Day 128! Today was a very long day! Honestly by the end of the day, it felt like our ferry ride was yesterday. But even with some minor weather difficulties, it ended up being a great day!

7am rolled around and Mina’s alarm went off, meaning it was time to get up and at ‘em. Somehow though, I slept through the alarm. So I woke up around 7:15am confused why everyone was awake.

Mina dropped off our room key and we said goodbye to our slice of paradise. We then went on a 10 minute walk to the pier.

Today we were off to our next and final destination, Koh Samui! But before the ferry, we stopped by 7-Eleven for a breakfast snack.

After our snack we headed to the pier for our 9:30am ferry. We had about 40 minutes to spare, so we sat, chatted, and played some more Pokémon. It’s been very fun playing a Pokémon game again, it brings me back to playing the game when I was younger.

We boarded the ferry and embarked on a very quick and beautiful 30 minute boat ride to Koh Samui.

Koh Samui is bigger and more commercialized than Koh Phangan. And it’s my first time coming here! So I’m as much in the unknown as my cousins, which is a cool experience. This is also the island my cousins are flying out of this weekend.

Just as we arrived, the weather decided to turn and we unloaded from the ferry into an island drizzle.

The drizzle quickly turned into a bit more of a downpour. So we quickly ordered a Grab and made our way to our bungalow. I didn’t realize Koh Samui had Grabs, it’s not a thing on Koh Phangan and Koh Tao.

A weird thing happened during this ride. As we started heading to our room for the night, the driver told us we needed to pay him 50 Baht per backpack… even though we didn’t agree on this before hand. So we politely said this to him and said no. But when we got to the bungalow he charged us through the app! I didn’t know this was a thing… it was quite annoying.

Usually when you arrive to a new place you have to check in after 2pm. But luckily when we arrived at our bungalow they had the room ready for us. So we got out of the rain and into a nice and air conditioned room.

Once we got settled in, we went on a 10 minute walk to find a place to eat. But the restaurant we had found just lost power, so we had to go find another place to eat.

We ended up just eating at a restaurant right next to our bungalow. I enjoyed a flavorful meal of grilled chicken with rice. The owners at this restaurant were super friendly too which made the meal even better.

After a solid lunch, we hopped into our bathing suits and headed on a short walk to the beach.

Koh Samui has a lot of beaches, I believe Chaweng Beach is the popular one for travelers. But we are staying on Bo Phut Beach, which is much quieter it seems.

We stayed at the beach for a while, this time ensuring to use lots and lots of sunscreen. For most of our time, we spent it relaxing in the water and getting knocked around by the small waves.

The ocean floor felt a little like the bottom of a lake which was odd, but outside of that it was an amazing number of hours.

But before we left, Sam and Mina got manicures and pedicures on the beach. They said it was very relaxing and a great experience.

As we came back, the rain decided to pick back up. We decided to play cards until the storm passed. But after the storm left we got graced with a beautiful sunset.

The rain finally let up enough for us to feel like it was an enjoyable idea to walk around outside. So we grabbed some of the hotel umbrellas and started a 35 minute walk to an alleged night market .

This walk was long, hot, and it was raining on and off, but these umbrellas came in very clutch! They were massive!

Halfway through our walk we passed by a fruit smoothie stand and a banana roti. This was a great way to split up the hot walk. I started chatting with the roti stand owner and found out he was from Bangladesh. He has been living in Koh Samui for almost 20 years.

He for sure had perfected his craft, as this roti was very tasty.

Unfortunately, it was around this time that we found out the night market was closed for some reason today. But we decided to go check it out anyways. I’m glad we did because it led us to a very pretty Chinese Temple!

Even with the night market closed, we had passed by many amazing looking restaurants on our way over. And by this point, I was starting to get very hungry.

So we stopped at one nearby that sold pork or beef noodle soup!

I ended up getting a beef noodle soup which was really tasty.

There was a local man sitting in the restaurant and I was chit chatting with him a little bit before we ate. And when we finished up eating he walked over and gave us all a sweet treat to try!

This was so nice and the desert was fantastic. I wish I knew what it was so I could have it again… I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for it at local markets in the future.

After dinner, we spent the rest of the night relaxing and diving into deep conversations. We all have big changes going on in our lives so it was nice to catch up, be sounding boards for each other, and also just hear what each other’s plans are currently! We also made a late night 7-Eleven run and got some fun snacks to try too.

I love my cousins and it’s really cool hearing what they’re up to. It’s also just so amazing that they are out here with me! It’s been a very wholesome trip with lots of ups and downs already. I’m sad that it’s coming to an end for now, but I’m so glad I got to share this little slice of paradise with them.

But we have a day and a half left before I’m back to my solo traveling and meeting lots of new people!

– Elie