Trips to Samed Island

Recently I had a chance to travel to Samed Island Twice. The first time was during Christmas and the second time was during new year.

I have heard of Samed for long but never had chance to go there. It's not far from Pattaya, just about an hour away by car. It was my boyfriend's thought to go there. I looked online for the information on how to get there and where we could get a boat to the island.

There are many beaches on Samed but there is one that is close to the main pier and has many restaurants and even a few pubs on it. It's a big beach called Sai Kaew. My boyfriend called it White Sand beach.

We left Bangkok on Thursday and set the GPS to the pier I looked online. It took us about 2.5 to 3 hours to get to the district where the piers to the island are. Once we turned to the road to the pier I was going to go to, there was a guy on a motorbike driving along my car and asked us if we wanted to go to Samed. He said he had a boat for us. We decided to drive after him to the pier.

We ended up at the pier of the municipality office. There was a car park with roof we could park while we were gone to the island. We paid about 80 baht per 3 nights (don't remember the exact rate). After that they took us to a table to arrange us a boat. The lady there asked us if we had a place to stay yet and we said no. She gave us a book with pictures of hotels on the island in it. We picked one for 2,000 baht. She said that price included breakfast but when we got there we found out that the breakfast was not included.

We got a boat for 3,000 baht for round trip. They gave us a ticket and on the day back we just called them one hour ahead and they came pick us up and they asked us for the ticket.

Once we got on the boat, 10 minutes later we were on the island.

We dragged our luggage to the hotel and we got a room which I didn't really like. The rooms there were not built great. One building contained 3 rooms and if you jump in one of the rooms people in the other rooms could hear and feel it. The wall was so thin. I could hear people next door snored clearly. The worse part is that there was the sand all over, on the floor, in bed, in the bathroom.

That night we walked out to the beach and walked along the beach. We sat and ate at a restaurant next to the biggest pub on the beach. I loved to sit there. They had seats by the beach close to the water. Around 8pm, a group of men was there to give us a fire show.

After the meal, we walked farther to another beach next to each other. It was quiet and pretty.

The next day we rented a scooter and drove around the island. If you plan to do so then you need to have a great skill of riding scooter. You will have to drive up and down the mountain on dirt road.

The spent the last day looking for a new and better place to stay for the next time we come back. We walked to the quiet beach we walked to the first night. There was a resort with separated houses up the hill. We got 2 rooms for 1,500 baht each, one for us and one for my boyfriend's niece who would be one the way for a visit soon.

After that we decided to leave one day earlier. We called to get the boat and an hour later we were on the way back to Bangkok.

About a week later we drove from Bangkok to Samed again. This time we had my boyfriend's niece and her boyfriend with us. We got there late on Dec 31th. We went to the same pier but different desk to get a boat with the same price. After that we took a boat to Tok's Little Hut where we made reservation last time we were there.

That night was new year eve. There were so many people on the island, so much different from a week ago. We walked to the same place we ate the first night we came during Christmas and it was hard to find available seats. The pub next to it was so crowded with people. We ordered food and had to wait for over an hour to get everything. There was a fire show just like the one we saw the first time we came.

After the meal we walked around for a bit to see the island celebrating the new year and then we walked back to our bungalow and rest.

Next morning we woke up and walked down to the beach. We sat at the restaurant and had breakfast and then walked around and saw many tents that people slept in at night. As I mentioned before that there were so many people there to celebrate the new year so all hotel got booked. We were lucky that we could find a nice place to stay during that time.

We walked from where we stayed to the beaches close to it. The first one which is next to us is called "Ao Phai". There was a very pretty restaurant at Ao Phai. They set up tables on the rock under the trees with candles on them. Sorry I couldn't get any good pictures of the restaurant. A few mores steps from there were a few restaurants. We sat there one and had some great seafood.

Next to Ao Phai is Ao Pudsa. There was a really nice resort there.

Ao Pudsa

From Ao Pudsa we walked to Ao Nuan. The way from Pudsa beach to Nuan Bay is kind of like a forest. We climbed up the rock ad walked to the trees and we got to a small private beach. After that we walked to where we stayed.

The next day we woke up early to take pictures of the sunrise.

Ao Pudsa

We left Samed that day and stopped by Pattaya and spent a couple nights there before we came back home in Bangkok.

Bangkok Cleaning Day at Ratchaprasong

On Sunday May 23, 2010, I had an opportunity to help clean Bangkok at the protest site. Red shirt incident is a very well-known news throughout the world as you can see news about it on many popular newspapers or websites.

