We arrived here on Saturday from Chiang Mai and it's been a pretty relaxing, laid back few days. We are staying at a place called L'Hacienda Hotel, which is located in Baphut, one of the smaller beach communities located on the north side of the island. We chose this area because it's a little smaller and quieter than the other towns on the island, Chaweng and Lamai. Unfortunately, the beaches on this side of the island aren't the best, but it's still quite lovely.
Our hotel is a small with only eight rooms and we're on the second floor with a perfect view of the ocean from our deck and a view of a neighboring island, Koh Phangan in the distance. Oh and the best part is, we have a small pool on the roof! this part of Bophut is called "Fisherman's Village" for the pier that is in the middle of town and it's really walkable, with lots of restaurants and shops lining the narrow main street.
The taxis on the island are really expensive compared to the other places in Thailand we've been in, so we decided to rent a scooter through the hotel for a couple of outings we've had. They're actually pretty fun once you get over sharing the road with all the other scooters on the island as well as the cars and trucks that drive by! There is a place on the island called the Samui Institute for Thai Culinary Arts (SITCA) and yesterday we went there and took a fruit carving class and another Thai cooking class. There was one other student in the carving class and we all were given a watermelon to carve a flower on. After getting some great instruction, we all did a pretty great job! Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera with us so I can't post a picture of our finished project, but the woman who was in the class with us said she would email the pictures she took when she got home.
When the class was over, we had a few hours to kill until the cooking class began at 4 p.m., so we went across the street for a foot massage. As any of you who have ever been to Thailand know, massage places are EVERYWHERE and they are so reasonably priced, you can't pass it up. Plus, it feels so good! We each had a one hour foot massage, which included your calves and then a shoulder massage as well and paid about $5. What a bargain!
The evening cooking class had five other students in the class besides us, four women from Denmark and a guy from The Netherlands. Our teacher was really entertaining and we cooked four dishes, all of which turned our really beautifully. Man, if this keeps up, we'll really be able to cook some good Thai food when we get home! Also, we were given dvds and a cookbook from all of our classes, which should help a lot.
Today we did a little island exploring on the scooter - oh by the way, Jim is operating it perfectly and I'm trying not to be too fidgety of a passenger - and headed over to Big Buddha Beach. It's a little point of land on the northeast part of the island. True to it's name, there's a HUGE golden buddha at the point with a temple nearby. It was quite a site and well worth the trip -plus, there were some great shops around the area as well.
Tomorrow, we head out on a guided kayaking trip to the offshore island chain that form a national marine park. We've really been looking forward to this so hopefully we'll have some great pictures to post........
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