A Weekend in Paradise

Saturday, March 7

So after a bustling week in Thailand me and my friend Dan (New Jersey) headed for the beach. My friend Tisha's aunt owns a place on one of the beaches on the island but we couldn't get a room for our first night there so we had to just hope that we would get a place. Our bus would leave at 8:30 so we had to get up at around 7:00. Apparently my friend had too many drinks from the night before so he was a little sick and hard to wake up so we were running a little late but got there in time to buy our tickets though. Just before boarding the bus however I witnessed an interesting thing at 8:00. The loud speaker sounded in the station and everyone stopped what they were doing and stood at attention. The national anthem played and the majority of Thai people sang on cue. After this occurred I asked the young woman sitting next to me to explain what had just happened and she said that every morning around the country at 8:00 the national anthem is played over the loud speakers and everyone stops what they are doing and out of respect they stand at attention while the song plays and some people sing as well. I guess you can say that this is similar to what American school children do every morning when we say the pledge and have a moment of silence.

So off to Ko Samet island....the bus ride took about 4 hours to get to the port where we would leave from to reach the island by boat. The boat ticket cost 150Baht ($4) and included a return trip on Monday as well. The boat trip took about another hour to reach the beach in which me and Dan had to get off to meet up with on of Tisha's contacts at her aunt's resort. We had to take another smaller boat to the shore which we weren't aware of so I complained to the driver and he only made us pay half price. And then when we got to the shore we were approached by officers of the National Park Authority and told to pay 100Baht because the island was a national park, another hidden cost I was not told about! Despite these fees I was determined to spend the weekend on the beach relaxing. Our contact at the hotel could not find us a room for the same rate so we had to walk to a different beach where we found a room for 1,800Baht ($50). The room was decent and we had a view of the beach below. After getting settled in we headed down to the beach and spent a couple of hours just relaxing and hanging out listening to the water hit the shore. Lunch and dinner was a the cafe right on the beach but it was difficult sometimes because the staff did not speak much English so most of the time they did not understand us.

Sunday, March 8

Check out time was 12:00PM so we ended up waking up late and then eating breakfast at the beach side cafe before heading to Vongduern Villas which is the resort that my friend Tisha's aunt owns. We payed 1000Baht ($28) which is what we should have payed at the other place but we did not have a reservation there. This hotel was much nicer but not as close to the beach. I decided to just chill and sit an a beach chair to write in my journal that day and I went back to the other beach later because this one was much more crowded and a lot noisier. I ended up finding this great burger place that made a pretty good American style burger so I had that for dinner and then lunch the next day...haha. That night we walked around to see the nightlife of the island but there wasn't much to see.

Monday, March 9

We woke up and caught breakfast at the cafe on the other beach before heading to catch the boat at 11:45 in the morning but we ended up missing the boat because it left about four minutes early!!! We ended up meeting this Thai guy named Beer (haha yeah I know) that spoke English and shared a pick up truck taxi with us to the other side of the island to catch the boat there. We got back to shore and caught the 1:00PM bus back to Bangkok. After getting Tisha's brother Tasha picked us up from the bus terminal and we headed back to his house for dinner before going out to the night bazzar to buy some things. I ended up buying some sung glasses and flip flops. We headed back home after that because I had to wake up early the next day for my bus to Cambodia. What a great weekend! :)

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