Side trip: Bangkok and Ko Samet
- Mark Rosenthal
- Apr 3
- 5 min read
I’ll begin with the flight, which was seamless in terms of boarding and exit, had great service and meals, and was a great flight, except for the incessant screaming kids. We were completely surrounded by families with small, loud children. There were no bottles stuck in the screaming mouths, and the exhausted parents seemed to give up and let the toddlers run up and down the aisles. The flight attendants seemed to take it in stride and worked tirelessly to serve all passengers. They were unbelievable. Needless to say, there was no sleep on the flight, and good thing the movies had subtitles! Jess thought there was a group of Pakistani families, but I don’t know. Asia is different than what we’re used to.
So we exit the flight easily, get processed and get our visas. Funny thing was customs. You only go through if you have something to declare, and when we passed by it smelled of weed! Maybe someone declared theirs?
We proceeded to the train after grabbing our bags. Super busy, but very well organized. For a city of 7 million they have to be organized!
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t overwhelmed. We’re on the train trying to figure out connections to get to our hotel. We get off before the end, and walk a block to catch a bus. This is in a really busy area across from an older shopping center. We probably let 4 or 5 busses go by that would have gotten us to our stop, by the BTS station. We could’ve taken a train, but I hadn’t figured out the connections so this was a straight shot. We finally found the hotel, which was really close, but everything is so huge and dense that we were lost. The hotel was fantastic, and would be our home for 2 days.
How to see Bangkok in a day? We decided to book a Tuk Tuk hop-on hop-off, which is kind of like uber, but you get a day pass. Then we booked the hop-on hop-off tourist boat for the river, which was a good call because the temps got up to 98f. Some of the boats were air conditioned and others were open air, but move pretty fast.
The Tuk Tuk picked us up at the hotel and was electric! Times have certainly changed since the last time I was here. He took us through the city to the river where we got our day pass to the tourist boat. We went to the end of the line and decided to get off at Wat Arun, the oldest Buddhist temple in Bangkok.
We exited the river boat, onto the dock and up onto land. When we got up to purchase our tickets, it felt like we were still on the rocking ship. Was this built on a pier? No, we were on solid ground and there was an earthquake! A Buddhist monk was clearing everyone out of the temple and the chandeliers were swinging
We seemed to feel aftershocks for the next half hour or so and then things calmed down there.
Interestingly, there are shops that rent beautiful Thai dresses, and photographers do photo shoots. We saw a few places that do this but they don’t sell the clothes, only rent them.
It was hot, and we were hungry so we found a place in Chinatown and hailed a Tuk Tuk to deliver us. He showed up quickly, but traffic was starting to get bad. We had a fantastic Chinese lunch, hailed another Tuk Tuk, and were notified that there were 2 people in front of us. After an hour or so, we were finally at the front of the queue, and the uber Tuk Tuk app showed that the guy wasn’t moving. We didn’t yet know that the trains had all stopped running and the traffic had become heinous. I contacted support and they were very apologetic but said that because of the earthquake everything was a mess. We finally got picked up, and the driver did a heroic job of getting us to the train station. By then, 5 or more hours had passed and we finally find out that the trains aren’t running. Looks like we’re walking back to the hotel. Millions of people are out on the streets, trying to get home from work or get around. In a city of 7 million people, it wasn’t a normal night, but we had no clue. We started getting reports of the collapsed building and devastating situation in Myanmar. In hindsight, we had a really easy go of things, and our hearts ache for the families of those killed and injured. A week later, we are seeing all of the buildings damaged in Bangkok, so I think this will take a long time to sort out.
We booked 2 nights on the island of Koh Samet, south of Bangkok. The transfer to the ferry station took about 3 1/2 hours, and was seamless. Our driver got us to the ferry station, got us our ticket and we were in a speedboat and in the island in what seemed like 10 minutes. We had to get a park pass for the island, and off the pier, the taxis are small pickup trucks with covered benches in the back. The taxi dropped us off at the lobby of the hotel, where they had us take a seat, gave us a cold towel and a cold drink while they got us registered. The Thai hospitality is fantastic!
The resort was very beautiful and had 3 swimming pools, 3 restaurants and a beach with no surf with water as warm as a bath. At registration, we were told that there would be a fire dance show, so we booked a table
We booked 2 nights, and at first it seemed out of our budget. However I checked a Thai based booking engine and found a deluxe cottage for an unbelievable good price. Before the fire show, there was a burlesque dance show with beautiful women, whe really lady-bois! The shower flooded the bathroom with every shower, but they kept us stocked with towels, so we would make a Dam and mop up the extra water after every shower. The room had a view of the vanishing edge pool and ocean beyond. I did a jungle hike and we booked Thai massages, which WOW, sent me to another planet! The sea was a perfect temperature and was blocked off from boats. The bad: the air was still pretty polluted with the proximity to Bangkok, and so much trash washed up on the beach that the hotel organized twice daily beach trash pickups. Seven million people living in Bangkok produce a waste footprint that has a noticeable impact. You can see how this place was once a pristine paradise, but now has lost some of its luster. We took a cab into the main town on the other side of the island to have a look around and ended up in a family run bar where the son was a magician and a fun lovely guy, getting everyone to shoot at targets and laugh. The town had 7/11’s, bars, massages, food, weed shops and guest houses, and was far different than the quiet side where we were staying.
Continued…
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