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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Ko Samui First Day: Bus Ride, Ferry Ride, Dinner, Banana Pancake!


On 2nd of January 2016 after much planning and booking of hotels and flights, we found ourselves at Surat Thani close to 5.30 pm Thai time because of the delay of almost an hour. I was so worried we could not get to Ko Samui that night as I had already booked rooms there starting on the 2nd.


Luckily Surat Thani airport is absolutely tiny compared to KLIA2 and as soon as Carol collected her luggage, she quickly booked round tickets to Ko Samui for all of us!!!
 So here we are, on the bus to the jetty.  Round tickets mean : 550 Baht for bus to jetty, ferry ride, and bus transfer to hotel. The bus ride was...quite long!!!!

This is the first time I have booked hotels and flights all by myself (without a package tour or tour guide) so I was relieved when the flight was completed and that the journey to the island will be completed soon. Carol booked the tours and she will be in charge of the itinerary for our entire trip, phew!!! burden lifted off me!
 On the bus this girl, Dao, came and sold us packages for all 3 days that we will be in Ko Samui, plus the round trip back to Surat Thani and airport!!! She is funny, patient, cheerful and entertained all of Carol's queries and questions and collected only the advance payment, the balance to be paid as we embark on each day's adventures.  So, it was to be: first day: marine park tour, second day spa and city tour, third day Koh Tao, and 4th day travel to Surat Thani. I couldn't believe that our trip was organised tonight itself, and that the next day at 7.15 we had to start our tour!!!
Now we are on the ferry, presumably the last, as it was quite late, and Dao assured us that this ferry will wait for us no matter how late we reach Donsak Jetty, as we had already paid the round trip tickets.  It was to be the longest, slowest ferry ride for us weary travellers,hahaha!!! (we were already at KLIA2 at 12 that morning)

 Bee and Sau (who were the ones who requested I help them book this trip) on the ferry.  The journey was so slow and long and "wavy" Sau nearly got sea sick!
 After the ferry, we had to take another bus to the hotel, and we were delighted that it was right smack in Lamai business district!  So after dumping our bags, we came out for dinner!
 We walked looking for a nice place for authentic Thai food...based on reccomendations by our hotel staff.
 Padthai and vegetable salad.  This was to be start of our love affair with Padthai!!!
 Yummy dinner with, of course, coconut drinks that the Aussie kids so love!
 What Thai meal will be complete without tom yam?
 sea food tom yam kung!
 Padthai and pineapple fried rice, the latter, too was going to be our staple for the next few days!
 For dessert, we found this banana pancake stall.
 This stall is everywhere on street corners, so we needed to have some, at 40 baht, it was a steal!

 Let me at them! food tastes best when shared.
 hmmm,,,,,crispy pancakes drizzled with condensed milk.
 and chocolate
 You can see on their faces that it is yummylicious!
 Ely must show me a nouthful as I snapped!
So, it was back to our hotel...Marina Villa...which I will show you more of, in the next few days......

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