Although my back was hurting still from the powerboat wake-boarding we decided to go to the Magic Buddha Gardens of Samui. After we dealt with all the chores (buying tickets at Time to travel [by far the best travel agent we saw]) we set off around 4PM to the gardens which are around the highest point in Samui. We had a Automatic scooter which was good at cruisin’ the roads of Samui, but as we found out, not the slippery muddy mountains. Halfway up the mountain, it started to smell like a dry cooking water kettle and lost all power: result Peter drove up helping the bike, and Sally had to run uphill (“good for bum” I assured her). At 5.45pm we finally arrived at the Magic Garden and we shot the following pics: [Gallery=12]

The last pic is the result of the way down: halfway we had a flat. Perfect timing, it was getting dark and we had no clue where we exactly were. Luckily after half an hours walk with the bike, we reached the main road where an industrious Thai had set up a bike repair store just there… how convenient! I guess he had seen these stupid farangs (Thai for ‘Foreigner’) before, trying to scale the mountain with rented Automatic city bikes!

Since there was not enough air to move a palm frond and because the Thai farters were nowhere to be found, we looked for other entertainment… after all, there’s only so much jet lag that one can recover from.

So we decided to explore the island and rented a scooter, for the princely sum of 3euros a day!! With there being too much to see, we decided to make it a cultural excursion and elected to visit a few temples and anatomical structures on the island (more on that later!).

The trip around the island took about 4hrs. We visited 2 of the many Buddhist temples on the islands, all of which are massive and are very ornately designed and painted. One of the temples was home to the 20yr old mummified body of a local monk – his family apparently donated his body after it failed to decay after his death (buddhists believe that enlightened persons bodies’ don’t decay).

Along the way we had to stop off to see the ‘Grandfater and Grandmother rocks’… large genitalia shaped rocks alongside a beach. It was amazing to see just how many others had flocked to see it as well… what is it with humans and sex anyway??!!

We finished off our trip by going to see the Big Buddha, which is situated on a small island off the Big Buddha beach, (where we launched from for the Full Moon Party that we went to in Feb). Not much to see really, other than a big buddha. Duh.

In addition to the pics, we had to add this radio clip below… it comes from one of the vans that traverse the island ALL THE TIME, advertising the Thai boxing that is taking place ‘that night only’.. those of you that have been to Thailand before will probably remember…. (We added some visuals, but the audio is original!!)

We arrived in Thailand about 3 days ago I think and have spent most of the time doing, well… nothing much really… We were both pretty jet lagged when we arrived and needed to sleep A LOT. But we have at least managed to find the time to swim and have a few beach strolls .

Apart from nearly getting reversed over by an angry taxi driver (and getting to see Peter’s Zen karate moves in retaliation!!), the past few days have been pretty uneventful. We’ve mostly caught up on sleep now and will be off kite boarding tomorrow… FABULOUS!!