Thailand Ho! My Travels in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

This is my third whole day on the island and things are going well, but not without a few fits at the start.

Leaving the ferry port, heading to Koh Chang.

Arriving on the island from the Bangkok involved a 9 hour bus from Bangkok (VIP bus albiet, where leg room is plentiful and the seats hit almost 40 degrees), and a 1.5 hour ferry, putting me on dry Koh Samui territory at about 8am on Monday. Given the costs compared to flying I’m not sure I would do it exactly like that again, I mean, 900 baht for the bus ticket, 100 baht for the ferry ticket, about 400 baht together in taxi rides… it adds up! Top that off with the less than ideal night’s sleep and the 2200 baht plane ticket starts looking like a very attractive option. But meh, I digress, I need to start saving my cash more effectively and sleeping on the bus saved me a night’s hotel room, right? That’s how I’m trying to see it.

An awesome Bay of Thailand sunrise.

Finally, not without several phone calls to the hotel booking agency requesting directions for my taxis and confusion over my booking at the guesthouse itself, I arrived at Akwa Guesthouse on Chaweng Beach in Koh Samui. The place is really really awesome. So far it’s been nothing but pleasant surprises and may well go down as my favourite place I’ll have stayed in Thailand. The owner, Tim, an aussie, must have spent a small fortune on the place, collecting pop art and furnishing the rooms with the most thoughtful and comfortable tidbits including more than 11 pillows per bed of various sorts, DVD player (unnecessary really), quality soap, genuine home-style WESTERN furniture and a wonderfully nestling king sized bed. The restaurant upon which the guesthouse sits is, frankly, expensive, but at 1200 baht or so for the room I guess he’s gotta cut profit from somewhere. Akwa is across the street from the Seascape Resort, so if you’re heading here then have the taxi take you there, then cross the street. I actually checked into the Seascape during the initial confusion over the booking, where for 1200 baht/day you get the trashiest bungalow I’ve yet seen with the exception of the Nature Beach bungalows on Koh Chang (paying 300 baht/night). The pool and the beach at the Seascape is what you’re after though, and honestly I’ve had no problem just pretending to be a Seascape guest to take a dip in the pool, utilize their beach chairs and borrow their beach towels.

Check out that green ocean! This is the pool at the Seascape. Not bad. Too bad the bungalows SUCK.

Anyway, I’ll do a full review on Akwa Guesthouse later. In the meantime you’ll appreciate how comfy I’m feeling now. Oh yeah, and the wifi signal from downstairs at the restaurant just barely reaches my room, so I’ve got wifi! I’m set!

Maybe or maybe you haven’t heard about the email problems I’ve been having lately. This morning I figured out the cause of the problem (still working on the solution)… somehow my gMail account has been grabbing the messages before my Thunderbird can. If you’ve sent me something recently, then send it again, I should get it now.

So yeah, Koh Samui has been nice so far. Definitely well developed as a tourist destination and falling in as cheaper than Bangkok but more expensive than Koh Chang, at least Chaweng Beach is all it’s cracked up to be. Yeah sure, it’s not a secluded paradise, but hey, I’m willing to sacrifice that for convenient wifi, a memorable beach and great accommodations.

I’ll be hear until the 4th of November at which point I’ll likely cross over to Koh Phangan for the full moon party on the 5th. In the meantime I’ll try to catch up on work, post more hotel reviews, notes about buses, Bangkok and post more pics.

Oh yeah, and note the new addition of a mailing list on the left there, please pop in your email address and I’ll notify you of any new posts on here so you don’t have to check it out only to be disappointed that there are no new postings (cuz I know you don’t use RSS...).