Ko Samet Weekend (8/8 - 8/9)
So I was actually planning on working this saturday since I am supposed to work the first 2 saturdays of every month, but when I mentioned that I was going to go Ko Samet (the closest island near bangkok) after work on Saturday, my boss inisted that I take saturday off and meet my friends in the morning instead of going on my own in the evening. I was originally not even planning on going and actually doing some sightseeing in bangkok, but I had gone over six weeks without seeing a beach and I was suffering from withdrawl symtoms. So the plan was to go out on friday night with some friends and convince some more of them to come with us and then go home at night at a reasonable time so we could meet at 9am at the bus station to head towards the island. For friday evening we were planning on going to see some sort of weird dinner-dancing show in the artsy theater district and I was supposed to meet them at 7pm at the peir to cross the river where the theater district is. As usual though, nothing ever goes as planned...
First of all, after leaving the office it started to rain... and then pour... eventually it slowed down a bit enough that I could continue my walk to the bus stop. Then I had to wait about 30 minutes to actually catch my bus as I watched 4 of every other bus that I didn't need to take pass by while I was already late. Once I got on the bus as I was getting my change, I realized that I didn't have my keys on me. But there wasn't much I could really do at this point because I had no idea where I had left it. Hopefully, I had left it in the office. Regardless, even if it was in the office I was already moving on the bus further away from office and it was already locked so I couldn't get inside to my keys, if they were actually there, even if I was in front of the door right now. And there was no point in call my boss (who I live with) because he was out of town on a business trip and wouldn't return until saturday evening. Unless I called a locksmith or broke in, there was no way i was getting inside my place that night. I figured the best course of action at this point would be to just continue my plans for the night and then find a place to stay last minute and just see what ends up happening.
Of course the rain had made the road slick so now traffic was at a crawling pace which of course made me again... more late..
Luckily they all said they were running late as well, but they still had to wait about 45 minutes longer for me because of where I was coming from. We ended up going for the funky-artsy-dancing show which was actually really funny, but it ended just after we got there so we unfortunately only saw it for 5-10 minutes. We had about 4 people when we got there. The rest of the people that were coming to meet us there had said they would be much later and they trickled in during dinner. After dinner we went to some club called Bombay Bar after sitting in traffic forever at about 11:30. We were eventually got our bottle of whiskey at 11:15, but they said they ran out of coke and ice (the bottle usually includes mixers of your choice). After raising hell for a bit they said okay and found some ice and coke. I think they sent someone to the 7-11 to get some for us... Anyhow, they ended at 1am which was expected but we were still hanging out there with some other thais that we met there. One of the thai girls actually grew up in switzerland which was kinda cool. They had got a bottle of tequila for the table so I had a shot with them. It was nice to have something besides whiskey and beer after 2 months...
Anyhow, we finally left the club around 2 or so and went to Kanitta's to hang out and share a bucket. The girls decided to join us for Ko Samet around around 3 or 4 so they left to go back to their place (about 40 km away), pack, get a taxi back to the city, and catch the bus to the island. I couldn't do that because all I had with me were the clothes I am wearing and I would rather bring more than that for a weekend trip. I figured I would get up around 8 and then go to the office to get my keys, then go home to pack and change, then meet martin at the bus station at 11. Needless to say, going to bed at 5am did not really make any of this possible so I was off to a late start at 12. But with all the traffic and such I didn't make it to the bus station until 2:20. The next bus left at 3 (not too bad), but it took 3.5 hours to get there (which actually means 4 hours) and the last ferry was supposed to leave at 6 so our chances of actually making it to the island depended on taking a privately charted [expensive] speed boat. But since we were in the bus station we decided we should at least go somewhere. We put so much effort forth to wake up and get ourselves ready to go as soon as possible that it would be a waste if we just went home and stayed in Bangkok. There was a pretty picture of a waterfall in front of one of the ticket booths for some city that we had never heard of. It wasn't in our book but we almost just went to so we could at least go somewhere. It probably would have been an interesting weekend in some random city we know nothing about, but then we decided we would just go to the pier and hopefuly we would find someway to make it to the island.
Good thing we did, because it turns out they still run the boats past 6pm, but they charge you depending on how many people are on the boat. The boat ride was a little intense. You could see the storm clouds out in the distance and we were on a relatively small ferry tossing and turning in the waves going to a small island for the weekend in the dark. The boat was generally tilted about 10 degrees to one side without any waves, and then with the added effects of the waves our bags were sliding across the deck (along with chairs) more than a couple times while we clung onto something that wouldn't move. We eventually made it to the island in one piece. We were extremely surprised.
The rest of the night was not too bad, we just went to a nearby bar and shared buckets for $2.50 each, watched a free fire-dancing show in the sand, and danced on the dance floor in our sandles and beach clothes covered in sand. A true beach-bar... Definately good times and crazy buckets...
The next day we managed to get ourselves together and head out to the beach for lunch and hopes some relaxing on white sand under the shade of a palm tree with clear blue skies above and was able to get most of that for a few hours (there were a a few clouds leftover from the night before.. in more ways than one). I didn't really have a chance to wash up before leaving the island since we checked out at noon so I arrived in Bangkok in flip-flops, board shorts, and t-shirt, still with some sand stuck to my skin.
Definately a fun beachy weekend!
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