Day 2 - A Couple of Weary Travellers

Our Boeing 777 touched down in Bangkok at 5.50am local time and we both agreed that it had been a remarkably pleasant flight with more leg room than usual. Upon landing I activated my eSIM, which for around £18 gave us guaranteed mobile roaming data for our entire trip rather than the £75 that EE wanted to charge me.

We disembarked the aircraft and whizzed through passport control and customs. Less than an hour later, just the two of us were in a luxurious minivan (we had booked a Toyota Corolla taxi!) being driven to Ban Phe.

At 8.45am we arrived at the Ban Phe Municipality Pier, where we paid our driver and bought tickets for the 10am slow (40 minute) ferry to Ko Samet for 200THB (around £5 each). The ticket girls had given us the hard sell by trying to flog us tickets for the speedboat, which were double the price and was going at 9am. We had refused because we know that the speedboat is extremely uncomfortable, double the price and we were in no rush. As it happens - no sooner had we purchased our 10am slow ferry tickets than another lady ushered us on to her Saleng (a motorbike with a sidecar) and we drove a couple of hundred yards to another pier. Here we were directed to board a wooden slow boat with several day trippers aboard. Once we had hoicked our rucksacks aboard, the captain of this single crewed boat released the docking ropes and we immediately set sail. The captain expertly manoeuvred backwards out of the busy harbour then turned his boat round and chugged out to sea.

40 minutes later we docked on the island of Ko Samet, paid our 200THB each to enter Khao Laem Ya–Mu Ko Samet National Park (the whole island is a National Park apparently!). A cavalcade of Songteos (a taxi with 2 long bench seats behind the driver’s cab) awaited us. For yet another 200THB we were transported to our accommodation, Samed Garden Resort, at the northern end of the island.

Our journey to get here had taken just the 9 different modes of transport - taxi, train, monorail, coach, plane, minibus, saleng, ferry and songteo. Each requiring the lifting and shifting of our rucksacks. Luckily we were travelling light……not!

By 10am we had checked in at our accommodation, but as anticipated our room would not be ready until 1.00pm, although officially we weren’t supposed to check in until 2.00pm. The receptionist recommended we pop down the road to C Smile for a coffee. We did just that, but drank Chang Beer and ice cold water. Jackie also ordered a plate of spicy pork and basil with rice and a fried egg for just 80THB. It was a very pleasant experience looking out to sea, but we were just too knackered to really appreciate it.

At 12.30pm, we returned to Samed Garden Resort and to our great relief we were allowed to move in to our nice spacious air conditioned room. We literally dumped our bags down, climbed into bed and fell asleep.

At 6.00pm my alarm woke us up. We showered, dressed and had a little vodka livener, before heading out for dinner. It was a 25-30 minute coastal walk to Ban Ko Samet, the main town area of the island, where there was an abundance of restaurants, bars and shops. We settled on the Chilli Restaurant, which had an upstairs area and served traditionalThai food. We ordered a chicken Pad Thai, a ginger stir fry with crispy pork, rice and a starter of vegetable spring rolls. The food was nice and very reasonably priced, but it was let down by the surly waiter who took an age to bring us a cold beer. The food came out one dish at a time ending with starter!!

It was about 10.15pm when we arrived back at our room. We had a quick night cap and hit the sack feeling still shattered.

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