Journeys with Jenny and Cole: Day of the Massage

Our first full day in Koh Samui started out with the free breakfast at the resort. You could have either western or Thai meals for breakfast. Just like our other hotels they had a buffet and you could order freshly made items as well. I went for the Thai omelet and Jenny went for the Pad Se Ew (her go to Thai noodle dish). That was supplemented with a little fruit and salad and washed down with some tea. I've really been getting into tea on this trip there are lots of varieties and it gets you going as well.

After breakfast we mostly lounged around the pool again and decided to head down to the beach that the Sandalwood (our resort) has access to. Our resort doesn't have a private beach as they are situated high on a hill overlooking the ocean. The beach we went to was owned by another resort. A resort that I can only guess caters almost exclusively to Europeans. This trip was my first experience being around and interacting with Europeans as a group. When traveling in Europe it is a little different as each country is a little different but here is a hot spot and many areas are well represented. I saw two things that I thought were a bit ridiculous: 1. Europeans have a facination with taking "model" style pictures of themselves. These photo shoots usually involve one female and a photographer, be it a significant other or friends. Then the subject does her best magazine cover shoot poses (usually laying in the sand or posing against a large rock) and everyone in the group is cool with it and no one gets made fun of which I find fascinating. 2. I saw an old lady just letting it all hang out, she apparently thought she was at a topless beach in France. To make it even better she donned a swimming cap and goggles, wearing what looked like the same speedo as her husband, and then they proceeded to backstoke out to sea. Which brings me to another point about the speedo in general. Europeans just strut around in these things not as a joke but because they love to. I don't get it but what ever floats your boat.

View from the beach

Hanging out at the beach, we are still very pale as it was our first day.

We didn't end up staying too long as it wasn't very sunny and the beach wasn't very clean- lots of debris washed up from the ocean and the occasional piece of glass which really freaked Jenny out. We did eat lunch at a shack on the beach which kicked out some fairly amazing thai food. I have found that the thai food is awesome everywhere and you can basically get the same great taste from an old lady cooking on her scooter side car as you can at a restaurant. Its really delish we had some curry, soup, and some noodles.

Singha by the beach

Pad Thai noodles for Cole and green curry soup for Jenny

After the beach we headed back to the pool area and did a little reading and writing, basically passing the time until our afternoon massages. As part of our honeymoon package at our resort we each got a free hour massage. Before this trip I had never had a massage and so was really nervous mostly because I don't like people touching me. I chose the traditional Thai massage and Jenny had an aromatherapy one (she already got a thai massage when we were in Chiang Mai). The Thai massage is crazy, it lasts for an hour and it involves not only massaging muscles in the legs, arms, and back but they also stretch you out and contort your body to crack your back and other joints. It sounds a little painful but it is actually really relaxing and you feel very refreshed afterwards. Its a massage with some stretching. After that I was hooked. Jenny's massage was your regular oil massage but with a rose/orange aromatherapy oil that she chose. Even though we chose different types of massages they were in the same room and then they set up some green tea and cookies on the patio afterwards. All very relaxing.

Earlier in the day we had planned to have our honeymoon dinner in our room (part of the whole package). So we went from massages right into a romantic dinner by the pool overlooking the ocean. They had a candle set up and brought out a 3 course meal for us. We broke out the wine that we also got for free with the honeymoon package and it was a great little dinner.