Harry's and the Ferry

When you are in Thailand it is almost obligatory to head to the beach and sample the sensual nature of the warm sea water lapping the shores of white sanded beaches with palm trees swaying above you. Bangkok can only take you so far and Thai beaches will take you further!With so much coastline to choose from, a destination to head off to is not hard to find.

But just where do you go? Especially when the monsoon is still hanging around and your time is limited? We decided that we would fly with Asia's best low cost airline Air Asia to Surat Thani and then take the ferry to Koh Samui and then crash out at Harry's. What a pleasure to organize and pay for it all online. Sometimes travelling can be made too easy….but at this stage, we were not complaining!

If Bangkok was hot and humid, then Surat Thani and Koh Samui were like fire and brimstone. Here was a place where you didn't have to do anything and the air around you just sucked the sweat straight from your body! The cold beers and the pool at Harry's were calling our names as we chugged across the Gulf of Thailand on the way to Koh Samui and sweated buckets!And Harry's did not disappoint at all. Tucked a little ways from the main road and slightly behind the beach, was a spot you could just let it all hang out.

You did not need to fend off beach vendors every now and again, the food was sublime, the location cool and refreshing and the foot massages sent you off into a stupor of bliss (unlike the Thai massage in Bangkok that had me in twists and turns in every direction and all the time wondering if my body could actually handle this without breaking!) ! Nights were late and mornings unrushed. Time had no meaning here and the most pressing decisions were should we tear ourselves away from the pool and head to that tropical beach? And what should we have to eat and drink now or later? Or should we have supper here or that little place just down the road under the palm trees next to the lake? The hammock in the shade of the little pool shack in the shade of garden of fountains, fish and waterfall conspired to turn us into lotus eaters and not go home!Amanda found that hammock on the first afternoon and made it her own!

Further down the main road was Chaeng, the hedonistic centre and capital of Koh Samui. I wrote to a friend of mine who had been here and said he would never return in case he sullied those happy "hedonistic memories"! And it was easy to see why. Music from open bars pulsed in the street and light and people spilled out from the roadside bars and restos up and down the main road. That night was a trance dance party just along the beach. It seemed that the town was readying itself for a marathon beach dance session. Later that night, the journey back to Harry's was spent hanging off the back of the speeding songthaew with the wind running through our hair, marveling at the joys of life and how free we seemed to be!