Koh Samet - Paradise by the garbage tip!

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A journey that was better than expected - what a pleasant surprise. Aided by F1-like driving from our minibus chauffeur, we got to the ferry terminal in record time knocking a whole hour off the expected two and a half hours on the road. Without too much waiting we were on a ferry which chugged along at a painfully slow pace to the quayside of Ko Samet.

For some, Ko Samet is an island paradise. For us it was a peaceful retreat but we were disappointed as we travelled around. Some of the beaches were truly beautiful but the roads were so bad we couldn't even walk to some of them and the taxis were prohibitively expensive. We saw plenty of rubbish tips, waste pipe outlets and dirty beaches amongst the paradise-like sights the first few photos show. Those photos are at the end to show the contrast!

Having said that, the island has done tremendously well to clean itself up following a horrific oil spill from a pipeline just a couple of months ago. One restauranteur told us that they used too much detergent though and now everyone is worried about the water quality and avoiding the seafood. We also saw on TV that you only have to dig down a few inches to find oily evidence of the natural disaster. Hopefully everything will clear up soon.

We decided to stay in a new hotel which was quite out of the way. We wanted to avoid the beach front bars which are rumoured to be rocking through the night. It proved to be a very peaceful place, especially on the first night when we were the only people staying at the Pandora Resort. Our room was more like a luxurious studio with a seperate kitchen/lounge area. These "condos" can be bought if you have a couple of million baht to spare. There is still quite a lot of construction going on too, but we were able to relax by the pool without too much disturbance. The big problem for some would be the isolation. We were so pleased we had torches with us beacue the last few hundred yards of the unmade access track is completely unlit. It felt like being on a night hike at Scout camp!

Two nights on the island was enough for us. We had hoped to walk to some of the more remote beaches but it was simply impossible on the roads in their present state. It was enjoyable and we found some lovely places to eat. Prices were very high though, but everything does have to come over from the mainland on the boats. Indeed, as we left, we had to wait for bagloads of ice to be unloaded from our ferry before we could depart.

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