Koh Samui

Sarah's last stop on our Thai journey was Koh Samui. I'm gonna be so sad when she goes!! Dad was very generous with his Marriott points, so we got to live a little more luxuriously for a few days while staying at the Renaissance Koh Samui. The hotel was really amazing. It doesn't hurt that we received a free upgrade to villa with private pool. After walking into the room, Sarah exclaimed "this is the best place ever!" I'm beginning to wonder how many best places ever there are. 

Our honeymoon resort pool

We had a delicious seafood dinner overlooking the sea at the hotel restaurant after making ourselves comfortable in our villa. Then it was off to bed because we had another early morning of scuba diving ahead of us in Koh Tao. 

Koh Tao - view from the dive boat

Across Thailand, we've heard mixed things about which place is best for diving. Though it was dark in Phi Phi, so we couldn't really see, I'm going to have to agree with those who give the vote to Koh Tao. It was truly incredible diving. I finished my advance open water scuba certification doing a 30 M deep dive and fish identification adventure dive. Sarah is going to finish hers on Saturday after I leave and we'll both be Advanced divers! We really loved our dive master, Steve, from Discovery Divers. The boat was one of the nicest I've ever been on, the service was amazing, and the food they served us was even good. I've never eaten curry on a dive boat before!

Blue-spotted ray

After diving, we relaxed by the beautiful infinity pool drinking delicious coconut cocktails before dinner. For dinner, we went to this thing called the Thai Experience run by two (really cute) British guys. The whole idea is about bringing together travelers to teach them about the Thai culture over a long, lubricated five course meal. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious!

Enjoying the Thai Experience

On my last day in Koh Samui, we took a cooking class at Island Organics with Lat. Her class is held at her home in the hills of Samui where she and her husband Cameron have an organic farm. We picked vegetables from the garden before getting started. The menu for the day was a ginger and tofu stir fry, followed by Tom Yum soup, yellow chicken curry and a spicy larb salad which Sarah made the traditional way with pork and I substituted for chicken. The food was really good. I'm looking forward to my first few dinner parties when I get to Seattle!

Beach-side fish stand

We returned to the pool after the cooking class and witnessed the hotel restaurant literally catching people fish-to-order for their dinner. There was a little stand set up on the beach and a fishing boat not too far off in the water. About every 45 minutes or so, a guy in a kayak would go from the beach out to the fishing boat and return with fish to take to the restaurant. I wish I was here for another meal! After some more pool time, it was time for me to say goodbye to Sarah and head to Bangkok to start my volunteer work for the next three weeks. Lucky Sarah still has two more days in paradise and the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan ahead of her. I can't complain though, I still have seven weeks in Southeast Asia!