I never expected during our travels I would be standing in the Koh Samui airport waiting to see my parents faces on the arrivals walkway. But there I was, waiting for their delayed plane and feeling quite excited. My mom was in dire need of a vacation and had an idea to come and see us. After many chats on the phone I managed to convince her Thailand was the safest and easiest place for us to meet up and travel together for about a month. Some might cringe at the idea of traveling with their parents for a month, but Scott and I get along very well with my parents. They are great fun to hang out with and even all of our friends agree.
After waiting for an hour with no signal on the arrivals board that their plane was delayed, my parents smiling, sweating faces finally appeared. As a nice gesture they were wearing matching T-Shirts with our cats name on them. Dad was Charlie and Mom was Kerrigan. It sure made us smile! We piled into a taxi and the conversations didn’t stop for days. It was so nice to see some family and I could tell they were quite ecstatic to see us too.
We wanted to stay at the Jungle Club again but alas with high season just beginning it was fully booked. After some searching on hostelbookers.com I found an amazing looking resort that met all my parents prerequisites and more with an amazing deal of stay 2 nights and get the 3rd free. Baan Hin Sai couldn’t of been anymore perfect for my parents first introduction and ease into Thailand. A variety of hotel rooms and private bungalows sit on a steep incline against the ocean. I had no idea it was going to be so steep but luckily they had a golf cart service to take you down and up the hill. Service for Thai standards was spot on. Free buffet breakfast, friendly staff, beautiful comfortable bungalows and delicious food in the restaurant. Don’t forget about the two infinity pools and if you feel like it, the most beautiful location for a spa I’ve ever seen. Needless to say my parents were blown away and found the price hard to believe. A resort like this in the Caribbean would be three times as much per night.
Since Scott and I had already spent a fair amount of time on Koh Samui, we turned into pretty good travel guides. We filled our first 6 days together with a perfect amount of relaxing at the resort, shopping, dinners at great locations, and even a Muay Thai kickboxing match! We also rented a 4 door truck and gave my parents the same self tour we gave ourselves a month ago. However, this time we actually made it to Grandmother and Grandfather Rock in the daylight because we skipped the sucky waterfall. In the shopping area my parents spotted a sign that said “Doctor Fish” and to my surprise they actually gave it a try! Doctor Fish are small fish that will only eat the dead skin from your feet. They are also beleived to massage your feet and increase the blood circulaion, leaving your feet clean and feeling great after a 15-20 minute session. It was quite amusing watching them give this a try, espcially since my Dad has very ticklish feet. There was one sucker about 4 inches long that liked his baby toe! But soon enough, as stated, their feet got use to the sensation and they claimed it became quite relaxing. My Dad’s feet felt so great afterwards he declared any time he sees this again in Thailand he is getting a treatment.
PS: Also to our advantage, their arrival to Thailand was perfect timing with our unfortunate Camera trying to become a fish and boxing week sales. We picked out a camera online at Future Shop and asked my parents to go pick it up and bring it with them. The camera we ended up getting was a fantastic deal on a actual SLR. Olympus 420 with a second telephoto lense 80-300mm. It’ll be fun to try and take some better photos with an sLR.
Here are some of our test shots:
