Ao Mae Hat

09:20
Today is comfortably the longest travel day we have before we head home. The alarm clock at 06:00 is no-one’s best friend, but I’m more than impressed when Vicks and I are both ready to leave our room by 06:50. Our flight to Koh Samui is 10:10, so we’re aiming for the airport around 08:00. Traffic is surprisingly light. In the city centre, it’s busy but not manic. Once we’re out on the expressway, the vast majority of traffic is headed into the city, rather than out. Chaos only ensues when we get to the airport. 400 cars and vans are competing for approximately 17 drop-off spaces.

Inside the terminal, things couldn’t be easier and calmer. A very sweet Bangkok Airways employee helps us with our baggage tags, and another then helps us drop the bags off, before handing over our boarding passes. Soup to nuts in about 5 minutes flat. We pass a pretty vague security check, unsure whether that’s all the security we need before boarding. We head down to the domestic departures concourse, stop briefly at the Bangkok Airways lounge for a sandwich. Boarding is at 09:40, so we’ve plenty of time.

14:35
The flight down was blissfully brief, but had a slightly rocky start. We’re due to board at 09:40 for a 10:10 departure. Per the plan, we’re corralled onto an airport bus around 09:35 for the (hopefully) short drive out to the plane. The bus does indeed drive out towards some planes. It then turns around, and heads back to the terminal. No explanation is offered. Happily, there’s A/C on the bus, otherwise there might be mutiny. The A/C is cranking out so hard, in fact, that a couple of folks complain of the cold. Idiots. After ten minutes of waiting with no explanation, we begin to get a little bored. A Thai gentleman asks the driver and airline official what’s going on, and reports back to Vicki that they’re ‘moving the plane’ to another part of the airport. Weird… After another 15 minutes, the airline official tells us that it’ll be another 5 minutes. 10 minutes later, we are de-bussed, back into the terminal. Still no real explanation as to what’s going on. The best we can manage is that there was a technical fault with our original aircraft, but someone’s found another one down the back of the sofa - it’ll be here in 10 minutes, then they’ve just gotta bung some unleaded in it, and we’ll be off. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Back in the terminal, there’s a little grab and go cart that sells various snacks and drinks, including ice cold cans of Singha. Rude not to / settling nerves etc etc. Finally, about 40 minutes after our original departure time, we’re loaded back onto the bus, and to our plane.

We’re on a propeller plane - not a single engine / 4 seat type job, but a 60 odd seater. Same aircraft we flew on once or twice in Vietnam, and that I travelled on from Nairobi down to the Masai Mara a few years back. It’s fairly cramped inside, and I’m not sure I’ll ever quite get used to the sensation of being so low to the ground, when we’ve most recently flown the upper deck of an A380. All that said, I find the thrum of a propeller engine a little surreal, and definitely soothing. I can sense Vicki tensing a couple of times in the seat next to me, but on reflection, we both agree it’s a pretty easy way to head Southward bound…

Koh Samui Airport is teeny. There are actually a few international flights that land here, but it’s predominantly used for small, domestic flights. The ‘arrivals hall’ looks like a gazebo my old school mate Henry used to have in his Dad’s garden. The luggage carousel is the smallest I think I’ve ever seen. The heat immediately feels degrees easier than in Bangkok. Yes - it’s still hot, but straight away we both feel like it’s easily manageable.

Our ferry departs from the other side of the island in about 3 hours. Our cab drives us over to Na Thon - around 35 minutes. Gazing out of the window doesn’t make me want to fall in love with Koh Samui. It feels very built up. Shacks - whether housing massage parlours, restaurants, cannabis cafés - line the streets in unending fashion. We got about 10km without spotting a tree. I’m not sure it’s even a town that we’re in - but rather just a conurbation build up along the North coast of the island. Not really my cup of tea.

We’re at Na Thon by 13:30, and have a couple of hours to kill. There’s an interesting sounding café/bar a couple of hundred metres away, so we heft our bags onto our backs, and make our way. The Road Less Travelled is a very cool, bohemian style hangout. There’s quite a bit of confusion when we ask for a glass of wine, but we get there eventually. Their food is amazing - a kind of Eggs Benedict type affair for Vicki, and a spicy glass noodle and prawn salad for me. It’s a really rather pleasant place to spend a couple of hours while we wait for our onward journey to resume…

23:50
The ferry from Koh Samui leaves at 16:00, so we’re at the ferry terminal by 15:30. We’re not really sure what’s going on, except that we need to put a tag on our bags, and a sticker on our t-shirts. It’s all a little confusing. We board around 16:15. Downstairs there’s a very cool (temp wise) cabin, which is also very sterile. We elect to sit on the middle deck where we can actually breathe, and feel the ocean breeze as the ferry moves. The boat is full - very few seats available, but we find a little corner to make our own. My t-shirt sticker falls off, but I attach it to the back of my Magsafe iPhone case - a move I will later regret. We have a quick stop to make in Koh Pha Ngan, then full steam ahead for Koh Tao. There’s a hazy quality to the sun - it actually doesn’t feel that hot or that strong. I’m more than happy leaning against the edge of the deck, watching the world go by.

We’re a touch late arriving into Koh Tao, but happily our guesthouse is only 100m walk from the ferry pier. There’s a really laid back feel to the place. it’s definitely taken a leaf out of the book of surf-houses I’ve stayed in over the years. Their bar opens up onto the beach, and we watch a staggeringly beautiful sunset over the water, while we slightly bizarrely enjoy a Thatcher’s Gold - a cider I normally associate with being at Glastonbury.

We’ve done Thai food seventy six ways since Saturday, so head to a seafood place a few minutes walk along the coast. The food is smashing - no idea what fish they actually cooked for us, but it was very tasty, and done incredibly well. The bar even serves Savannah Dry, so I’m coming back for sure.

We nip back to our room to drop off a couple of groceries, then head along the coast in the other direction to a place called Bamboo Beach Bar. Toes in the sand, cocktails in the hand sorta place. I discover a Thai brewed cider, which is way better than I thought it would be, and also manage to try a Gin and Manao, which Vicki Rish insisted is the best thing since crack. She’s not wrong. Definitely from the same stable as vodka limon, but even and more. There are some cool tunes being played - Bonobo style house. It reminds us a lot of Goa a ways back when. We could happily weigh anchor, but we’ve got an incredibly busy day of doing fuck all tomorrow, so decide that bed and sleep are our friends.Read more