Paradise Where Time Stood Still - Part 1
While most people would take the often travelled path, a friend and I besides being young and idealistic at the time were poor and penniless having just started life in the rat race. The problem with the rat race is that at the end of the day, you are still a rat. Rats we were as we decided aimlessly to take time off to find a paradise. Having just read about an exotic place called Koh Samui, we took off taking an express coach from Singapore because it was the cheapest mode. Not only that, Samui had no airport at the time, so in effect it was the only way. As there were no travel agents packaging such a tour, we had to find our own way there and so we landed at Haadyai (a much talked about and dangerous place) after a gruelling 18 hour trip (considered express at the time) through the old Malaysian highway. We dozed off at times when the bus was travelling at expressway speed in the night but only to be awakened on several occasions when we sensed the bus slowing down and we wi...
