Another week, another Thai Island to discover. Koh Samui is a lot bigger than Koh Tao. Samui compares to the size of Vashon Island in Washington State. Samui is another place where tourism is relatively new. The first roads and tourists didn’t come until the 1970’s. We wanted to find a place near the big tourist stretch but after searching for Airbnb’s and hotels, the best place we could find was an Airbnb between Fisherman’s Village and Bangrak beach. Fishermen’s has all the fancy hotels and Bangrak has a stretch of bars and restaurants and a quieter beach that the expat community hangs out at. It would only be a 1/2 mile walk to the center of each place so we thought we were fine. But we didn’t realize that we would need to walk on the only road which was crazy busy with scooters, trucks, tuk tuks and pickups that act as buses. Scooters routinely drive on the shoulder which made walking really uncomfortable.
I have talked before about how we really want to start slowing down our travel a bit and spending 3-4 weeks in a place instead of just a week. This is what we are scared about when we are booking longer stays. We ended up in a location that we really didn’t want to be. Luckily it is only for a week but we are in the middle of planning our fall travels and it is making us hesitant to book longer stays in places we have never been to. But we made the most of it and realized that the Songthaews (red pickups with benches in the back) are very frequent and only cost $1.50 per person. Normally, we prefer walking but in this town we decided it was worth it to pay a little money instead of the headaches of walking on a highway. On the 2nd day, we did get stuck in our first tropical monsoon of the trip and ended up drenched.
We didn’t do too much on this island except swim in the pool and do a lot of relaxing between trips to the beach bars and restaurants. One day, we wandered down to the temple and the Big Buddha at the end of Bangrak beach. One day, we are going to find someone who can explain some of these statues. Or maybe we can just make up our own stories.
We also did a lot of eating. The seafood was amazing on this island just like Koh Tao but we also tried some more new stuff from the busy night markets. We also tried Korean food, Italian food and some souvlaki. It is hard to call the souvlaki “Greek” because it was made by an Australian man and his Russian wife. But it was pretty good.
One night had some drinks at the fancy spot in Fisherman’s village and saw the fire spinning show. Way more elaborate than anything we have seen before. They spin fireworks, not just flaming balls on strings.
Koh Samui had a totally different vibe that Koh Tao, and we are still trying to figure out what we think of it. A lot more hotels but also a lot more international people just living there as digital nomads or retired nomads. Koh Tao was mostly divers and young backpackers. Koh Samui did have its moments for scenic photos just like Koh Tao.
Next stop- Ao Nang beach in Krabi