A change of beach location today with a visit to nearby Chaweng, the busiest and biggest town in Samui.

It also benefits from 3km of white sandy beach which is the real draw.

In addition are the beachside institutions to cocktail bars, Chaweng’s nightlife is streets ahead of anywhere else on Samui in terms of choice. There is the famous Green Mango strip forming the axis around which the rest of the bars revolve and where later into the evening people descend.

The beach of Chaweng and the Wat Khao Hua Jook (a beautiful elevated Buddhist temple at Chaweng’s northern end), are the main attractions, so we decided to focus on the first and look around the temple tomorrow.

We spent most of the morning on the beach and Amelia and Andy caught up on some beauty sleep and built up their tans.

Sadly the weather started to turn around lunch and as we have experienced on prior days, the wind picks up and then the rain descends. When this happened it gave us an excuse to walk around the main strip and visit Central Samui the newly built shopping and leisure centre. It did feel a bit odd seeing the likes of H&M and Uniqlo, as well as Starbucks and Boots when the rest of the centre is awash with cheap local shops and massage places. I suppose it’s some form of modern day gentrification.

After returning to our hotel late afternoon, we changed and headed for an early evening dinner at a restaurant on the beach front called Nahm. It was only a 10min walk from where we are staying and was a great find. It’s all about the location perched above the beach and looking out across the bay and the array of boats all lit up in the nights sky. We met the Australian restaurant owner along with his wife, who were young and very friendly. They clearly have a real eye for detail making the place feel unique but still authentic. The food was good too.

When the food arrived it was a tale of two continents, Michelle staying true to South East Asia with her dumplings, whilst Andy went rogue with a spicy chicken burger and fries an American flavour.

So good to get out tonight and enjoy a meal in this beautiful setting. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours about a whole range of things and it made us realise how much we love having Amelia with us.

Tomorrow we plan to take bikes out from the hotel and head over to the nearby temple to see the raised Buddha.