We managed to get ourselves settled into our new place in Ko Samui and spent the first day just relaxing around the pool here – I was able to find a deck chair that was in the WiFi service area, and got a bunch of work done while the kids splashed around in the pool.  Then after a fairly productive day I decided it was high time to treat myself to another massage 🙂 – my count is now up to 3, well short of my targeted 1 per day of vacation here.

We are staying at Chewang Beach on Ko Samui, which is the busiest of the beaches here.  There are plenty of bars and night clubs and markets here, so this is clearly where all the people looking for action come.  It is a little more active than the pace we had come to enjoy back in Phuket, but we managed to get ourselves into a hotel back from the beach that is away from most of the craziness.  The hotel (Nova Samui Resort) is a little older, but well maintained and the staff is very friendly and helpful – on our arrival they gave us a choice between 3 regular rooms and 3 rooms in sort of a private ‘house’ (the rooms are not connected, but there are no other rooms or people in the house, so it is basically all ours) – we took the private house, and have a nice terrace to sit on in the morning to get a little work done and/or get our day started.

We managed to co-ordinate our schedule to connect with the Sung family, their kids are part of the same gymnastics team that Rachael is on, and when we found out that they would be in this part of the world visiting some family we thought it would be worth trying to meet up somewhere.  So off we go to meet up with a Woodinville family in the middle of SE Asia – sometimes the world is just a really small place.

So far we have spent the last couple of days just hanging out at the beach and doing some shopping with our friends – the kids have been having a great time with some additional people to play with, and Laurie and I have been able to hang out with other adults and just relax and have some good conversation.  It has been a nice reminder of home and the friends and family we have back there.

Sadly the Sungs had only a couple of days here as they have other stops on their agenda, and after a nice dinner on the beach we have to say our goodbyes until we are able to see them again back in the USA.

We make our way back to our hotel to wind up another great day in paradise and decide to extend our stay here by a couple more days before moving on to the next location.