Another Samui Deluge and A Frog Chorus

Friday 8 September

A day of waiting and counting the hours till Juz and Dave arrived. We had heard that they were boarding at Heathrow, although a later message told us that they had only just made the gate with minutes to spare, and didn’t know if their luggage made it as well! – we have been here before on this trip, with unfortunate results. Hopefully this wasn’t going to happen a second time.

We followed our now usual routine of a swim before breakfast for me, followed by sustenance, and some leisure time on the computer, reading or doing puzzles, me laying round the pool while Colin relaxed in the shade of the “pagoda”, nursing his sunburn. The weather was once more hot, but with some cloudy bits during the morning and even a couple of spit/spots of rain.

We decided to adjourn to Coffee Junction again for lunch - sarnie for Colin and salad for me - and go to collect our laundry. But it was not ready for another hour - time was now about 15.00 – I think we may need to try another laundry next time, as there was only a few T-shirts, shorts and underwear. To pass the time we wandered around the village and I ventured in the book shop to browse for twenty minutes or so, before returning to Smile to check the emails. We had intended returning for laundry around 17.00 ish, but had only been back in the bungalow about ten minutes when this very black cloud appeared suddenly from nowhere, and the heavens opened and we had another deluge, similar to the night before last. The pathways were flooded within minutes and lots of frogs came out, hopping around the gardens thoroughly enjoying themselves, chasing each other, croaking and chirping. It was a great show as we spectated from the shelter of our balcony. But was our bungalow going to become like an ark, and float away, as the waters around us rose higher? The rain lasted a good hour and a half and we wondered as it stopped, if we would need snorkel and flippers to get to the Frog and Gecko a little later – we know now why there are umbrellas in the wardrobe.

We needn’t have worried, within an hour, there were still some large puddles around, but the paths outside the bungalows had dried and we could meander a clear walkway through the village. After a drink in the F&G (the music was louder tonight) we continued on to the Beatles Bar, which is where Dave and Juz met us. Their luggage had miraculously arrived with them in Koh Samui, and they had booked into their hotel, taken a quick look around (they have a villa with their own pool and garden) and hot-footed to Bophut centre to meet us. It was quite an emotional occasion and we were very pleased to see them. After a couple more rounds of drinks and lots of catching up of news, including that Holly dog, who had gone missing the day before they were due to leave, had returned safely to the village before they left – thank goodness. We ate at Starfish and Coffee – we purposely hadn’t visited this eaterie before Juz and Dave arrived, as it had been one of our favourites when we were here last year - and had some splendid Thai food, and yet more drinks. By this time we were all feeling a little weary – Juz and Dave had been traveling about 24 hours in total to get here and a much later night for us than we had been used to recently – so after a brief viewing of our “pad”, we said “Goodnight”.