Hello Friends,

After our cooking class on Saturday, we went back to the hotel to snag our bags. We took a taxi from the hotel to the airport. Due to the storm and the traffic we wanted to get there a little early to make sure we didn’t miss out flight. As luck would have it, traffic was easy and we got there a little too early. We decided to walk around the airport, and after that took some silly photos.

Our flight landed in Koh Samui and we took a taxi to our hotel The Kala. We were pretty tired at this point, as it was just after 11 our time. Annie and I had the lower floor of the villa, right by the pool. Her parents had the larger of the two rooms, taking all of the top floor.

We crashed and woke up pretty early the next morning to check out our gorgeous view. We had a tasty breakfast at the hotel, and then were off to our private tour with Nong and our driver. We started with a tour of a coconut farm, where the coconuts are harvested by trained monkeys. Annie and her mom were brave enough to allow the monkey to sit on their shoulder, but I was a little shy after the monkey made a pass for Nancy’s sunglasses.

From there we drove up the hillside to a gorgeous secret hidden garden. Built by an artist for himself and his wife, they enjoyed it until their death around forty years ago.

People soon knew of this hidden gem and would sneak onto his property to look at the waterfalls, and pay their respects to the statues. Eventually it was opened to the public and there’s a little shop at the road entrance. It started pouring at this point, so it was a little harder to explore with slippery steps. Even still it’s a stop you must make if you go to Koh Samui.

From there we drove on to a temple surrounding by water. It was serene and gorgeous. Apparently they had to create the road out to the temple out of sand and put pavement on it to little town on a former island, which still stands today as a big tourist attraction.

We stopped by this amazing pottery place where I picked up a few gifts and Annie’s mom got two gorgeous vases. It also rained a bit more.

From there we relaxed at our hotel for a bit, before heading into town for the local food festival (which is every Sunday) where we gorged ourselves on everything delicious.

All in all, a great first day on the island!

Love,

-S