Rain, rain go away, come again another day....

A rainy view of Villa La Kosta bungalows and grounds, and neighboring villas from our third story veranda. The sea is visible through the 'dip' in the hills towards the right of the picture.

It's raining. Or at least, it was raining this morning. Not the momentous deluge that greeted our arrival to Koh Samui the first night but rain nonetheless. Everything is beautifully clean and refreshed; the ever-present moisture in the air has cooled to a very livable temperature.

Our Russian friends are sitting down to breakfast; Dimitri told me, in his wonderful Russian accent, that his son had fallen off the bed last night and had a large spot on his eye. Sure enough, when his son, Volva came sniffling to breakfast about twenty minutes later, the poor kid had a pretty nice shiner going on above his right eye. It's hard being three years old sometimes...

Our private veranda

Greg missed this conversation as he was catching some last minute zzzz's before I went upstairs to wake him for breakfast.We have been quite good, resisting (mostly)the urge to slather pieces of toasted white bread with creamy butter and Guilia's freshly made jams. We've been sticking to cereal (corn flakes for Greg, muesli for me), scrambled eggs and fresh tropical fruit. I really can't complain but it's hardbeinggood! We did join our Italian hosts and a visiting Italian couple for a mild chicken curry last night for dinner, wow. Guila will print-out the menu of one of the local Thai cooking classes for us, so we'll probably sign-up for a class before leaving the Island.

Yesterday found us at the local market; fruits, vegetables, a cheap plastics and knick knacks shop, noodle stalls and of course a wide selection of cooked and raw animal flesh in various forms of preparation and accompaniments.

I need a local guide to help me decipher the various local fruits and vegetables

A fish vendor and his daughter

There's grilled meat featured solo on wooden skewers, vegetable-meat stir fry, deep fried flesh of indiscernible parts...much of it looked tasty but none of it looked like I would have a good next couple of days had I consumed it. We ended up buying a watermelon, two dragon fruit, a large pineapple and about a kilo of bananas.

A butcher shop at the market. Flies and other flying bugs are discouraged from landing on the meat with the ingenious use of rotating cloths and flyswatters that spin above the fresh, unrefridgerated meat.

Remember, we are on a scooter and have to transport all of this stuff back to La Kosta about a ten or fifteen minute ride away... back to the knick knack shop for a couple fabric grocery sacks that we filled to the top with our purchases. I figured if I could balance the bags on the tops of my thighs, that we should be able to make it without crashing the bike. We will rent a car for a couple days to cut down on the off chance that we might have a mishap!