Wandergaels: Ko Samui and Ko Tao (Thailand)

Ko Samui

Our trip from Bangkok to Ko Samui was a bit of a trek. It started with a fairly short tuk-tuk taxi (which cost us a euro) from our hostel to the bus stop just off the Khao San Road (it was early and our backpacks are heavy - don't judge us). (Taking the hour-long local bus to the airport also cost us a euro, compared to the €15 we would have spent on a taxi. This was a good way to see parts of Bangkok that we hadn't already seen, and the bus dropped us off just outside the airport. The ticket-checker on the bus also let us know when it was our stop, and was nice enough to wake us up to do it - disaster avoided!) After arriving in Surat Thani city in Southern Thailand, we got a bus to Donsak Pier, a ferry (Seatran was the name of the company) from there to Nathon Pier in Ko Samui, and a minibus from there to our hostel in Chaweng on the east side of the island. The journey from our hostel in Bangkok to the hostel in Ko Samui took us about 12 hours in total. We spent most of our first day on the beach in Cheweng and, after dinner in a local food market (nice and cheap), we headed with a few people from our hostel to one of the beach bars (the Ark bar). This beach nightclub was complete with bar service to the beach loungers, a podium for dancers in front of the DJ booth, and fire acrobats on a huge plinth around 20 metres into the water. After rising slowly the next morning, we hit the road on a scooter for a bit of exploring. We did a lap of the coast of the island in a couple of hours of driving, and stopped at Sareeraya beach, Na Muang waterfall, and Bophut Fisherman's Village (worth a trip when the streetfood market is on). Other than that, we didn't do much else in Ko Samui!

Donsak Pier

The upper deck of the Seatran ferry to Nathon Pier in Ko Samui

Ark bar

Our hog

Sareeraya beach

Na Muang waterfall

Ko Tao

We took the ferry from Ko Samui to Ko Tao (via a change of ferries at Ko Pha Ngan). We booked the transfer at our hostel in Ko Samui, and the bus collected us at the hostel and dropped us (and two Irish cailíní) directly at the pier, where there was a mad scramble to get off the ferry and collect our bags. After making our way through the madness of getting a taxi (we saw a man flatten himself on the ground taking a turn quickly on his scooter), we arrived at our hostel, which was located at the end of a long palm tree-lined dirt-road. Just like Ko Samui, we spent most of our time scooting around the island. Scooters were around €4 a day to rent and are the best way to see both islands, especially the bigger Ko Samui. We spent most of our three days in Ko Samui on the beach, but also went on a one-day try dive, where we spent the morning being trained on the equipment and how to 'equalise' (i.e. things to do to acclimatise to the increase in pressure when descending in the water) and spent the afternoon taking it easy on the boat and going for a 45-minute dive. Since it was our first dive, we were only allowed to go to a depth of 12 metres, but this was deep enough to give us a great view of lots of different fish and the coral reef (as well as an underwater shipwreck). We spent our last night in Ko Tao at a beach bar looking at the impressive fire acrobats nearly burn the hair off of people and light their cigarettes from balls of fire spinning that they kept spinning at the end of string. Ko Tao is full of western-style restaurants and beachside bars, and unsurprisingly is overrun with tourists, most of which seemed to be young backpackers. It's a great place to go for anyone interested in scuba diving.