Day 102 - Thursday, May 3
Basically all hotels/hostels/guesthouses in Thailand also double as travel agents through which you can book transfers via boat and/or bus to just about anywhere else in Thailand. So the folks at Khao Sok Jungle Huts had a board showing departure and arrival times to all sorts of locations. I had booked a hostel on Ko* Tao a few weeks prior, fearing that places might fill up around the Full Moon Party on the 5th. [*Ko or Koh seem to both be accepted spellings for the Thai word for island. Ever the one to be efficient, I'll opt for Ko, though I think Koh seems to be used more often by reliable sources.] Unfortunately, the only transfer from Khao Sok to Ko Tao required an afternoon departure and night ferry on a slow barge where people just sleep on the floor. That sounded pretty awful to me, so I opted instead for a morning transfer to Ko Samui, a night there, and then on to Ko Tao the next day.
The board with all the departure and arrival times showed for Ko Samui that I was to depart via minibus at 8:00 am and arrive in Ko Samui at 1:00 pm. This made sense because it is about 1.5-2 hours to Surrathani from Khao Sok and then another 2.5 hours by ferry from Surrathani to Ko Samui. Well, the bus didn't leave until about 830, and when I got to Surrathani, I got dropped off at some shady travel-agent-type place, rather than the pier where the ferry leaves from. I got dropped there a little before 11:00, and then they told me that the boat to Ko Samui doesn't leave until 3 and I wouldn't be there until 5 and that the bus to the pier would leave the travel agent at 1:30. Ugh, so much for having the afternoon to explore Ko Samui as I had hoped. Now it looked like I really wouldn't be able to see Ko Samui at all. I was quite annoyed and told them that when I booked, I was told I would be in Ko Samui by 1pm. He just responded by repeating that the boat left at 3. About the only time the language barrier in Thailand ever frustrated me were times like this where I really wanted to argue with / yell at someone but couldn't and just had to deal with it. So after wandering around Surrathani for a bit, we got a bus to the pier, arriving little before 3 and were informed that the boat wouldn't leave until 4, which ended up being more like 430. So I didn't get to Ko Samui, until after sunset at like 7. Awesome.
Though I didn't get to see any of the island in the daylight, I was pleasantly surprised with my hotel (
@Lamai) which was clean, comfy, quiet, and cheap. I also found a good authentic place to eat dinner, where for the second time that day I ordered a meal, and then, when I wasn't full, ordered a second meal, and ate every last grain of rice, to the amazement of the tiny little asian people around me. At the restaurant, I snapped a picture of this Thai version of a crib which I thought was interesting:
Thailand isn't really known for its desserts, so I did most of my desert shopping at convenience stores (which was almost always 7-11). I ended up eating WAY too many of these awesome little banana cakes/bread with chocolate in the middle:
And when I couldn't find those in Phuket and Khao Lak, I got addicted to Taro Bread.
And because only a couple of each were delivered each day to the 7-11's, they often ran out, so I got in the habit of just buying all of what they had. The problem with that, though, is if I bought three things of Taro Bread (as I often did) I had a hard time not eating all of it immediately.
After getting screwed out of the afternoon to explore, I decided I would wake up super early, catch the sunrise, and then use the moped I had rented to make a loop around the island and check out some of the beaches, and the big waterfall that's one of the main attractions.
Day 103 - Friday, May 4th
Sunrise was a little before 6, so I was up well before then. I made it over to the coast a little after first light but the sun hadn't come all the way up yet. It was definitely a nice way to start the day. A few pics from the coast around Lamai at sunrise:
The ferry to Ko Tao left at 11, so I had about 4 hours to explore before I needed to be back at the hotel to pack up, check out and then get back to the pier. I made my way around the island checking out various beaches and sights and doing my best to take pictures without being able to see exactly what I was taking a picture of or how the picture came out.
Ko Samui is much bigger and more developed than I had envisioned and some of the areas reminded me of Phuket. If I were to return, I think I'd probably try to stay at one of the northern beaches - probably Mae Nam or Bo Phut. The latter:
The former:
Ko Samui's Waterfall No.2 is one of the highlights of the island and is advertised as an 80-meter fall (~250 ft), but I think that probably includes its various levels because the main fall didn't seem nearly that high. Apparently the Thais haven't learned the words I lived by as a lawyer when dealing with bosses and clients - under-promise and over-deliver. But it was pretty nonetheless:
After packing up and checking out, I headed back to the dock. As I came around a corner to this view of the ocean:
I started to pull over to take some photos, and a police officer whistled at me and motioned me to pull forward and that I couldn't park where I was trying to even though it seemed like a perfectly fine place to park. They had a roadblock/checkpoint set up (much like a DUI checkpoint in the US) but the only people that were pulled over were people on motorbikes/mopeds. A second or two later, I realized that they were writing people tickets for not wearing helmets. And as luck would have it, I wasn't wearing mine (so the cop probably thought I was trying to pull over before the checkpoint to avoid it). Ugh! I had actually worn my helmet pretty religiously in Khao Lak and would've done the same in Samui, but it didn't fit, and I was so annoyed at arriving so late the previous day, I didn't want to turn around and go back to the shop once I realized that it didn't fit properly. I also figured it wasn't a big deal because well over half, and probably closer to 2/3 or 3/4, of the Thai people I had seen riding mopeds in Thailand did not wear helmets. So much for that reasoning. So I got a ticket:
Luckily, it was only $10, but I had to wait in a long line to pay it and got very anxious as it was 10:50, they did not seem to be in a hurry, and I was worried I might miss my ferry. As it turns out, my 11:00 ferry didn't end up leaving until almost 1:00 (It would seem punctuality isn't really something they are too concerned about in Thailand). I took a few photos from the boat of Ko Samui and Ko Pha-Ngan as I made my way on over to Ko Tao.
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