Ko Samed

Bright and early on Monday morning, after a quick breakfast at my hotel (included in my stay) I walked to the train station to catch the 8:30am train to Bangkok. I would most definitely stay at the Ayothaya Riverside Hotel again. Not because the staff was extra special, because they weren't. Not because the food was spectacular, because it wasn't. BUT - because the rooms were clean, reasonably priced and the hotel is one block away from the train station. SUPER convenient! (I can't remember, but they might have also had some good tv stations as well - sometimes all the hotel rooms blur together) There's also a 7-Eleven across the street from the train station so that's really great for late night snacks or munchies.

Since I look Thai and am often mistaken for a local - I was given a third class seat (hard wooden seats) for 15 Baht. That's roughly 50 cents to ride back to Bangkok! Next time, I would upgrade to the 30 or 60 Baht first class seats...but this time around, I wanted to people watch. Since the weather is nice and cool (and dry) - I opted for the cheap seats. The only bennie of the first class seats is AirCon and cushy seats. Next time 'round. =)

It was a nice trip and I met up with my friend Aree at the Sam Sen train station, where she picked me up. After a short pitstop to pick up her car from the service station, we headed down south to Ko Samed. Since it's more of a local beach resort island than Ko Samui, it was a nice couple of days. Ko Samed is 3 hours drive from Bangkok to Ban Phe pier, where you catch a 40 minute ferry ride to the island.

I loved my hotel there. We stayed 2 nights at the Hotel Club Samed and I would definitely stay there again. If you go and want a nice quiet vacation - go on a weekday. The place was empty and oh so quiet. It was a great wind down from all my mad city travels. It's a little expensive - in fact, Thailand has been and will likely be the most expensive country in my travels...but it was worth it. (Except the bed was a little hard.)

The resort is a fair walk into the beach town - but it's a nice walk. The beaches in town (or the national park as it's called) are beautiful and you can get some pretty cheap hotels (but you get what you pay for...they're pretty divey). The best part about being on Ko Samed was having someone to travel with. That meant that it wasn't such a big deal for us to stay out a bit later and have a drink at one of the bars at the beach. We had a HUGE seafood lunch at the pier before checking into the hotel around 3:30pm - so we weren't really hungry. We took a truck tuk tuk home and woke up bright and early the next morning.

Tuesday was a wonderfully quiet day - sitting out by the pool with a few jaunts to dip my feet into either the pool or the ocean (both of which were nice and cool - in fact the pool was cooler than the ocean!). We had a fabulous seafood dinner at the Ploy Samed hotel. You ring a bell, they send out a boat (operated by a motorized pulley system) and you ride out to the hotel restaurant. The restaurant (and hotel) is a built on a number of pilings a little ways out in the ocean. Their tables are situated over openings on the platform so that you can watch the fishes underneath you. The fish love to eat rice. =)

Wednesday was another quiet day - we spent half a day at the resort before checking out and heading back out on the ferry. We had more yummy seafood and then drove back into Bangkok.

I hated my hotel in Bangkok this time 'round. I stayed in a standard double room at the Sawasdee Sukhumvit. It's seen better days. The walls were thin and totally needed a paint job - my room walls were smeared all over with dubious stains. The only redeeming factors were that the hotel was just 2 blocks from the sky train and that I had Star World, so I could watch Ugly Betty that night. I didn't sleep well and was oh so happy to check out and head to the airport for my afternoon flight to Chiang Mai. I pretty much spent as little time as possible in my room - I stayed out until about 9ish at the Emporium mall. Sometimes its nice to spend time in a nicely appointed international style mall - you learn to appreciate civilization. =)