The red shirts first came out, I mean for this incident, on March 12, 2010. At first they set up their stage at Phanfah Bridge which is not far from the well-known Khao Sarn Road. In the beginning of Arpil they moved to Ratchaprasong intersection, the business key area, and had been there till the end of the crackdown by the government.

After let them take the intersection for over a month, the government decided to start its crackdown on May 17 by declaring the whole week as holidays. I sat in front of the TV all day at home to watch the news to see what had been and would be happening. The CRES (Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations) often showed up on TV and had speech. They warned all the red shirt people to go home by 3pm of Tuesday May 18, and that was the deadline the CRES gave them before the crackdown started. Things turned out that many red shirts were still there but yet many of them decided to be sent home.

On May 19, some of the leaders decided to turn themselves in to the authority and that caused a serious anger to some members among them who later fought with the troops and burned down the city. A big shopping, Central World or CTW which was once called World Trade Center, was burned down. Some other buildings in that area were burned down as well.

That night the CRES declared a curfew in Bangkok, which later has extended till now.

Anyway, things seemed to be more quiet after that night. I wished so much to go to the site and see it with my own eyes. And lucky me, the BTS announced that its service would be opened on Sunday 23 May, and would stop at every stations except Ratdamri. And I also heard that BMA, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, invited everyone to join and help clean that area. I thought of it as a very good opportunity to go there and take pictures.

That day I arrived Chidlom BTS station around noon and saw many people were there already cleaning the area. I walked to the intersection and took many pictures along the way. Some malls near there got destroyed a little and some got a lot. The CTW got damaged a lot. I walked close to it and took many pictures.

A woman there gave me a broom so I helped clean the road for a bit and then walked to Siam Theater to see how much it got damaged. I could not believe my eyes. The whole theater got burned down and also some stores next to it. I still could smell the ash in the air and see some smoke coming out from the builings.

Well, its hard for me to explain but I have many pictures I took to share here.

I also posted a story at iReport on CNN site as you can see it here, Big Cleaning Day in Bangkok at Ex Protest Site

See more photos here, Bangkok Cleaning Day

Loy Krathong Festival

At every fullmoon nights in November we will go to the river to float our small boat or raft to thank the goddess of water. Some says it is done to float away our unhappiness, bad luck, anger or something like that and make life better or for good luck. For me, this time I wished for good luck. We call it Loy Krathong which means "float the raft". Loy means "to float" and Krathong is "a small boat or raft".

Krathong or a small boat or raft is normally made from a piece of banana tree and decorated with banana leaves and flowers and candle. Some will cut their finger nails or hair and put it in krathong as a symbol of their bad parts. Some put some coins in it. Some will be waiting in the river to collect the coins and damage the Krathongs which I really don't like it.

In 2009, Loy Krathong was on 2nd of Noverber. I was gonna write about the festival on the day or the following day the festival was but I was too lazy. I always wait for this day every year to make a kathong to float to the river. And since it was on Monday this time, we went to the flower market near my house on Sunday 1st of November. I took some photos of the market. It was my first time there. Wow so much stuff to buy!

So bad that my boyfriend was not here. He was sent to somewhere in the world and could not come and join me. I wish we could it together next year.

Once we got back from the market, my 6 year-old nephew and I stated making our krathongs. I chose a piece of banana tree which we bought from the market. We bought a whole pack with 10 pieces for 50 baht and 2 kilos of banana leaves for 30 baht and a few bags of flowers for 10 baht each. Once it was done, it looked like the picture. I put some flowers and candle and joss sticks to it before I went to the canal.

On 2nd of November at 7.30pm, we went to a temple near the house. The traffic is always bad on that day so we didn't want to go to anywhere farther. We tried once but got stuck near the house for a few hours.

Kids like to play with fireworks at this festival. Aside from many stands selling krathong, there are also many selling fireworks.

Once we got t the temple we headed to the canal. There were some big candles for us to use if we didn't bring a lighter. Once we light our cadles and burned the joss sticks, we brought the krathongs to the canal and preyed for luck or whatever we wanted and let the them go in the canal.

I saw some kids in the canal looking for money in the krathongs. I hoped they would not attack mine and I didn't put any money in there. After we were done, we walked there for awhile and then headed back home.

General Knowledge about Thailand

This is a page for the links to all of my articles about general knowledge about Thailand.

• Thai National Anthem
• What is "Rama"?

