Conrad Koh Samui

Five years later, I drift back in time to those days in late January 2013. Eddie was not even half a year old, but already right in the middle of a global whirlwind that would come to define his first two years of life. After a week at the Andaman Sea, we flew across the Malay Peninsula in an ATR-72 and arrived at a place that will always stay with me. I fully accept all objections – that chain-brand hotels are not for real travellers, etcetera – but Conrad Koh Samui belongs to a serene, otherworldly realm that makes it worthy of a retroactive blog post.

At night, the turquoise water turned completely black, with only the scattered lights of a few passing cruise ships on the horizon. Standing high above, I felt like I could fully disappear into the ocean, with nothing but the warm winds of the Gulf reminding me that I was not at Kullaberg. The next morning, the skies had cleared and I was back to my rational self. In the end, we stayed for three nights. Following all the devaluations to the Hilton programme, I will most likely never return.