Headed South to the Tropical Island Ko Samed

5 - 12 December 2014

We left Cave Lodge,after an awesome stay, with the plan to head south and eventual make it to the Island of Ko Samed.  We have to travel 650 miles south to get there.  The travel plan is to ride the scooters back to Pai, take a minivan from Pai to Chiang Mai, take a train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, take a minibus from Bangkok to Bon Phe, and finally, take a speedboat from Bon Phe to Ko Samed...WOW...this is going to be some trip.  I had no idea how long this trip would take, so at this point me have no reservation to stay anywhere.  Somehow the trip worked out perfectly with the longest we had to wait for transportation was 1 hour.  Here is how it worked out:

• Left Cave Lodge at 1000, arrived Phi at 1130 (Scooters)
• Left Phi at 1230, arrived Chiang Mai at 1600 (Minivan cost $9 USD)
• Left Chiang Mai at 1700, arrived Bangkok at 0650...next day (Train cost $51 USD)
• Left Bangkok at 1030 (after eating breakfast & taking commuter train to minivan station), arrived Bon Phe at 1330 (Minivan cost $12 USD)
• Left Bon Phe at 1345, arrived Ko Samed at 1405 (Speedboat cost $12 USD)

TOTAL TRAVEL TIME = 28 hours
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELLED = 650 MILES
TOTAL TRAVEL COST FOR BOTH OF US (Not including scooters) = $84 USD

I know...$51 USD for the train ticket seems like a lot, but since the trip was going to be over night, we upgraded to a second class sleeper car (first class we sold out).  Here is what it looked like:

Seats before turning in bead. We have two bench seats facing each other.

Really good seafood dinner for 2 delivered to our seats.

Bottom bunk when seats are turned into beds.

Upper bunk when seats are turned into beds.

We both actually got a pretty good nights sleep on the train.  Although the lights remained on, the mattresses and pillows were comfortable, the air conditioning worked well, and people were pretty quiet throughout the night.

It actually felt good when we got to Bangkok since we pretty much had this city figured out and knew how to get around.  We easily made it via a subway and a skytrain to Victory Monument where got on the minivan for the coast of the Gulf of Thailand.  When we got to Bon Phe and boarded a speedboat for the 4.5 mile ride to Ko Samed, we knew we made the right choice of coming here...check out the color of the water:

We are headed to that island out there.

The best part was that the boat dropped us right off at our beach...literally...we had to remove our shoes to get off the boat because we had to jump into the water to get off the boat:

The boat we just disembarked.

We were a bit tired after 28 hours of traveling so we headed straight to our hotel to relax for a while:

Nice room to relax in!

We left the room and went down to the beach for dinner.  The beach has changed from beach chairs to tables and lights in front of all the restaurants.

First stop...a happy hour bucket of strawberry vodka drink:

We spent the next day at the hotel pool then went to the beach for happy hour...those buckets were so good!

I love the way the drink matches my shirt.

Another bucket followed:

We are starting to feel pretty good now.

Next was an awesome grilled dinner served at beachside:

Grilled Fish...YUM!

What a great night on the beach...full moon and all:

Just before sunset.

The next day we decided to move to a hotel on the beach.  If we were going to spend the next 3 days at the beach I wanted to see the beach from our room...plus, we wanted a hotel that had a private beach so we didn't have to worry about getting a beach chair.  Here is our new beach bungalow:

Pretty nice beach bungalow

View off our balcony

Here is how we spent the next 3 days:

Working on the blog.

After a 5 nights and 4 days on the beach it was time to hit the road and finally make our ways towards the Thailand/Cambodia border.  Our Thailand visa runs out on Saturday, 13 December, giving us 2 days to cross the border into Cambodia.