Ko Samui - Day 2 - Around Chaweng again

We didn't do much at all today - during the day anyway.

Had brekky at 9am at the hotel, then spent some time at the beach. Mana and I did some internetting today, got some washing done and had a yummy lunch at the hotel again.

We actually spent quite a bit of time at the net cafe today. It takes a lot more time than I thought it would to update my blog and smugmug, probably because I spend half the time on MSN :-P But I want to do it regularly so I'm not in here for like 5 hours at a time trying to do it all at once. I'm being a nerd by spending so much time on the internet but I am enjoying the time here and usually I duck into the net cafe when the sun isn't out - right now it looks like a storm is brewing.

So anyway, for dinner we caught a sawngtheuw (don't know how to spell it) up to North Chaweng to Al's resort and found a really cute restaurant on the beach. There were banana lounges pushed together to make a platform, with cushions and a little table in the middle. It was really nice sitting physically on the beach. We had some $4 cocktails - Mana and I found one called the beach cocktail that was just as potent as a long island ice tea, but nicer. We all ordered pad thai, seeing as we were a little bit sick of curries!

After dinner we wandered up the beach to find the Ark Bar, which was more of the square platforms on the beach with cushions, and the place was full of backpackers with a big screen to watch the soccer. After being harassed by children either trying to sell necklaces (made of those foam balls that go in bean bags and flowers threaded onto string) or trying to play games of connect 4 (if you lose you pay them) we sat at a table and looked at the drinks list. Before we even ordered a drink an american backpacker was eyeing us off and came over to say hi. We ended up joining their table (3 aussies, an american and a thai girl) and ordering 'buckets' of vodka and red bull. Apparently it was the thing to do and when I looked around I noticed a lot of other tables were drinking from buckets. I think a bucket was 600 baht - $20. They were so strong. It tasted like 2/3 vodka and 1/3 red bull, and the red bull here isn't fizzy so it doesn't really disguise the vodka taste as much. So we drank some buckets and had little chats amongst ourselves about how these guys were all just out for a pull and then we had a little teary because we miss our boys. Mana and I tried to console ourselves by perving on the brazilian soccer team.
Some of the guys with animals came around - they have snakes, monkeys, big reptiles, eagles, and put it on you and then try to charge you to have your photo taken. We tried to take sneaky photos with our camera but I only ended up getting some pics of the american guy.

After Ark Bar we headed over to the Green Mango, which according to the other backpackers is the place to go. It was kind of cool, mostly just fun but a bit daggy. Interesting to say the least. It was a real party lane, just off the main street. The lane is lined with bars and clubs and was full of people spilling out onto the street and dancing around in the street. Here they don't care if you take drinks out to the street (I wandered around a supermarket drinking a corona in Bangkok). We went into the Green Mango bar/club and it was full of people - all different kinds of people. In the front area close to the street, top 40 type music was playing (from the last 5 years). In the back area where the strobe lights were going nuts, there was cheesy commercial dance, mostly from at least 3 years ago. Darude, Derilium, Benny Benassi etc... it was quite funny and we had a dance around being stupid for a while. We lost Keryn for a bit towards the end and it made me realise even more how much of a pain it is not having mobiles. Yesterday Mana and I had to get a van a couple of k's back to the hotel after a while in the net cafe because we thought she might be worried about where we were. So we found Keryn again and headed back to the hotel, trying desperately to find some food along the way to no avail. We ended up in the 7 Eleven, wandering around trying to find something that we might even consider eating - it took a while and we ended up settling with some 2 minute noodles, which were pretty gross but I ate mine. It had a real meat sachet which I opened and nearly threw up at the smell - obviously it ended up in the bin. Keryn ended up being pretty sick, I think from the buckets. We fell into bed at about 4.30am, just about the time everyone in Brisbane would be getting ready for work.