A good day on Samui

I awoke early refreshed from a good night's sleep. First thing I did was open up the doors facing the beach and take a look at the rising sun. Took our two chaise lounges down to the sand and placed them in "our spots". This reserves our space beneath two nice big coconut palms where we can relax in the shade and be on the edge of the property. Then ron came out and we took a swim while the sea was calm and there were few people. After a nice shower, we went to the restaurant and sat outside and had our morning coffee, fruit salad and yogurt. Back at the room by 9am. Read our emails, took it easy and then had another hour or two on the beach. Cleaned up and walked up to the ring road and waited to catch the song tao, the local taxi. They are small pick up trucks with bench seats along the side of the bed of the truck and a metal roof. You flag them down, tell the driver where you want to go and he tells you the price. We went to the main town called Nathon. There we went to Asia Travel to book flight tickets to Bali. We took the advice of the more experienced agent when she made a very long face on hearing we wanted to catch the Malaysian flight to KL. she warned us that the morning flight from Samui could be late and as we only had an hour to connect to the international flight it was a gamble. So our plans changed and we are now booked to fly an afternoon flight to Phuket where we will stay over night and then take Air Asia direct from Phuket to Bali. This seemed the best thing to do, and also saved us about $200, the potential of a missed connection, and a lot of worry. After that we walked around, bought some clothes, ate a nice pad Thai and had an iced coffee. Caught the song tao back to our beach and were back in our chaise lounges by 2:30. A very successful day. By 6pm we were having our evening cocktail of absolute vodka, lime and fresh tangerine juice on our front porch. There is no tonic to be had in Thailand as the factory was ruined in the floods. We have resorted to the tangerine juice and it is delicious. We walked down the beach to another restaurant that we went to years ago. It is off the beach on the road in town. More noise and action. But the food was excellent. Red curry with chicken, small eggplant and Thai basil. Fried seafood with sweet sauce, and my favorite greens cooked in a light sauce. Steamed rice and soda water with lime. Our dinner cost $12 including a small tip. We will definitely go there again. There are about a dozen 7-11 stores in every town and we go each night for a big bottle of water and maybe something sweet. They are shockingly cold inside. Feels great. Walked back on the beach a nd now we are home in our little bungalow. A good day on Samui.