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Published: October 22nd 2007
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Bangla Stadium
Thai Boxing every night at 9 0'clock Figured it would be a good idea to pre book one nights accomodation in Phuket as you also can arrange a pick up from the pier to your guest house. After checking in to and checking out our 700 Baht room, we went a walk and made enquiries at varioius other establishments. Came up trumps with a deluxe room in the Silver Resortel for 800 Baht including breakfast. (about 12 quid) Mr Payap, hotel manager, looked after us well, so stayed there for 4 nights.Patong is a busy tourist resort with a great beach, lots of shops, bars, & restaurants. Spent a fair amount of time sunbathing and swimming. The water in Thailand is so warm and inviting, even when it rains, we love it;Our next move was from the West Coast on the Andaman Sea to the East Coast and the Gulf of Thailand. We arranged a transfer from our hotel in Phuket to The Jungle Club in Koh Samui.A Journey and a half it turned out to be;
Seemed to me that it was going to be a straightforward drive to catch a ferry to Koh Samui. Left our hotel at 07.45am on a minibus which then picked
Hat Patong
Thai word for beach is Hat up a few more passengers, then it went to Phuket town where we waited for another mini bus to arrive, when it did some people changed from one to another before we set off at break neck speed towards Surat Thani.
I was fortunate that a Brazilian guy with a hat was sitting directly in front of me obscuring my view of our drivers overtaking maneuvers. We stopped at a little Thai restaurant for a break and to cram another 2 people into our mini bus.
When we arrived at Surat Thani the driver dropped us off up some back street at another little Thai restaurant where we had to wait over an hour for the ferry. We were given a little sticker to wear saying Koh Sumui. He then tried to sell us accommodation and transport on Koh Sumui.
“800 baht taxi from Nathon to Chaweng”, he said and it would take 2 hours if we decided to go by public bus, it actually took 30minutes and cost 50 baht each.
Knew he was bullshitting us.
Eventually we were ushered onto a little pick up truck, then after a short trip to what seemed like a
bus station we boarded a large air conditioned coach and were each given a ferry ticket. We were a bit confused as we knew the ferry pier was in the town of Surat Thani where we had been for ages, so why do we now have to board a large bus?
Turns out there is another ferry terminal miles away at Donsak.
We finally caught the 1500hrs Seatran car ferry, a mere 7 hours after we set off. If you traveled under your own steam it would probably take less than 3 hours. After a crossing of 90 minutes we disembarked at Nathon, we ignored the taxi drivers and boarded a little Sawnthaew bus, luckily we were first on with our full backpacks as the driver kept stopping for more passengers, eventually there were 19 people crammed into and on this little vehicle, including our 2 back packs, big fat guy and an elderly female monk!
Next stop Chaweng Beach, where we had to make our way to the Imperial Hotel. We ended up having to catch another bus in Chaweng to get us to the hotel. From here, we phoned the Jungle Club, who arrived in
Krabi
actually it is on Hat Patong their little 4 wheeled jeep to take us up a steep, deep rutted, mountain track, to our next accommodation, A LITTLE JUNGLE HUT!
Read quite bit about this place from bloggers who seemed to love it. Except when we arrived it was apparent that we were the only guests. It's a pity cos the setting is fabulous. One review mentioned that they were offered a free upgrade on arrival, so we expected the same, since no one else was there.
NO SUCH LUCK; A big disappointment
Tried for a discount on a villa, but not good enough, so back to our little hut.
Since it hasn't stopped raining since we arrived here, and there was no one else about we moved after 2 nights down to a guest house with TV, hot shower, AC in Chaweng.
The Jungle Club would be brilliant if it was busier, and the sun was shining. The staff are great. A special mention to Jack.
In Chaweng we found another great little Thai restaurant called PUKI, yes that's right, exotic Thai food at great prices.
Also got to watch the Old Firm derby live. NICE ONE!
Chaweng Statistics
Rangers Soccer
Mountain trek
Steep climb to the Jungle Club tops 0, Celtic Soccer tops 2.
Match Score = Rangers 3, Celtic 0.
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Tot: 0.176s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 57; dbt: 0.1515s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
richard
non-member comment
hi
looks great. pool some view. you are mistaken though. because you are half way around the world there is a delay in the tv transmission. that celtic rangers result you watched was from 10 years ago. sorry to break this to you but celtic won 10 nil. aye it was close until celtic scored 9 goals in the last minute of the game. c'mon the celtic tops!!!! oh, was wondering if you could baby sit next weekend. still the only people we know in ayrshire! keep up the great blog