Tuesday 3 May 2016

Koh Samui Day 3-4: Hinta, Hinyai, Shopping & Seafood

DAY 3

It is our 7th Wedding Anniversary today! This trip was supposed to be in celebration of our anniversary, though with three "lamp posts" around, it hardly feels like it. Maybe one day we'll be able to travel just the two of us again and relive the days of our honeymoon *laughs*

Anyway, it was off this morning to the only touristy place that the family was willing to go. I made sure that everyone was lathered up in sunscreen and mosquito repellent before allowing them to head out.

All prepared with sunscreen, repellent, sunglasses and a hat!

We drove to Hinta & Hinyai also known as grandfather and grandmother rocks respectively. Why? Because the rocks resemble the male and female genitalia respectively!

Entrance to the street leading up to the Hinta and Hinyai rocks

The road to Hinta and Hinyai can be quite narrow. There are carparks available but you'll need to pay about S$1.50 per entry (a guy will come collect it from you once you have parked). Then you'll need to walk down a long street of stalls before you'll arrive at the beach where the unique and very natural rocks are located.

It wasn't hard to spot the Hinta rock. It was standing right there, basking in the noon day sun.

This way to Hinta
Tada! Looks just like it doesn't it!
Too hot to be impressed!

The Hinyai, however, was much harder to spot (much like the female orgasm actually! Hard to know if it is the real thing or not! *laughs*).

This way to the Hinyai
We initially thought it was the structure on the left (looks like it doesn't it? *laughs*), only to overhear a tour guide telling his guests to walk to the edge (almost to the water) of the rock that we were all standing on and look upwards.
There were too many people standing around it so I could only take a small portion of it (right).
Apparently water even flows out of it like the real thing! Crazy! 

While I was checking out the Hinyai, the hubby (who was less enthusiastic about rocks and more interested in catching crabs) was near the water trying to spot some crabs to catch.

The hubby pointing out some crabs to my girl
The usually scaredy-cat was unafraid of climbing up the rocks to join her daddy
It wasn't easy getting the boy up the rock for this family shoot! Love it though! =)
Grandma with her grand-kids and the open sea
 (it was soooo hot we had to carry umbrellas to shield us from the sun)
My girl is just damn good at posing.. *laughs*

We walked to the beach to collect some seashells and rocks for my girl to bring home as souvenirs and did so for about 5 minutes before declaring, "Let's go! The sand is too hot!"

She managed to find some nice ones to bring home =)

The best thing to do on a hot day like this (actually it was hot everyday in Koh Samui!) was to eat coconut ice-cream!

Left: The whole street was filled with coconut ice-cream sellers;
Right: Putting toppings onto our coconut ice-cream, served in a coconut shell!
Looks so good doesn't it?
Keeping ourselves hydrated with coconut juice

We needed to cool down from the heat so off we went to our favourite shopping mall, Central Festival Samui.

Central Festival Samui

It's the biggest shopping mall in Koh Samui and have everything you need including a supermarket, 6D theatre and a small children's playground.

Playground at Central Festival Samui
Kids enjoying themselves on the slide
Climbing up the spider web and rocking on real sand

It's a nice playground for the kids to release their energy before we continued the rest of our shopping.

It's a must for us to visit supermarkets whenever we're overseas! Look at the variety of fruits and the 9 different kinds of pineapples.

We also loved the Thai food at Food Park (their food court), where the food is surprisingly cheap and good!

Pad Thai and Morning Glory (kang kong) at Food Park
My mum-in-law loves the braised pork. She said it was very succulent and tasty!
The really awesome Tom Yam soup (very spicy though!)

We had this for both lunch and dinner yesterday so we thought we'll try something new today. We ordered take away from Baan seafood Thai-Chinese food, located just next to the carpark entrance to Central Festival Samui.

The usual Thai favourites and a spaghetti for my girl in case the rest of the dishes were too spicy for her

The food was not too bad. It may have been better if we had eaten it at the restaurant but we had taken a liking to the large dining table in our apartment where we could eat comfortably and be ourselves.

When the sun was setting and it was finally less sunny, we changed into our swim gear and headed to the pool once again!

My kids just love the pool!
Playing with the foam pills that turn into different animals when immersed in water.
Mum-in-law bought it from Daiso for the kids to play with at the pool
View of the beautiful sunset from the pool.
I should attempt to paint this one day!

After the sun has set, we decided to drive to Mit Samui Restaurant for dinner. As usual, the hubby was craving his favourite seafood feast. We had passed by so many times and had seen so many people eating there. "Must be not bad," we thought.

Clockwise from left: They claimed to be the biggest seafood restaurant;
Mit Samui Restaurant is opened from 11am onwards;
Tanks of fresh seafood to choose from;
Steamed fish!
King Prawns! Not too bad! :)

Compared to Phuket or Bangkok, the standard of seafood here is not really as good in my opinion. It didn't taste terrible but it wasn't fantastic either. Maybe because their main customers were tourists and a lot of them don't know any better. However, for us the seasoned travellers, I have to say, we have had better!

We will miss you Samui!

But well it was still a good last night in Samui; I really can't believe that we are going home! Time flies when you're having fun indeed.

DAY 4

Wearing our matchy matchy family outfits and posing with the beautiful scenery one last time (sad)

We headed for the Samui Airport and returned our rental car (we had to pay the airport a small fee to help us to call the rental car company to come and collect the car from us at departure). After checking in, we roamed around the airport facilities, which looked more like a resort than an airport!

Not the typical fully air-conditioned airport terminals that we are used to seeing!

We still had an hour to kill and the weather outside was scorching hot so we settled at Swensen's to cool off.

Left: So happy that she gets to eat ice-cream!;
The waffles ice-cream we ordered. Yum!
Girl had her own kids ice-cream which was supposed to look like Mickey or Minnie.

When it was almost time to board, we proceeded to the waiting area to wait for our plane to be called. In the process, we discovered that Bangkok Airways provided a special air-conditioned waiting area for their customers that comes with a small (albeit very dirty!) play area and complimentary drinks and snacks!

Clockwise from left: Posing with the super cute mascot of Bangkok Airways;
Look out for the Courtesy Corner where food and drinks are free;
My girl, helping herself to some orange juice.

Essentially you could just skip Swensens and spend your time sipping coffee and having muffins and cakes here for free! Damn, if only we had known earlier!

We took the tram to the plane and minutes later, we were on board and ready to fly back home.

Departure from Samui Airport
Kids having their simple meal of sausages and potato, which came in a box that had the cabin crew's personalisation on it!

When we arrived in Singapore, I was happy to be home. Much as I love to travel, there is truly no place like Singapore.

I'm already planning my next trip though! So looking forward!!


<< Back to Koh Samui Day 1-2: Dasiri Unique Seaview Apartment from Roomorama

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