Getting here...

So much to write! I am here in Ko Samui and experiencing true beauty – it is amazing here! We left Bangkok on Tuesday morning and drove away in our rental car. Well, away might not be the best word…we drove in circles for a while, making it only more difficult to adjust to the opposite driving standards. Needless to say, it took us a while to get out of Bangkok. It doesn’t help that there is no English translation on the signs. So as a result of intuition and luck we miraculously made it Rama VIII Bridge. Once we were out of Bangkok it was smooth sailing. With Tim Tams in hand, and counsciously reminding ourselves to drive on the wrong side of the road, we and our little Honda City were tearing through the roads. It was nice to Thailand outside of the dirty city. It was a beautiful drive. Early that evening we made it to our secluded hostel. What hostel has its own private beach?? This one! Since it is the off season, Yale and I were pretty much the only ones there. It was nice to have a change and have silence at night. It was very peaceful. Once our laundry was finished in the morning we hit the road again.

On the drive we even managed to drive to the Thailand/Myanmar border, a bit eerie. They wouldn't let us through - I have no idea why! This is me at the border crossing and they even let us go in a couple meters to take this picture. Right after the border crossing the road changes to dirt. It's a different, secret world past the checkpoint. A North Korea but no nuclear weapons.

We had read somewhere that our hostel was about 650 km away from our ferry connection and we had less than 6 hours before the last ferry. Yale drove like a madman – peaking at about 170 km. It wasn’t until we saw a sign (yes, in English!) for Surat Thani that we realized instead of being 650 km it was really more like 300 km. Whew! We made it to the ferry dock and after failing miserably with our attempted universal sign language (pointing and facial expressions) we decided to just follow the cars and line up. We only had to wait about an hour for the ferry and we were the last car on the 4pm ferry! Good thing our car is the size of a golf cart! The ferry ride was absolutely beautiful – islands and emerald water as far as the eye could see. Despite the view, I had other things consuming my time. Yes, I’m a nerd. See picture.

I drove after the ferry ride. Driving on this little island is absolutely insane. There are scooters buzzing about all around you like annoying nats in summer. No worries, I just passed them all. After driving through the touristy parts filled with people, lights, shops, and attractions we came to our hotel, the Lodge at Bophut. It’s on a narrow one-way street right on the beach. The nice manager even let us park right in front of the hotel – parking is harder here than in NYC! One window of our room faces the street which is lined with little shops and people here and there walking, and the other window faces the beach and we even have our own balcony. Amazing! This is a picture of our hotel and the morning view from the room window. Bophut is much quieter and less built up as some of the other parts of the island. That night we ventured out to find some food and ended up with Italian right on the water. We finished the night with a chocolate banana crepe – or pancake as the little peddler man from Bangladesh called them. Yummy!