Koh Samet

To move backwards in time from the previous entry, I started the holiday with a 18-hour tour of Bangkok. I'm not entirely sure you could even call it a tour. Upon arrival, I made my way to Sukhumvit and the Movenpick Hotel where I proceeded to attempt to sleep off the 15-hour journey with Aeroflot. My second flight, from Moscow, resembled a crèche, complete with screaming babies, desperately-trying-to-tune-it-out parents, and the rest of us suffering fools.

Once horizontal, sleep did not easily come. But Rosa arrived and we made our way through a part of Bangkok we'd both been to before, had a street papaya salad and then met up with Jay, from the good old RHS days, and his wife Beth. Rosa and I finished off the day with a foot massage; I mean, I woke up 58 minutes after it started but who's counting. 

We woke up the next morning only to be whisked away to Koh Samet, the closest island to Bangkok and a three-hour drive/speed boat ride away. By 2pm Rosa and I were beachside at Samed Villa, on the quiet end of Samet's main drag of beach. Sun, sand, heat. It was everything we wanted.

Another 18-hours later, Clare and Gemma arrived off a flight from Shanghai. Reunion tasted like beers on the beach, papaya salads and salt water ocean breezes. We did a lot of nothing. 

Samet as an island was prettier than I expected. Known as Bangkok's weekend getaway for expats and locals alike, I was expecting tat and tack. Instead, we were greeted with lots of beachside bars and restaurants, one particularly loud fire show (a bit tacky) and a limited number of shops. The water wasn't gloriously clean--it appears a lot of Bangkok's plastic finds its way to the ocean here. But upon further exploration we found Ao Prao beach did a good sunset, Tub Thim beach was suitably secluded and the beaches peppered along the east coast extending south were varied and vast.

We, well I, did no major exploration. I wanted sun and got it. I wanted sand and got it. Samet wasn't Thailand at its best but by no means was it at its worst. Given the time, the place, the company and the month I'd left behind, it was everything I wanted and needed. So much so I'd recommend it and do it again.