Koh Samui has innumerable combination currency exchange / laundry / motorcycle hire / Internet cafe / ticketing agencies. This is probably one of the best gauges of the status of this island as a serious tourist mecca. It's sad to see that the culture of the island has become so geared towards tourism, but at the same time, it's good that the tourism industry has concentrated so much of the tourism traffic here, leaving other parts of the kingdom less spoiled. As you drive around the main roads of the island, the mountainous interior is always in view, although it is sometimes partially obscured by signage for guesthouses, snake farms, monkey shows, or travel agencies. Those mountains are covered by forest, and I suspect much of that area is relatively untouched by the tourist plague.

I got here on Thursday by ferry from somewhere outside of Suratthani (I don't really know where it was though). The trip to Na Thon (the main port town on Koh Samui) took about an hour or so. The waters of the Gulf of Thailand were absolutely flat, with barely any swell at all. On the way to Koh Samui were many fishing boats, some small long-tail boats, and some larger commercial boats.

Despite being pretty exhausted from two nights riding trains from Chiang Mai to Surat, I went and saw Naa Muang waterfall in the interior of the island. There's actually two Naa Muang falls, the lower one is the one I saw, and the upper one requires a hike to see it. At the bottom of the lower falls is a large lake and a rocky stream. There were several local kids and a couple of tourists swimming in the lake, sometimes going right under the waterfall itself.

Today, I went to Wat Phra Yai (Big Buddha Temple). The phra there is indeed big. I also went to Choeng Mong (not far from Wat Phra Yai), which is happily not one of the main tourist strips, although it does have a few resorts. After the noise of Chaweng beach, where I'm staying the peace and quiet there was really amazing.

Just off the coast of Choeng Mong beach is a small island that you can walk to, because the water between it and Koh Samui is so shallow, about 1 meter at it's deepest point. I'm not sure if it considered to be an island in it's own right, or part of Samui. I walked across to the island. There's actually a bar over there, but there didn't seem to be any customers. While I was on the little island, some Dutch tourists turned up in kayaks, and a local walked over from the mainland. He seemed to be looking for something in the water, but I don't know what. Hat Choeng Mong is the best part of Samui that I've seen so far.