Ko Samet or Angor Wat – Backpacking around the World

Ko Samet or Angor Wat

28th of September, Ko Samet or Angor Wat?
A big question during my three days in Bangkok was, what should I do with the time I had left in Thailand? Going to Cambodia and visit Angkor Wat for some cultural experience or to Ko Samet, for some drinking experience and relaxing on the beach? Nine hour on the bus on bad roads or 4 hour on a bus on highways? A rainy week in Cambodia with the possibility of washed away roads or almost sunny weather on Ko Samet? It was honestly a difficult decision, but I finally made my choice, nice weather and beaches on Ko Samet (and maybe some drinking experiences.). I will come back to Thailand, and for sure go to Cambodia and Angkor Wat the next time. I left Bangkok and a nice girl from Australia behind, went on the bus and after four hours arrived in Rayong, a small town next to Ko Samet. I met three girls a Scottish and a German guy on the bus and we decided to spend the next few days together. Very good idea, I don’t like being alone and had hardly ever been alone on my trip. What can I say about the rest of the day? We got on a ferry which brought us to the little paradise called Ko Samet. Compared to Bangkok the island life was really relaxing, sandy beach, funny people, no traffic, no pollution, no worries! The bungalows we stayed at where very good, they even offered free toilet paper (PURE LUXUR in Thailand). Look forward for the rest of the story!

29th of September, Ko Samet
Ko Samet is an island to relax – for sure. Lot’s of Thai and Japanese people come to this island to have vacation, surprisingly not that much western people. September and October are definitely the off-season, we where nearly on our own. Peter, the Scottish guy bought a “new flying machine” which we used quit often. Wonder what a Thai flying machine is like? It’s pretty much the same then a American Frisbee 😉 !

We stayed at a place called Ploy Tallay on the Hat Sai Kaew beach, , a nice “resort” with friendly stuff (I never found any rude locals in Thailand anyway). Just the music sucked, they kept playing four CDs over and over again, so I decided to borrow the “DJ” some of my CDs, which he highly appreciated.

30th of September to 2nd of October, Beach stories
Johannes lying on the beach for more then 20 minutes? That’s something very rare, usually I spend something like 20 minutes before I get bored. The four days on Ko Samet I nearly spend two hours on the beach every day and cached up a really nice tan. I didn’t want to go back to Austria and look like I spent the last three months in a office. But I also hiked from our beach to the Ao Wai beach, which took me about 1,5 hour (one way), where I found some really secluded bays on the way. Most of the beaches are separated from each other by huge rocks and that makes it quiet hard to get from one beach to the other. But the rocks also saved some beaches from being conquered by tourists. Beaches that are to small for being used as an public beach, and the rocks create and awesome underwater landscape for snorkelling.
At night I always went out with fellow travellers, we had discovered a nice bar at the next beach and partied every day there.

Talking about fellow travellers, I always asked people what they think about Austrian people, and one of the most common answers I got was that they think that we listen to David Haselhoff (the guy from Baywatch and Knight Rider) music all the time .You know what? That’s only particularly true, about ten years he was quiet successful and gave a lot of concerts in Germany and Austria. But his days as an popstar in my home country are long over, maybe some Austrians still have dust-covered CDs of him in their collection, but NO one listens to his music now a days. At least no one I know. And by the way, I’ve met Scottish people that are not stingy, Germans that are funny and not disciplined at all and last but not least Irish people that are poor in drinking games (just joking!).