We both had a good nights sleep but as per normal, Si was up before me, tapping away on his PC.

After showering and packing what little we had, we lazed about for couple of hours playing games on Si’s Iphone (Zombies & Bullseye. Which he’s obviously played far too much as he beat me every time) before leaving for the  Lomprayah (5 mins walk away)

At the Lomprayah office we bought our boat tickets and then waited at the restaurant next door sipping on a fanta & coke until it was time to board.

The crossing was only a couple of hours and went really quickly and before we knew it, we were back on Koh Tao.  We walked to the Motorcycle shop Leiderhosen to collect Simons bike & keys and then strapped the case on the bike and headed down to ‘Deep Down’ as Si wanted to see how the documentary student Andrew was getting along.

An hour or so later, we left and headed home to unpack, sort washing and catch up on emails etc

In the evening we decided to get a takeaway from ‘Kanya’ where we bumped into Alan, Heidi and their friends, which was a nice surprise.

Takeaway ready, we headed home plated our Green Thai curries up and watched an episode of ‘Fringe’ and ‘Flashforward’.

7am the alarm went off and we both quickly dressed and left the hotel and headed to the mall to queue for tickets to go up the Petronas Towers.  By the time we arrived there must have been a few hundred people already queueing and it was just 7.30  ..so we stood in line and waited for what seems like hours and finally at 8.30 the queue started to move.  I think we must have reached the front of the queue just before 9am and already most of the morning slots had gone which wasnt good.  Finally we were at the front of the queue and I got a 10.30 slot, the only morning slot left and Simon got 12.30  ..so we agreed that I’d go up the tower and Si would give his ticket away as we needed to be at Sebang airport by 12.30.

Instead of going back to our hotel, we stopped at Starbucks and had a large cappuchino and latte.  Around 10:10am, I headed off for my Petronas experience which started with a short film showing the design, construction etc and then was escorted to the lift and taken up to the walkway between the two towers were I had 10 mins to take photo’s and a birds eye view of the city,  I dont think Simon would have been that impressed with the whole experience but I enjoyed it and it was something new.

We checked out of the Maderin Oriental and headed for the airport for our flight to Koh Samui where we had to stay a night before catching the Lomprayah back to Koh Tao.

The return flight was good, we flew Berjaya air on a old propeller plane.  It looked and felt pretty antiquated  but we made it safely and then jumped into a taxi which took us to our hotel, a 25 min journey.   Once checked in and shown to our room Si made a dash for the TV to check to see whether the Spanish MotoGP was on.  After surfing through channels, he’d found it and it was just about to begin.  I’ve never seen someone so happy ;-D   ..I cant moan as I was hoping it was on too.
The race itself started off pretty boring but the last few laps were just amazing. Lorenzo was in 3rd position for pretty much the whole race, when 3 or 4 laps from the end he caught up with Rossi, then somehow managed to catch up with the leader, Pedrosa, by the last lap. After a few attempts at overtaking with some heavy contact, he overtook to win… being a Spaniard, he was overjoyed,  jumped off his bike and ran into a lake… absolutely hilarious!

The time now was only 8.30 so we went for a walk to check out the hotel facilities, beach, pool, bar, restaurant etc and then decided as it was so quiet, to head into town to eat and perhaps do a little shopping.

In Chaweng, the main stretch of Samui we took a stroll, popping into a pharmacy (to get some ear drops as my right ear is sore & inflamed) a couple of clothes shops and then found a quietish bar to chill and have a couple of beers.  By the time we ordered our 2nd beer a reggae band appeared who were very entertaining.  It was only a small bar an after the first track an older couple got up and danced ..that was the most entertainment I’ve seen in a long time, even the band members we giggling away.  The singer had a good voice but the saxophonist after a couple of tracks brought pain to our ears so we left.

As we were both pretty hungry we stopped for pizza & calzone, before catching a taxi back to the hotel and a good nights sleep.

Today we were up pretty early and headed out to try and get tickets for the Patronus Towers.   Apparently every day,1000 people are given a  free pass to go up to the tower.  We arrived there just before 9am and already all of the tickets were gone.  People must get there ridiculously early, so we planned to get up tomorrow at 7am to start queueing. Hopefully we’ll get a time slot in the morning as we were leaving for the airport around midday.

It’s stupidly hot today and after popping to the motorbike shop to sort out a few details we thought we’d go to KL tower to get some panoramic shots of the city.  After a short white knuckle taxi ride we arrived.  To the left of the entrance there was a crowd of people getting a 20 meter pony rides, how bizarre…  After climbing up the steps to the entrance, we queued and finally got the the ticket desk where they were charging a ridiculous amount of money to go up the tower but thrown in with that was a 20meter pony ride, a free go on F1 simulator (which was ‘Out of order’) and a nature walk where animals were enclosed in tiny cages and a free photo in front a a false backdrop of the tower with fireworks going off …Nice!!   None of that appealed to us in the slightest so we hopped on the free shuttle which took us down to the main road and headed back into the main shopping district.  We would have caught the skytrain but for some reason it had stopped running so we walked. 

Tired and very very sweaty, we reached town and looked around the huge maze of shopping malls, taking a quick look into the camera shops to see if we could find anything reasonably priced for Nathan.  No joy there but we did see some amazing 3D & 2D tv’s on display, the picture was incredible.  Feeling tired hungry and dehydrated we searched for somewhere western to eat as Simon had bit of a dodgy tummy.  You wouldn’t think that finding something vegetarian would be that hard, We tried Nando’s, who in the UK do a great falafel wrap but everything on the menu had meat in it, even McDonalds didnt have a veggie option.  So frustrated and so hot that both of us were about to pass out, we decided to go back to the hotel and make a plan.

Our hotel was next to a shopping mall just by the Patronas Towers so we cooled down, rehydrated ourselves and ventured out, well more like staggered out.  The lower level was a food mall with cafes serving meat, fish dishes of every description and cakes.  By this time Simon was very frustrated and just wanted me to choose something, so I stopped at an Indian stall and got a beef curry dish.  I must say it was tastey but I felt guilty and urged Simon to go off for another look.  He came back with a plain Naan bread ..argh!!!     It wasn’t all doom and gloom, as on our way out, we suddenly figured out that there must be a supermarket  (must be the heat that’s affecting us) and there was.  So we marched quickly there and got a basket full of cheese, crips, biscuits, chocolate, beer and wine  ..yes I know, not the most healthy of options but at least it was what Simon wanted.

Back in our hotel room, Si took a beautiful photo of the Petronus towers from our bedroom window and then we put on a movie and had a picnic in bed ;-D