A Trip to Samui Island

It was the 3rd of April. Inthe morning we had some business here in Bangkok and we had flight to Samui at 7 pm. My boyfriend was the one who made the hotel reservation and right before we went there we realized that the hotel we already made the reservation and were gonna stay at were in Phangan. I mentioned about that once in the entry I wrote about the trip there.

The thing was there were only 2 boats to the resort on Phagnan a day. And since we took 7 pm flight we would get there at 8 pm, which meant no boat. We had to stay that night on Samui so right before we got on board I called Amari in Samui to make a reservation for one night.

It was raining in Samui that night. We hired a taxi to Amari. We got in the room and rest. My boyfriend had been trying to call the resort on Phangan but couldnt get any good answer. The next day we woke up and it was still raining so we decided to stay at Amari the whole trip and asked the agent to have the reservation at Phangan moved to the next trip.

We stayed in the hotel till the time for dinner. The rain had already stopped and we walked out to the beach. We stayed at Chaweng beach which was not far from the airport. The beach was nice. Many people but quiet. We walked along the beach and saw that there were many restaurants on the beach and some places were preparing for a night party.

I loved the beach there!

While we were walking along the beach we took a street out to the city, the big shopping area. It was colorful at night. Many shops and restaurants. We walked up and down the road and looked for a place that we could rent a scooter for the next day. Then we walked back to the hotel which was very near that area.

The next day we got some maps from the hotel front and walked to the scooter place. We was so disappointed that we were refused to rent a scooter. The passport was required for that but my boyfriend didnt bring it with him and she refused my id card cause I had a foreinger with me. She said I had a foreigner with me so she wanted that foreigner's passport. What!!?? She told us that she thought we could have one at the hotel we stayed in.

We went back to the hotel and asked them for a rental scooter. It was so easy, no passport required at all, my boyfriend had showed it already when we checked in. 400 baht for 24 hours.

After that we rode the scooter around the island. Samui is in Suratthani Privince. It has its own airport so if you travel by plane you can fly straight to the island. Samui is the third largest island in Thailand with 21 km at its widest point and 25 km at its longest. The scooter trip took like a couple hours around the island. We stopped at the Big Buddha temple. My boyfriend said that he saw it from the plane so it must not far from the airport. After that we rode the scooter pass a temple with some big statues so we stopped for pictures. It was Plailaem temple.

After that stopped at the famous viewpoint, Grandfather and Grandmother Rocks or Hin Ta Hin Yai in Thai.

You may ask why it has that name. Well my boyfriend did that too and I told him why. And the first time he saw the grandfather rock picture at the scooter park in front of the rocks area he giggled.

Hin Ta Hin Yai is at Lamai beach. It is a famous tourist site in Samui. The Grandfather rock looks alike a penis and its why it has that name. Well I think I dont have to talk about the Grandmother rock, cause it has that name from the similar reason.

I found a picture of the grandma on the internet which is much better than mine.

picture from internet

A trip to an ancient city and monkey town [2]

The next day we woke up early and walked to the train station to take a train to Lopburi. We got to Lopburi in an hour later. We got a/c this time.

Lopburi is a small city with ruined buildings like temple or palace. Once you get there by train you can hire Tuk Tuk, motorbike taxi or Sam lor to explore the city. Start from the train station you can travel in circle to visit the ruined place there.

After we got out of Lopburi train station, we saw a big ruined temple. We walked across the street to the temple, Wat Prasrirattanamahathat. That was the first place we visited in Lopburi.

After we got out of the temple there was an old man waiting for us and offered us a Sam Lor ride around the city for 200 or 300 baht. It must be hard work for him!!

In Ayutthaya era, there was a king named Narai had the second house there. It's called Narai Ratchaniwet Palace.

We had been to 2-3 places but never saw any monkeys yet. Then we saw one running in front of the building and we took pictures of him. Once we got to Pra Prang Samyod, we saw lots of them there. It was like the big house of monkeys. We bought some monkey food from a boy there. He gave us a tour around the place and told us how to feed the monkeys.

After that we walked to San Prakarn, where the monkey god was. We hardly saw monkeys there but there was a monkey sitting there eating boiled eggs but he ate only the yolk and threw the white away. Before we got to San Prakarn, we saw a big group of monkeys walking across the road.

After we were done, we went back to the train station. We got the standee tickets and no a/c. When we got back to the hotel in Ayutthaya we cleaned ourselves and were ready to leave. We checked out almost at 5 pm and took the train back to Bangkok.

We took lots of photos from there. It was a good place for photos!

