Our third stop around Thailand was the sunny island of Koh Samet, a popular weekend getaway from Bangkok due to its proximity — Koh Samet is a 3-hour drive south of Thailand’s capital, and although it’s quite popular with tourists and Thais alike, the island is still not very developed. There’s only one road that stretches the 10-kilometer (7 or so miles) length of the island, and in the widest part, one more stretches across (a whopping 2 kilometers!)

We spent just enough time on Koh Samet to totally relax, but without becoming “those backpackers” in elephant pants and tunics who have clearly been traveling for too long.

Here’s the video of our trip that I finally got together:

Day 1: Chinatown on the beach, Mermaids, and Fire

Mr. Lee, a nice cab driver who works through Bangkok (DMK) airport, drove us to Ban Phe, where we took a speedboat to the island. There are 2 choices when it comes to the boat: you can take a ferry for $5 that drops you off at the main pier and takes about 40 minutes, or you can take a speedboat for $10 and be dropped off in front of your seaside hotel (and pretty much all the hotels on Koh Samet are seaside, it’s that small). The speedboat also takes at least 40 minutes. Whichever route you take, you will be packed into a sardine can boat with as many other tourists as possible, likely driven by some teenagers who don’t speak your language and don’t really care if they drop you off in the right location. There is no way to avoid this, and is definitely the most annoying part of getting to Koh Samet. At least it’s beautiful!

I’m not going to lie, Seth and I were as lazy as could be during our 4-night beach bum portion of the trip. We saw some stuff, but we also spent a good chunk of time lounging in our hotel room watching Netflix and inhaling snacks from the 7-11.

Koh Samet is also famous for being the setting for the works of a famous 19th century Thai poet, Sungtorn Phu. Until the work was published, poetry had mostly been targeted toward the elite, educated population of Thailand. But Phu’s work was written in a more easily comprehensible prose, making it more “for the people” — and there are even rumors that it had an anti-colonization agenda veiled behind a fantastic story. The work, called Phra Aphai Mani, tells the story of a mermaid who saves a drowning prince and brings him to Koh Samet. The epic is almost 50,000 lines long and is listed as the longest Thai poem, taking Phu 22 years to complete. Anyway, here’s a picture of the famous statues based on the poem who happened to live right next to our hotel. We happened to be staying at the closest place to the statues on the small island (I walked over from breakfast to take the picture when I realized they were important), which was kind of random.

We stayed on Sai Kaiew (pronounced “sigh COW” and near Laem Yai on the map at the top), which is by far the busiest beach of Koh Samet. The fact that this week was Chinese Lunar New Year, the biggest holiday of the year, of the biggest country in the world, meant that Sai Kaiew was completely overrun with Chinese travelers. So for the first 24 hours, we wandered around the beach with a sizeable fraction of the Chinese population. I mean it was packed. (From a cultural standpoint, Chinese people like being in a place where they’re surrounded by others — I think it’s a comfort zone thing — which contributes to the stereotype that they travel in packs. It’s because they do!) A huge number of Chinese people also meant that the food on Sai Kaiew catered to the tastes of the masses, so a lot of the restaurants on the beach sell watered-down Thai food that looks suspiciously like Chinese food. It was a bit of a culture shock at first, going from remote Mae Hong Son to hippie Chiang Mai to the apparent Chinatown section of Koh Samet, but after about 24 hours I was able to relax into the island vibe and find my groove.

We spent the first day or so relaxing at the beach and getting to know our immediate surroundings, and getting our fill of pad thai and mango sticky rice. We did venture inland a bit to find some more reasonably-priced real Thai food that wasn’t made for Chinese people, which was quite a relief. This woman made some fantastic pad thai with crab for me, while Seth ate a red curry with chicken.

In the evening of our first night, there was a “fire show” at a restaurant called Ploy Talay, in which some Thai men danced while whirling sticks with fire on both ends, as well as long chains with durian husks aflame on the ends that they swung on the beach to create what looked like one long firework. They also danced and swung in a choreographed style, sometimes standing on each others’ shoulders or hanging off each others’ waists with their fire sticks moving to the beat of some dub step in the background. It was quite a show!

