the port wasn't for another 2 hours either! I was pretty annoyed at this because I knew we'd be paying more for this service than if we'd gone to the bus station and sorted the tickets ourselves. In the end though we sucked it up and bought the bus and boat package. The bus turned up and was actually really comfortable. They even showed terminator 2 on the TV which made paying extra that little bit more tolerable. 
 
We made it onto the boat across to Koh Samui but had a bit of trouble getting to the villa itself. It's not very well known and when we told a group of taxi drivers where we wanted to go they all looked blankly at us. Never to be deterred one of them said they'd take us and we'd work it out on the way. As Dad and Marianne were already there we got them to text over the number of the lady who ran it and she managed to guide the driver. We got there and after saying our hellos tucked into a takeaway Thai meal which the owner had got for us. 

After we'd eaten we had a chance to appreciate the lovely villa. It had three lovely rooms, a decent sized kitchen and lounge (with a massive TV) but outside was a lovely little garden with our own private pool! Even better was the fact that Dad and Marianne had brought over two blocks of cheese, a mountain of chocolate, biscuits, sweets, Marmite, good coffee and English tea bags! We were not expecting all this but were incredibly happy with their efforts :-)  
As the villa was quite far from most things Dad had decided to hire a car for us to motor around sightseeing, eating out and of course shopping for food supplies to cook in our own kitchen. Again, me and Hannah were looking forward to this tremendously! So the first few days were mostly spent chilling by the pool, although we did drag ourselves away long enough to visit the local beach and a very big Tesco – think we enjoyed this more than Dad and Marianne :) 

On the third day we visited a big Buddha statue which really was quite big. You could walk round it bashing some big bells as you went. A rather odd couple were doing this with quite some gusto, much to my annoyance as it spoilt the experience rather. On the way back to the villa we went to Wat Plai Laem which was a Buddhist temple but on the grounds was another big Buddha and an equally large 18 armed goddess called Guanyin. That night we headed down to the night market where they sold lots of local food and quite a lot of tourist souvenirs.

After doing so much sightseeing the previous day we decided to go to the beach on the next! We had read about a lovely beach called Silver Beach. It took some finding but once we did it really was quite nice. Although the sea did like coming quite high up onto the beach and we quickly learnt why everyone was so far towards the back of it. Another day was spent by the pool and then we went and visited another temple where Buddha’s footprint was kept, yeah right! 

Halfway through the second week we all went on a snorkelling trip which visited the sea around Koh Tao and also dropped us off at a nearby island call Koh Nangyuan. Here there were beautiful sandy beaches for Dad to sunbathe on and brilliant turquoise waters containing lots of fish and coral for the young'uns to snorkel in. 
 
We split eating out and cooking pretty much 50/50 so me and Hannah could enjoy the fact that we had a kitchen but also for Dad and Marianne to enjoy the delights of Thai cuisine. For the most part the trips out to the restaurants were delicious except for when Marianne seemingly found a maggot in with her rice... hmmmm delicious. One of the most memorable evenings out though was when we had a delicious meal on tables plonked right on the beach, a few metres from the ocean. As it was low season there was no-one else there and the owner was falling over himself to help us. He even brought us a free starter of battered squid! After a while though he was starting to get a little bit annoying as he'd stand near our table whenever he brought food out and wait for us to all tell him how delicious it was. We got through the main courses and thought that was it, until he brought over four steaming bowls of bananas cooked in coconut milk, on the house. Now this could quite possibly be my idea of hell, cooked soft banana in sweet sickly coconut milk! Unfortunately as the owner was hovering right over my shoulder I had no choice but to eat some and pretend I liked it. I'm told the look on my face was priceless but I was doing all I could not to vomit at the time. Hannah, Marianne and Dad all thought it hilarious knowing how much I hate banana. Eventually he let us be and I could palm off the rest of mine to Hannah and Marianne who thought it was most delicious. Weirdos :P

In between these trips away from the villa, we sunbathed and chilled out making sure we got our fill of chocolate and cakes everyday. I think we must of put on a couple of stone by the time we left. A very enjoyable couple of weeks :)

(Our photos are from all four of our cameras. Thanks Richard and Marianne for letting us share some of your pics too :))