Day 10 of the big adventure, according to Lauren. 
We awoke from a slightly disturbed night of sleep thanks to the Muay Thai situation across the road, but still nicely rested after our big snorkelling day. We were due to check in to cheeky monkeys hostel back in Koh Samui (to wait for Sarah’s letter to arrive) so went to book our journey as soon as we were up.

It’s amazing here how easy it is to get from island to island. You can just rock up to a travel agent on the morning and tell them where you want to go, they make a call for you (it’s all done over the phone) and 2 hours later you’re on a boat. Earlier on in our adventure we had yet to experience this and so obviously tried to do it all ourselves, booking our tickets online and such. We then realised that all you had to do was ask (even just at the hostel reception) and they’d do it all for you, hostel pick-up included, at a cheaper price than if we did it ourselves. They really cater to the tourist/backpacker lifestyle over here.

Sarah found a lovely looking beach side cafe for us to have breakfast and fill the time until our boat was due. I ordered the sweetcorn & spinach fritters (craving veg) and Sarah had scrambled eggs on toast, with a fresh coconut. Island life.

 

 
A couple of hours and a French plait later (our fave time wasting activity and good to control Sarah’s mass of hair in the humidity) it was time for us to head back to the jolly guesthouse to collect our bag and await our transport.

  
 
We arrived into Koh Samui ready for the stampede of taxi drivers offering their services and had decided we’d fight for a shared pickup truck type one for around 100 Baht each. After a lot of negotiation and being passed like objects between thai taxi drivers, we got into one for 150 Baht each as it was the best deal we were going to get. On first appearances this looked like any other taxi, so we climbed in. There was tension in the air after some intense bargaining and we prepared for a boring journey to our hostel. How wrong we were. The driver fiddled around on his iPhone and to our surprise, out blared the British national anthem from the speakers. We were in hysterics and the driver was clearly very chuffed. As we settled into the journey we noticed that this was no ordinary taxi, this was a disco taxi.

  
The disco ball in the back was switched on, our choice of music (Justin Bieber obv) was now blaring out the speakers, and there were devil horns on the back of his head rests. The signs on the windows had symbols for kareoke, sexy girls, and VIP. The driver stopped mid way to open his window and talk to an apparent Thai tv superstar. We were cruising with a big dog. Thankfully upon arrival at our hostel, he handed me a post it note with his number on it, should we require a disco taxi service again while on Samui. Safely stashed.

  

We settled into some delightful air con in our cheeky monkey’s private room and then decided on dinner options. We had seen a place on the way that advertised it’s mango sticky rice, something Sarah had been lusting after since the beginning. So we wondered to the restaurant, oddly named ‘Will Wait’ to seek out Sarah’s dream dish. For mains we had fried morning glory (steady, just a bean-like vegetable with something resembling spinach, in soy sauce) and a vegetable pad Thai, then the mango rice for pudding. Thank goodness Sarah had her appetite back!

We decided on our way back to get a few quotes for some eyelash extensions as it’s a lot cheaper over here and obviously we want to be beautiful. We found a big massage parlour that also did beauty treatments and the lady seemed to know what she was talking about, so we went for it. She called her sister so that Sarah and I could get them done at the same time and we were promptly shown to some beds. Our bottom eyelashes were strapped down with surgical tape and the procedure began.

 
She basically took one false lash at a time, dipped it in glue, and stuck it onto an existing lash. It was mostly comfortably aside from some mild burning at the end when the glue wasn’t quite dry. When mine were done, the lady escorted me to a mirror to see the finished product. They were amazing! I was chuffed. Sarah arose from her bed and compared mine to hers, less than impressed with the standard of hers. Her lady had been very slap dash and kept having to pluck hers out then replace them. My lady (clearly more experienced) perfected Sarah’s until she was happy with them, then we paid and left. It was around midnight by this time so we sleepily wondered home and climbed into bed, happy with our newly elongated lashes, for our much needed beauty sleep.