Day 2: Touring Koh Samet

The second day, after waking up early to watch the sun rise over the water (through the clouds, oh well), we decided to rent a scooter and see more of the island. But since we aren’t experienced scooter drivers (read: we have never ridden a scooter), our hotel receptionist was too nervous to let us rent one from her. So we ended up walking. It was probably for the best though, since the massive amount of carbs we have consumed on this trip was starting to catch up to us. We saw 3 other beaches besides Sai Kaiew that day, and fell in love with them! These beaches were much tamer than ours in every sense: fewer people, calmer waters, and still with options for dining but not overrun with hawkers and tourists.

We want to Ao Vangduan, Ao Wai, and at the bottom of the island was Ao Pakarang — at which there was only one resort and a pretty rocky beach, but a classy restaurant with good pina coladas. The whole trip from Sai Kaiew to Ao Paragan with all our stops (I had to jump in the water at Ao Wai because it was so irresistable) took about 5 hours, but probably could have been done in 2 if we hadn’t stopped to take pictures as much. It was a beautiful day and I am really glad that I got to see some of the other beaches that weren’t totally crawling with other inhabitants.

In the evening, we ventured south of our hotel to a Western bar with big lights hanging off the trees. OK, we did this every evening. Like I said, we were very lazy. But we regret nothing, it was a wonderfully chill trip.

Day 3: The Islands

Our last day on Koh Samet, we decided to take advantage of a special offer: $20 per person for a tour of 5 different islands in the area, with snorkling, fishing, and lunch. This kind of tour is available from any hotel on the island and will gladly be sold to you. The first island where we snorkled and ate, Koh Thalu, was definitely the most impressive. Riding up to Koh Thalu, we were confronted with a huge rock sticking out of the water covered in trees. I don’t know how else to describe it, but luckily we took a picture for documentation:

We were blown away by the crystal clear turquoise water just below bath temperature, and had a grand time watching the fish and the coral reefs breathing underneath us.

At lunch time, our boat drivers took us to another part of Koh Thalu, where we splashed around and then walked barefoot to a lookout point. Here, the call of the void whispered into my ear: “jump.” The water below was sparkling and perfect.

I did not jump, though. It’s a good thing — when we got back, our boat was ready to go. We waited 9 minutes past the scheduled departure for everyone to get on board, and apparently left 3 people behind who didn’t make it on time. “See you tomorrow,” said the unsurprised Thai boat driver. (Not to worry: this is a popular spot for lunchers in groups, so I’m sure they found their way back somehow.)

The leftover rice from lunch was taken to our next stop and thrown overboard to feed the fish and bring them to the snorklers. Koh Kudee was swimming with fish (!!) who were super curious and swam right up to my gopro.

The third stop was Koh Plateen, where the majority of the people on our boat jumped off while we stayed to do some fishing with the boat drivers. We didn’t get a fishing rod, rather a line wrapped around a plastic circle connected to a hook and sinker. The driver cut up some squid and put it on our hooks, and Seth and I both caught a fish! Actually, his hook got stuck on my line and when I pulled mine up after feeling a tug, our lines had gotten tangled and each of our hooks had a fish. I was happy to know that the Thais would be eating it, and that we weren’t just fishing for sport. At least, that’s what they told us. I choose to believe them.

Our last stop of the day was Koh Kham, where we hung out taking pictures and hiding in the shade so that Seth’s sunburn couldn’t get any worse — a normal part of every trip in the sun that we have come to expect, always armed with aloe and sunscreen. Each island had stunning beauty, athough this one also had a lot of plastic, which was a shame.

After being dropped off on Sai Kaiew and inhaling some mango sticky rice (snorkling and lying in the sun builds up an appetite, people), we went to Jep’s bungalows for our last island meal.

Jep’s is one of the only places on Koh Samet with an online review that I read, and also came recommended by our hotel receptionist (my review: great food, horrible service — authentic Thai). Full of rice, I had steamed muscles with lemongrass with red wine (because I’m a REBEL) and Seth had a set of chicken, rice, and the spiciest green papaya salad either of us has ever met.

We watched the sun set over the island, fed a friendly cat my leftover muscle scraps, and said good-night to Koh Samet for the last time. With satisfied bellies, we danced down the beach to live music under the stars and returned to our hotel.

And that was Koh Samet! For our (sadly) last stop of the trip, we will go see Seth’s aunt who lives in Bangkok! Bangkok is a special place that not everyone enjoys, but we always, ALWAYS have a wonderful time as we are totally spolied by someone who lives there and knows the city well. In fact, we have been to Bangkok at least 4 times, and I finally looked at a map of the skytrain for the first time last night. We are totally spoiled and very much look forward to enjoying this totally alive city again.