We booked a full-day, 4-in-1 excursion with the tour company across the street from the Pinnacle.  The 4-in-1 translated to basically a lot of riding: 4-wheeler riding, zip line riding, waterfall riding, roof-top riding, and...wait for it...elephant riding.  It was an awesome day, so I'm not complaining, just explaining.  But this will probably sound a little like complaining, I'm sure.

The 4 wheeler just had no get up & go, but it was still fun to fart around on the things.  I mean, we were riding 4 wheelers through the jungle!!!

It's really hard to get excited about a zip line like this after the one we went on in Costa Rica, but there was one part when we were on an Indiana Jones type bridge/ladder that was super scary awesome.

The waterfall was beautiful, and there was a really nice hike to get up to it.  The "waterfall riding," however, ended being a water slide built into the side of the mountain just down the stream from the falls.  It was super painful and super fun.  I only did it once, and that was definitely NOT because I would have had to pay for another go.  That thing shot me out at about the speed of @#$%-ing OUCH!!

The elephant ride was pretty conflicting.  On the one hand, it was fun, interesting, exotic, scary, and a very must-do Thai tourist activity.  On the other hand, the hooks they used "steer" and "train" the elephants looked quite sharp and menacing.  So we have these beautiful animals being exploited and submitted to what some would consider torture.  But one could also consider the alternative of being hunted to extinction, and these elephants are given plenty of water (supposedly), food, exercise, and better jobs than many humans have for sure.  We find ourselves conflicted on the subject and most definitely need more information; but, just as we've decided with cruise ships, we'll most likely not participate in the activity again (after we do the Caribbean, that is ;).

The craziest part was that we ended up finishing this day with plenty of day left.  And we did not waste it.

No Pirate's Cove

As soon as we heard about it, Thailand's first and most premier mini-golf course was put right at the top of our to-do list.  So, while we had the scooter, we made the hour and a half ride (half-hour ride, one-hour "where-the-hell-are-we" tour) to the top of a small mountain on the northeast corner of Koh Samui, where the course was nestled.  We felt the course was far too wet, a bit too straight, and waaay too made of cement to justify the greens fees.  So we snapped the photo (coming soon, of course) and hopped back on our scooter for some more island touring.

I Can Get Satisfaction

The first place we took the scooter was to the walking market in Mae Nam.  This market was very cutesy and fun and very much like every market in the world in that it had a few unique products/services and these were offered 3,597 times by 3,597 different vendors.  In this case, the Mae Nam Market uniqueness consisted of barbecue skewers, mojitos, fresh fried thick cut potato chips on a stick, sarongs, carved coconut figurines, and "real" pearls.

We had dinner at a candle-lit table sunk into the sand on the beach so close to the lightly crashing waves you could barely hear the fantastic Thai Rolling Stones cover band that was playing at the market only a short block off the beach.

Le Grand Tyran

We were not actually in the village of Mae Nam, but just to the west of it, which was perfect as far as being on a quiet, slightly secluded beach.  The village was not really walking distance.  When we asked, we were told of two ways to get there: take the shuttle for $5 each way with scheduled departures, or walk out to the main road and hope that you don't have to wait too long for a taxi to drive by to take you there and back for $3 each way.  I can't blame them, because they were technically just answering our specific questions about shuttle/taxi services/prices, but what they didn't tell us right away was that we could rent a scooter for the full day, and go to Mae Nam and more than a dozen other places on the island, for $6.  Of course we strapped on the ill-fitting helmets, braved the Thai anti-French driving,** and burned rubber.


**Thailand drives on the left side of the road.  I'm not exactly sure of the origin story for left-side driving in the UK or other Asian countries, but we were told that it is done in Thailand because it is the opposite of the way they do it in France, who for some reason just wan't leave Thailand alone--le grand bullies!

La Luna

We happened to be visiting Koh Samui during the full moon, and so we thought it wise to make our way to Koh Phangan during the moon's monty. Koh Phangan has a world famous Full Moon Party every month. We caught a speedboat from the little pier by our beach to the party beach just one short hour--and 720 super-tall waves--away.

The party was so super freaking awesome....for the twelve thousand wasted 19-year-olds who were there on August Spring Break, that is. For us, not so much. But it really was an experience I would not trade though. Food, booze, music, and fire dancing everywhere. The beach was packed with glowing partiers, and the streets were lined with massages, feet-eating fish, glow-in-the-dark body painting, and pizza.  Who could ask fr anything more from a full moon?

Happy Hour!!!

I really don't think we could have done less during our first three days in Thailand, and it was super duper. The pool at our little resort was infinite and the perfect temperature for a soak after floating in the ocean and before rinsing off in the shower; the food was yummy and affordable and delivered to the beach beds; the massages were cheap and also served to the beach beds; the Game of Thrones books just kept getting better as we read them....on the beach beds; there was a friendly, unassuming dude who walked the beach selling ice cream to people lying in their beach beds; there was an even friendlier dude who set up a beach grill and cooked corn on the cob and sliced the ripest, freshest pineapple and mango, but you had to get out of the beach bed and make the walk....about twenty feet; the drinks were cold, delivered to the beach beds, and half-priced daily (at 3pm sharp, the resort employees would all sing out together, "HAPPY HOUR!!!").

Sit, Booboo, sit.

There were "wild" dogs not quite all over the place, but just, pretty......over the place?? There were quite a few that cruised our beach all day just doing exactly what you would expect a dog, or human, with nothing to do, to do--lay around in the sand, play around in the ocean, enjoy fun games with others, steal food, and sniff butts. Yes, very human behavior indeed. They kept jumping from super cute to super freaky deeky. One minute, they would be playing nicely with one another, and the next minute, they would be drawing blood from each others' hind quarters, "playfully" bite wrestling. One minute, they would be frolicking in the waves, and the next minute, they would be snatching a book from someone's beach chair and tearing and chewing the pages to shreds. Our books--and hind quarters--remained in tact, however, and so the dogs remained an added novel distraction to our stressful, busy days of lying on the beach counting waves and reading Game of Thrones.