Related Article:

• A trip to an ancient city and monkey town [1]

A trip to an ancient city and monkey town [1]

There are many ancient cities in Thailand, Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Kanchanaburi, Sukhothai and so on. I dont know how many exactly ancient cities we have here. I have been to fews of them.

And the trip Im gonna write about here today is a trip to Ayutthaya and Lopburi, 2 different provinces. Ayutthaya is an hour away from Bangkok and Lopburi is another hour away from Ayutthaya.

We decided to take the train trip. On Friday 20th of March after, we went to Rangsit train station which is not far from my house. We got to the station at 7 pm. I asked for 2 a/c seat but the ticket guy gave us free ones and said it would come soon so we didnt have to wait long. Because it was only one hour away we got it. The train was crowded and we stood till we got to Ayutthaya at 9 pm.

We walked to the hotel where I stayed there before, Krungsri River. It only hundreds meters away from the train station. We aksed them to check in for 2 nights. The next day we took Tuk Tuk in front of the hotel to the scooter place. We rented a scooter for a day for 300 baht and then rode it around the town.

As shown in the map, you will see the island which was the Kingdom of Krungsri Ayutthaya hundreds years ago. The train station is outside of the island and also the hotel we stayed in.

The first place we went to was the ancient city. We parked the scooter at the market in the Phra Sri Sanphet temple. We had breakfast there. Yep, Ka Prao Gai with Kai Dow. You will see lots of food there.

After breakfast we went to the temple. There was a big golden statue of Buddha there. Outsite the temple was the big ancient city. I have never explored the whole area cause it was always hot and I think if you wanna walk around that place you will have to spend more than an hour.

See more photos here and here.

When we were done, we moved to the other temple near there. On the way we saw people riding an elephant. Looked fun!

The next place we were gonna go was a temple with the big laying Buddha. The temple was outside of the island. We rode across the river and got to the temple, Wat Yai Chai Monkol.

That place was the last place for us for that day. After that we went back to the hotel to clean ourselves and then drove the scooter to the town for dinner and to return the scooter. We took Tuk Tuk back and rest for the next adventure we were gonna have the next day.

Related Article:

• A Driving Trip from Bangkok to Krabi [2]

Life in Bangkok

This is a page for the links to all of my articles about living in Bangkok.

• Bangkok Cleaning Day at Ratchaprasong

A Trip to Phangan Island [3]

The next day, my boyfriend woke up early and went out alone to return the bike. He went back not long after and we walked together for breakfast at the same place we went for dinner. That morning we rent a kayak at the hotel and enjoyed it together on the water there. It was my first time rolling kayak and actually I was scared of the deep water but I wanna try it once. We rolled the kayak to the other side. I was feeling a little uncomfortable when rolling but I believe that he was gonna save me for sure if there was something happened.

At 3pm we had a thai cooking class at Santhiya. We had to cook 2 things, Tom Yum Goong and Green Curry. It was easy and spent not much time. We each had one Tom Yum Goong and one Green Curry to eat. Seemed like he was fine with it but I was sooo full and couldnt eat it all. My gosh, felt like my tummy was gonna explode!!

We skipped dinner that day cause we were so full after the cooking class. We walked to the beach again to buy some ice cream. I saw many dogs there and I thought it would be great to be a dog on that beach. A farang guy was washing a dog in the sea. some dogs were sunbathing on the beach. I took some photos of them but there was a girl barking at me when she saw I took photo of her. Seemed like she wanted privacy!

The next day, we woke up late. We packed out bags and prepared to leave. The boat would be available at 1.30pm so we had late breakfast at the same place, walked there a bit and then went back to the hotel and waited for the boat. The boat trip back to Samui was worse than when we headed to Phangan. The water splashed in from the front and we were all wet. I was so dizzy and wish the trip would end shortly.

Out flight was at 7.20pm so we had 4 hours before going to the airport. We left the bags at the hotel on Samui and rented a scooter to ride to the shopping area where we were there before. It was so hot and I was so tired so we came back to return the scooter and headed to the airport. When we got to the airport we still have time left but there was no a/c there so we stopped at the ice cream shop to get us cooler. And when it was time we took the plane back to Bangkok.

And I promise that we will come back there again!!

Related Article:

• A Trip to Phangan Island [1]
• A Trip to Phangan Island [2]

A Trip to Phangan Island [2]

After we got to our room, we jumped in the pool since it was so hot and we had been sweating a lot. After that we went to the restaurant in the hotel, not much thai food there, no ka prao but chicken with cashew nuts. After we ate, we walked down to the beach. We had to climb the rocks to get to the bigger beach. I found the rope hang down from the tree and the quiet beautiful beach. The beach and the sea there were very calm and peaceful. The sea was so green and sometimes was so blue. The beach was awesome with very white sand and very clean.

