Koh Samui with the kids

[MrX]

...didn?t make a clean getaway to Samui with Kit because the maid wanted a holiday and so did her two nieces Jap and Jop. Really, Nee (the maid) is more of a friend than an employee though it is easy to get in a muddle over this.... and Jap and Jop are part of the ?condo gang? anyway so we went kind of tribally on the Saturday night train to Surat powered by my wallet and data corrupted credit card (but that is another and magnetic story)

 

the night in second class fan sleeper was so long because the three kids were way over excited and couldn?t decide which bunk to sleep on and anyway preferred to giggle and bait the other passengers ( mostly falang) rather than rest their bodies, but we made it somehow through to breakfast opposite Surat train station waiting for the surly bus driver to drive us to Donsak ferry......

 

At Nathon we rented a red suzuki jeep and drove for half an hour to Chaweng where my friend Mercedes said we could have two empty rooms in her condo for next to nothing.....

It was so good to arrive and get under a shower after about twenty hours on the road. If only there was an easier way to get to Samui apart from the insanely priced airplane ride....

 

Originally the plan was for Kit and Jap and Jop to join Mercedes' son Jim on a 'camp' for kids which was being held at Jim's school the other end of Chaweng. But there was hitch in Bangkok when I realized Jap and Jop's parents were not going to help me pay for their daughters? holiday (despite being able to I thought) and while I didn?t want to pull the plug on the whole project and face the kid?s wrath and disappointment I did balk at paying for the food the train the condo etc and the CAMP so I had said ?no? to Jap and Jop before we left and that only Kit would join Jim on the camp. (excluding the girls was not as heartless as it might seem since it was for English ?native? or ?near-native? speakers which Kit and Jim are and Jap and Jop are not)

 

Monday morning I took Jim and Kit to camp and they settled apparently well enough?suddenly I was free and I went?(not really part of this story)

Later, at 3 o?clock I picked them up and we drove to the other side of Chaweng to join Jap and Jop in the emerald sea where a strange thing happened? After me and the four kids had frolicked for a bit I noticed a large middle-aged falang women striding in smaller and smaller circles around our group. This behavior which at first seemed merely eccentric, as she persisted and the circle became smaller; became threatening and I felt slightly fearful for the kid?s safety?so what to do? ?Gambling that she couldn?t speak Thai I said 'pooying baa' and told the kids to follow me and moved away which they did. A few minutes later she was back again making kung fu gestures and saying 'I am not crazy' in a heavily German accented English so we scuttled into deeper waters since I had noticed she only strode and didn?t swim??This should have finished here but she went quickly back to shore and started to photograph us with her friend who had just joined her?all very strange?

 

That night Kit told me he didn?t like the camp and wanted to spend the days with Jap and Jop so on Tuesday and for the rest of the week we set out to enjoy Koh Samui kids-wise and we went elephant trekking, jet-skiing, paint-balling and chickened out of bungy- jumping fortunately

 

The very last night we dined by the sea??splendidly??.surrounded by honey-mooners just starting out on life?s great procreational road while they wondered at our ménage?.falang and his kid from before (Kit) plus mia noi and her two kids from before (Jap and Jop) and the fruit of our union (Jim) perhaps? ?.and, of course, how appearances deceive??.