Samet Island (Koh Samet), Thailand 1

Thailand
Arrival from Bangkok

Koh Samet is a lovely little island that is easily accessible from Bangkok. In March, 1999, we took a little trip there (I'm Glenn, in case you just arrived). Although we only spent three days on the island, we did manage to get around a bit.

In case you're considering going there, I've tried to convey what a trip there is "really like." I hope these pages will either help you do decide whether to go there or not, or to give you an idea what awaits you if you've already decided to go.

	I hear that you can fly there, but I suspect that most travelers will begin their journey with a taxi ride from their Bangkok hotel to Ekkamai Bus Terminal, pictured here. The bus ride takes four hours, including a rest stop. The fare is only around 100 baht, so it's quite reasonable. Although the busses are "air conditioned," ours was on the hot side. Luckily the volume on the on-board movie was not turned up too high.
The bus took us down to the port of Banphe to catch the ferry, which was right across the street from the bus station. The ferries are of varying sizes -- ours was small and really tossed about on the waves. The trip is only about 30 minutes to the first stop, and the fare was 50 baht. The north end of Koh Samet, seen here, is the most mountainous. The passengers on our ferry were Thai college students on spring break and one strange family, us.
	The ferry makes two stops, the first of which has this large concrete pier. This is the stop for Hat Sai Kaew, where most of the tourist development is. We chose not to get off here, instead opting to continue south to the second, more southern stop. We had read that the marine life was better down south.
If you choose to disembark at the first stop, you'll walk through a building and then out to this scene. This is Koh Samet's main street, and you'll find shops and motorcycle rentals, etc., here. Since the beaches are a little ways away, you'll probably want to take a pickup truck taxi to your hotel. You can see one of the taxis parked here on the left with the two rows of seats in the back.
	As you continue south along the eastern shore of Koh Samet, you'll go around a point and then see Sai Kaew Beach. It's a very long stretch of nearly white sand with hotel after restaurant along the length of it. Although the whole area is actually a marine park, there are jet skis for rent here. This is not an area for those looking to "get away from it all."
These are some nice little cabins I found near the north end of Sai Kaew. As I was just walking around exploring, I afraid I don't have any information on them. Our impression while there was that it was not really necessary to book ahead, although that may just because we were there from Tuesday to Friday in March. Just about all the accommodation we saw on Koh Samet was of the student and backpacker class.
	The second and last stop the ferry makes is at Wong Duen (also spelled Von Duern, Von Duan, etc.) Beach. Be aware (I wasn't) that there is no jetty here. A small flat boat will come out to meet your ferry and then take you into the knee deep range of water. I arrived in long pants and shoes I couldn't get wet, with a big Samsonite suitcase. If you're wanting to get off at the more southern stop, I recommend showing up in shorts with a backpack or shoulder bag. Samsonite doesn't roll too well on sand.
The ferries are associated with hotels, so they'll naturally drop you off in front of their section of beach. Although we had wanted to stay down south, it was getting late, and we thought we'd better find a room for the night. After a little running around, we booked into this room at the Wongduen Villa (038) 652300 for 1,200 baht.
We spent two nights in this room, and then moved down the beach to a different hotel. If you're interested, I'll show you around Wong Duen Beach on page two. On page three, I'll take you on a little walking trip north, back toward Hat Sai Kaew.