Koh Samui, the island of Palms in Thailand
After Phuket this year we wanted to "try out" the other island famous for tourism in Thailand: Koh Samui. So, after deciding a couple of years now that our winter ends in February, the agency we booked the only flight (Thai Airways) and started searching on the internet of the accommodation and the island's best places strategically where to stay. The island is not very big but it allows many solutions to areas more or less do. Our choice fell on Lamai Beach Utopia Resort as the location and (www.utopia-samui.net) as an accommodation and both turned out perfect. Lamai Chaweng is definitely less chaotic and in some ways you can spend your holidays with more confidence. The resort is very well structured, on the beach and surrounded by a beautiful tropical garden. Once you have taken possession of our accommodation we immediately rented scooters and map in hand, we dive around the island. The island has one main road (Ring Road 4169) recently paved and widened, and most secondary roads are concrete, this allows you to easily reach all the beaches and the many routes. What strikes Samui is the "green" that covers it almost completely and in a sublime way that contrasts with the white sand and blue sea, spectacular mountains un'entroterra consists of limestone and granite covered by dense tropical forest, palm trees coconut as far as the eye, but colorful flowers, especially its beaches. At the end of two weeks we did about 600 km, visiting many and certainly not all, the most famous and long Chaweng (including Chaweng Noi) and other like Bo Phut Lamai, Mae Nam, Thong Yang (Big John Beach), Thong Krut, Banh Kao and found by chance some of which do not even know the name, with the typical little place on the beach where you can eat or drink anything straight with your feet on the sand, usually managed by a Thai family as always cordial. Compared Phuket beaches have a smaller width for which you were directly under the shadow of the palms and the sea, a little 'rougher which restricts the observation of fish close to shore. Besides the sea, there to Samui bored. During our wanderings we came across many interesting places of worship or not: from the Big Buddha Temple, famous for the temple of the famous Monaco Kunaram mummified with glasses, including a pagoda and Phanka Taling Nagami Bay, where is kept a ' other mummy, the Snake Farm (show with cobras, pythons and scorpions), the zoo-aquarium (with tigers, leopards, sharks, giant turtles), Na Muang waterfalls at 1 and 2, the award-photographed Hin Ta & Hin Yai ( Grandfather & Grandmother Rocks), and many view point where you have breathtaking views only. Because to us, who love the sea, this was not enough (ironically speaking), we decided to dedicate a day for a 'hike in the surrounding islands, where it is the owner of snorkeling and more specifically in Koh Tao and Koh Nangyuan that have proven to live up to expectations. And in the evening? Well, start a new fun. Dall'aperitivo, to choose where and what to eat, shopping, where the price is required to treat and fun to drink a beer or a cocktail in one of the many go-go bars, various cabaret shows (those are the most likeable Ladyboy) or attend a meeting of Muay Thai, Thai real meeting point of the bets with no end. The only recommendation is to not move around so much with their vehicles, because if the day is reckless driving of the Thais, at night you add a high alcohol content, which increases their danger and to be involved in accidents is not pleasant. A Lama went out on foot, and when we went to Chaweng at night, we have used their public transportation that are nothing more than pick-up trucks, they are many as you want at all hours and are comfortable. The thing in common that we have seen with other trips made in Thailand is the spirit of its people. For the Thai people, smiling and always use a lot of kindness is a universal language that unites people of all races and you know it when you get on the flight from their airline and for the entire stay in this country you're accompanied by this form of simple and elegant greeting to join hands near the face by lowering his head slightly, a hint of a natural and sincere smile that you send a serenity that we in the West, perhaps we are no longer used but that surely appreciate, respect, and we adapt immediately. Sawasdee Ka, Sawasdee Khra.