12.31 NYE and farewell to Samui

Our last day in Samui started with a move. We’d thought staying in the north and south might give us a better overall idea as to the pleasures offered by the island, so our initial plan was to spend three nights in one hotel, and then move to another for the last three. Well, due to the craziness of Samui, and the famous Full Moon Party happening on the neighboring island, the only flight we could find back to Bangkok was early morning on the 1st, cutting our Samui stay down by two days, and our stay at the other hotel to a single night. So while the move seemed like a smart idea at the time, it was more just a pain in the ass packing up and moving for one night’s stay.

After getting confused on where the hotel was, and spending way too much baht to get there, we finally arrived to the Jinta Beach Bungalow on the south part of the island. Upon jumping out of the back of the pickup truck (call it a traditional Thai taxi), we were greeting with a confused look by the owner of the hotel. Gift and the woman, who could have doubled as the Buddha she was wearing on her shirt, burst into a Thai-tirade that left me useless for a few minutes.

It turned out that the two rooms we booked ready weren’t ready, and the hotel didn’t even know we were coming that night. One of the rooms would be ready after cleaning, but the other would not be available until 6pm that evening, another 7+ hours from the time of this conversation.

I told Gift I wouldn’t mind sharing the larger room, if we could receive a refund on the unused room, and after so much haggling, translating, and waiting on cell phone calls to the person we obviously should have been talking to in the beginning, we got in our room and would have 800 baht returned in a few hours.

The afternoon continued on with a swim, some reading and a quick run down the beach to see the difference of the terrain on the south of the island. It felt like a different world here compared to where we’d spent the previous three nights with the number of locals matching the number of farang, each of them practicing their very well pronounced, “Hello’s!!” as I made my way down the beach. One even offered me some whiskey and a cigarette, but I respectfully declined with a smile.

With both of us starving, Gift and I set out to try and find some food. The nearest place to get a bite was a kilometer away, so we set out in hopes of quieting our hungry stomachs.

I would say this was one of the most interesting walks of my time in Thailand, for all of the local life we saw en route. One of the most interesting things to rural Thai life is the co-habitation with so many different animals. It’s not a big deal to see a bull being led down the road, and elephant walking through the streets, or mischievous monkeys, rummaging through handbags, lunch bags, brown bags, plastic bags, or any kind of bag they can find. On this particular walk, we saw the bulls (I was very aware that I was wearing red shorts as I walked by . . . ), the stray dogs, the chickens, and even caught sight of the birds providing the underscore for a beautiful, warm Samui day. But as we continued, I started to hear what sounded like a crowd of folks singing. In rural Thailand, this would be almost as unusual as seeing a polar bear hanging out with the bulls. As we drew closer, Gift and I saw a huge groups of Thai’s following a truck with a full band playing in the bed, singing, dancing and raising money for God-knows-what cause. The music was infectious, and we were greeted by the local Thais with handshakes and hello’s as we danced in the afternoon sun with the joyous parade. This same time last year I’d been in New Orleans for New Year’s, and had been bummed to not see a second-line parade through the streets of the Big Easy. I laughed to myself that a year later almost to the day, on a different continent, my wish was being granted.

New Year’s Eve was quiet on Ko Samui for Gift and I, as we had to leave at 5am to catch our flight back to Bangkok. We visited a neighboring resort to watch their NYE party and it was surprisingly a lot of fun. The master of ceremonies for the evening, an openly gay cabaret singer who would say things like, “This is my last song. I want to let you know that it is from the heart,” was a riot. At one point he pulled a man to the front of the stage, stripped down to his salmon colored boxers and wife beater, and gave the man a private serenade in front of his girlfriend. Ballsy, yes. Entertaining, you bet.

Another year came to a close as I fell asleep in my bungalow to the sound of the ocean.