We walked a long the beach and found a place to buy some drink. No convenient store like 7/11 there, we found only a few small minimarts and the price were expensive than at 7/11. We walked there a bit to find a place we could rent a scooter for our adventure around the island for the next day. Then we walked back to our room and gonna came back again for dinner. We never made it for dinner that day, we were watching a movie on TV but then I fell asleep and then my boyfriend did too. We never woke up till the next morning. Man that was 12 hours sleep!

The next day after we had 12 hours sleep, we woke up and walked to the scooter place. We rented one for 300 baht for 24 hours. Now we got the scooter and we got the map which we grabbed from the hotel. The map showed that we had to ride on the dirt road for awhile and then the concrete road. Wow it was like rural area there, long dirt road up the moutain. You must drive super carefully. It was slippery sometimes. My keister got hurt from the riding!

We rode aroun the island. It took us like a few hours for our adventure. We stopped here and there that we thought it was interesting. We found a BIG rubber tree and we stopped for photo. Man it was sooo huge!!! The circumference was 14.7 m.!!! We stopped at the central pier on the island. We saw a small island from there and some small fishes in the sea. We stopped at Had Rin, the fullmoon party place. Lots more people than at Thong Nai Pan beach.

We got back to the resort in the afternoon. We decided to park the scooter at the resort and gonna return it the next day. If we knew that the road to the hotel was that bad, we would have returned it and then walked back to our room. I was bleeding in my mouth after it was hit by my boyfriend's shoulder. We jumped in the pool again and then took a nap.

At night we walked to Thong Nai Pan beach for dinner. It was pretty there. We stopped at the nearest reastaurant. We order Ka Paro and Noodles. The food was very good there. We liked it a lot. The beach at night was beautiful as during the day. The water was so calm and it was quiet there.

Related Article:

• A Trip to Phangan Island [1]
• A Trip to Phangan Island [3]

A Trip to Phangan Island [1]

Well, my first story here will be about Koh Phangan or Phangan island, the fifth biggest island in Thailand. Im gonna write about it first cause I just went there a few weeks ago. Right its still fresh in my memory.

Phangan Island is an island that you can take a boat from Koh Samui for only 20 minutes. I love that island so much but I hate traveling by boat. I always get sick from it.

On Friday 29th of May, we took flight from Bangkok to Samui at 6 am. Right if you are gonna go there by plane, you could land at Samui and then take a boat from there. We arrived Samui at 7.15 and there was a taxi service from the hotel on Phangan island waiting for us there.

Well i'll talk about the hotel first. The hotel we stayed in named Santhiya Resort located on the Phangan. My boyfriend found it on the internet and he liked it and booked it for us. Actually we intended to go there in April but there was some mistake that time. We intended to go to Samui and he booked the hotel which he thought it was on Samui island so we skipped it that time and stayed on samui. Santhiya also has a branch on Samui which i dont remember the name.

Once we landed, we walked out and saw a guy from the hotel waiting for us there. They told us that the boat would be available at 11am, and ask us if we wanna go to the Big Buddha Place, or to their hotel on Samui. We decided to go to the hotel cause we've been to the Big Buddha Place before in April. The hotel on Samui is so small and there was also a small restuarant there. We ate there and then had some rest by the pool waiting for the boat.

Almost at 11am, we walked to the hotel's pier and took pictures as below. You can click on the picture to enter my gallery.

The boat was not big and gonna carry 14 person to the hotel on Phangan. The resort was in the north of the island so it took us 10 minnutes more to get there. On the way to the resort we saw a big beach which looked crownded. It was Had Rin, the place where you can join the fullmoon party every fullmoon night.

Our resort was at Thong Nai Pan beach. It was up the hill and we had to walk up to the lobby and take a car to our room.

When I walked up there I saw an awesome pool. It was a big pool with waterfall. When I was walking pass it I thougth that I would come back to swim there. But once we got to our room, we forget about it.

The room was very nice and I liked it the most from other places I had been. It was like a house up the hill with private area and with a swimming pool in front of the house. What surprised me the most was the bathtub was outside the house and the shower room with no roof!

Things you should know:

Dtac Simcard Works there on the island. I am normally at true number but it was not working there. No coverage at all! Lucky me that I always have Dtac Simcard with me for my data medem and it worked!!

Related Article:

• A Trip to Phangan Island [2]
• A Trip to Phangan Island [3]