Koh Samet…….sunny skies, white sand, warm water and cold beer !!!

December 20th – 24th

Just 200 kilometers from Bangkok in the Gulf of Thailand, the T-shaped island of Ko Samet is famed for its white sandy beaches, exotic coral and crystal clear waters. Interestingly, Koh Samet developed as a distinctly Thai destination servicing the nearby population of Bangkok. At first the rough accommodations among the trees catered to university students, but as accommodations improved Thai families soon followed. The number of foreign tourists has risen rapidly in the past few years, however, and in the high season months there appears to be almost as many foreigners here as Thais. The whole island is a national park and a 200 THB (8 CAD) entry fee is charged per person…enforced by the army. They have also closed a lot of bars etc. but there has been resistance to closing out some of hut/shack like “resorts”, so it is definitely a mixed bag of accommodations and restos.

We are staying at the Samet Villa Resort on Ao Phia bay, a far cry from our digs on Koh Chang….not really our style but once you got tuned in, it was fun >>> sort of an all-inclusive feel. In our walkabout on the island,  we saw a good portion of the beaches not quite reaching the narrowest part of the island….just too freaking hot, even with some re-hydration stops along the way. There really was very little garbage on the beaches, the very fine white sand was great and the water quite pleasant. Some of the resorts did look tawdry but taken as a package it was quite nice and probably one of the nicer islands we visited. On our walk back we went partially on the one and only road and there is still a garbage issue here once you leave the beach strip.

What we didn’t like was the almost never-ending coming and goings of speed boats which are used for various water activities, transfers to the mainland and provisioning of the resorts……for us this was quite intrusive. Inasmuch as there is a sealed road and songthaew taxis having one or several marshalling points would much reduce this noise pollution. We did learn though that the Asian concept of fun on the beach includes as many motorized water sports as possible – jet skis, banana boats, parasailing, speed boats etc. Then, if there are lots of people having fun and making lots of cheerful noise, it’s an altogether happy, ideal beach scene…….from that perspective many of the beaches, including where we stayed certainly fit the bill.

The alms ceremony was rather small and discreet…in fact on this morning we were one of the few people who actually noticed what was happening….

…below the resort shrine….it was interesting to see the staff attending to their duties occasionally stopping and uttering a short prayer before continuing on…

This is a very arid island especially after the rainy season….as such, water is brought in from the mainland by converted wooden boats: a resort worker paddles out to the “water” boat attaches a rope to the water line, paddles back, pulls in the rope/water line which is then attached to the resort water system and the “water” boat empties its load, returns to the mainland and repeats the process…

……and we are off on an island walkabout…

…..we climbed over the rocks and along some paths to get across the headlands, and, on to the next beach..

…no we did not try these on for size….although they seemed to be a hit..

…the infamous lounger wars, well we learned the game early on: claim your lounger, secure it with a towel and it is yours for the day …”the early bird gets the worm”.

There were hawkers on the beach but very mild and unobtrusive…

We mostly ate at the resort as the consensus was that it was one of the best places and reasonably priced ….on average dinner with a couple of beers was about 400 THB (17 CAD), we stuck to Thai cuisine but you could also get steaks and the like which were of course much more expensive.The service was pretty good if a tad impersonal (given the turnover it is understandable) and tasted pretty good.

…once an evening there was a fire show > no charge but a tip is appreciated by these hard working guys….

Not a tough way to spend a few days and tomorrow we head for Bangkok …..hopefully, this will be a boring, straightforward exercise…