Bangkok to Koh Samui to Koh Tao

Written on 7:13 AM by John

Oh, how it is to be travelin...


As many of you know, this is John's second backpacking trip. As many of you also know, this is Meredith's first backpacking trip. To be honest, thus far, things have been somewhat inbetween backpacking and hoteling when compared to John's fist 7 month stint. (Don't let John fool you...we've been staying in hostels and sharing showers with see through doors) Oh, but things may very well be changing....

Let's look at the trip to Koh Samui. How does one travel from Bangkok to Koh Samui, you ask? Good question. Well, one has a choice. Option 1 is to fly straight to Koh Samui. Option 2 is to...well, let's look at option 2, the option we and all good backpackers take.

Option 2 requires 11 simple steps:

1. Step 1 - Book the ticket through a travel agent (similar to option 1).
2. Step 2 - Hire a tuk tuk and arrive at said agent's office at the agreed upon travel time (still similar to option 1).
3. Step 3 - Pile into truck at agent's office to be transported to random street corner (whoa, option 1 doesn't require this).
4. Step 4 - Confirm that other backpackers at the random street corner are going to the same, or a similar (on a similar path) place
5. Step 5 - After waiting for about an hour, run through the monsoon to the bus across the busy highway, and pile, soaking wet, into a 50 degree freezebox.
6. Step 6 - Sit in freeze box for 12 hours, ignoring the putrid smell of the bathroom directly behind your seat.
7. Step 7 - Get dropped off at a random restaurant (more like roadside food stand)- all other travelers stay on bus....bus leaves (can we go back to option 1?)
8. Step 8 - Get in random truck and get transported to another random restaurant.
9. Step 9 - Get on another bus for a 1 hour ride to the dock.
10. Step 10 - Get on boat for a 3 hour ride to the beutiful island of Koh Samui!
11. Step 11 - Hire taxi, after fierce negotiation, to take you to the hotel (or location of choice upon which time you go from hotel to hotel in an attempt to negotiate the best price after a 24 hour journey full of sweat, stink, and very near tears)

So, obviously, it makes sense to save the $200 and go with option 2, as we did, loving every minute of it!

Even better, the hotel. Upon arriving in Bangkok, we were greeted in our first outing by a fine young man wearing a Pantara T-Shirt and speaking wonderful English. This young man was nice enough to cirlce the best things to see on our tourest map and send us to the T.A.T office (government travel office) to get any advice and future reservations we need. Even better, the young man informed us that on this day, all museums and temples were free as this day was a national holiday. Even better, this young man informed us, that this day was a day for travelers and we therefore would only be charged 20 baht (about 80 cents) for a full days use of a Tuk Tuk. He then proceeded to grab a Tuk Tuk driver, gave him instructions, and sent us along our way.

How lucky we were to be give a cheap transport and free museums for the entire day (this actually all turned out to be true). First stop, however, was the T.A.T office. Our intent here was to use the T.A.T office to book travel through Thailand and possibly on to Cambodia and Vietnam. However, after a very detailed and well thought out plan proved to expensive, we chose only to book the transportation to Koh Samui, and a Koh Samui Hotel for 3 nights. Happy with our conservative bookings, we hopped into our Tuk Tuk and had a whirlwind tour of Buhdist Temples and custom tailors.

Certainly John and Meredith weren't clothes shopping? No...No sir, we were simply acting! We go into the clothes store, act like we want clothes, and then leave! Oh what fun we had. Trying on suit jackets, drapping fabric across our breast, dancing and prancing about like the new emporer and emporess of Thailand! It was a day to beat all days. Or, maybe just a real hassel put on by our ever so thrifty tuk tuk driver looking to make some extra cash by bringing in possible customers. Anyway, all things aside we had a wonderful time seeing the sites of Bangkok and will need another day or two for more sightseeing upon returning from our island retreat.

Now, back to the hotel in Koh Samui... We reserved 3 days at the T.A.T office in Bangkok, but, after checking in, it was immediately apparent that this would be a one night stay at most. The room was filthy, the bed was horrible, and the bathroom was quite stinky. "So, are these the types of places you and Gray stayed," asks Meredith. "Well, yes, sometimes, but for a much cheaper price," replies John. It is at that moment that we set our sites on finding a new hotel. We walked into dozens of hotels before finding one that offered rooms at half price due to renovation work being performed on a new pool and restaurant. The room was perfect, and the place was in a great location. Here we stayed, lavishly, for around $30 a night. Not a budget bargin, but a nice room for the price.

After a week of sunbathing, Meredith and I realized it was time to move on. So, we booked a boat to Koh Tao for some more sunbathing with the additional of snorkeling adventures. The trip to Koh Tao was uneventful, however in the pickup truck style taxi on Koh Tao, we met two nice English women who had been to Koh Tao several times. They highly recommended a small bungalow resort called Blue Wind at the north end of Sairee beach. We thanked them, but decided to head on to another resort that had good recommendations online, Koh Tao Cabana Resort.

After being laughed at with our low ball price range, we headed down to the previously recommended Blue Wind. Again, this proved to be a short stay. While the hotel is beach front with beautiful views of the gulf, the rooms were far from clean. Again, we marched on in a blinding hunt for better accomidation. At last! We find a small clean bungalow for 350 Baht a night (about $10). While John is pleased as punch, Meredith is still a little on edge with the accomidation. Happy with price, the room is still far from western clean and the large lizards popping out of all nooks and crannies can cause a bit of a fright when caught off guard.

Oh, but this is budget travel at it's best. The island is amazing, the food is amazing, the bars show free movies twice nightly, and the roosters let us sleep till almost 6am before cackooooing us awake. Lizard! AHHHHH!












See this picture.....

Well, on our first day in Koh Tao, Meredith finally decided to allow John to rent a motorbike. After taking off alone for a quick refresher in the skills of motorbike driving, Meredith hopped on for a ride further up the beach. The roads have few cars, but the steep hills and poor road condidtions can prove difficult for the novice driver. So, as you can see in the picture.... No sorry, you are wrong. We parked the motorbike at the top of a long steep drive way that appeared to lead to a hotel. We began walking down the graveling sloped when Meredith lost her footing, skinning her knee and toe in the process. After only 10 minutes with the motorbike, we were left with an unrelated, yet very motorbike like injury. Walking into the pharmacy to grab the necessary first aid materials, I received the look of shame from the local Thai. "Here, another stupid farang that no drive motorbike...hurt wife...stupid farang."

Yes, we are living a tough life. Not all fun and games. Well, I guess it is a lot of fun, and we do play a lot of games....



Check out the new photos!



http://picasaweb.google.com/picajohn/TheLifeSpreadsheet#

If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to our feed