After many hours & modes of transportation Jen & I have finally arrived in country & at our first island destination, Koh Tao.
Our flight from Seattle to Taipei was eventful as many children under three years old took the four aisles around Jen & I hostage. We were planning on prevailing through the wailing by watching some in-flight movies, but then the in-flight movie system crashed. Our second leg of the flight was uneventful and we arrived in Bangkok, yesterday February 29th at 12:55pm.
We encountered our first scam attempt when we were trying to find the public bus to take us across town to the other airport. After hearing directly from the travel agent who sold us our tickets that the public bus could take us to the other airport, some taxi driver told us the public bus did not go to the airport and that he could get us there. We had been warned about this scam & were able to hop the public bus. It was about an hour ride around Bangkok, we were impressed by the chaos & construction.
We then took an hour domestic flight from Bangkok to the town of Suratthani, which sits on the east coast in the Gulf of Thailand. Jen & I both fell asleep as sound as the plane took off. From the Suratthani Airport we encountered our second scam. The bus driver that was supposed to drop us off at the pier, dropped us off at what appeared to be his relatives store miles from the pier. It was dark & about 7:00pm. We were told a second shuttle would pick us up in a couple hours. The relatives store was playing, "Silence of the Lambs." Needless to say it was creepy, even more so in dubbed Thai. Jen & I walked down the street to find somewhere to eat, but there was not much. We finally found a found a mom & son (7 years old) running a little restaurant out of the front of their house. They were very friendly, all smiles, I ate some rice & pork dish, Jen ate some noodles, total was like 50 cents.
We made it back in time to be picked up for our "second shuttle" to the pier. The pier had an amazing night market, Jen & I felt really scammed that we were stuck at this relatives store in the middle of no where for two hours, when we could have been enjoying all the shops & food available right on the pier. We didn't get too mad though because we did enjoy the authentic dinner experience we had at the mom & son's restaurant.
We hung out at the pier for about 2 hours, then boarded a cargo ship at 11:00pm for a 9 hour ride to the island of Koh Tao. The cargo ship's main purpose was hauling cargo, its secondary purpose was transporting cheap backpackers. The area we stayed in had a ceiling height of about 3 feet, so the 50 people it held had to crouch down to get into their sleeping area. The quarters were close with about 25 people lying next to each other on each side of the boat. Considering the environment, Jen & I both slept well. I woke up in the middle of the night to take a leak (the bathroom was a hole in the floor on the cargo floor). The crew was up smoking & playing poker, they were also very friendly.
Our flight from Seattle to Taipei was eventful as many children under three years old took the four aisles around Jen & I hostage. We were planning on prevailing through the wailing by watching some in-flight movies, but then the in-flight movie system crashed. Our second leg of the flight was uneventful and we arrived in Bangkok, yesterday February 29th at 12:55pm.
We encountered our first scam attempt when we were trying to find the public bus to take us across town to the other airport. After hearing directly from the travel agent who sold us our tickets that the public bus could take us to the other airport, some taxi driver told us the public bus did not go to the airport and that he could get us there. We had been warned about this scam & were able to hop the public bus. It was about an hour ride around Bangkok, we were impressed by the chaos & construction.
We then took an hour domestic flight from Bangkok to the town of Suratthani, which sits on the east coast in the Gulf of Thailand. Jen & I both fell asleep as sound as the plane took off. From the Suratthani Airport we encountered our second scam. The bus driver that was supposed to drop us off at the pier, dropped us off at what appeared to be his relatives store miles from the pier. It was dark & about 7:00pm. We were told a second shuttle would pick us up in a couple hours. The relatives store was playing, "Silence of the Lambs." Needless to say it was creepy, even more so in dubbed Thai. Jen & I walked down the street to find somewhere to eat, but there was not much. We finally found a found a mom & son (7 years old) running a little restaurant out of the front of their house. They were very friendly, all smiles, I ate some rice & pork dish, Jen ate some noodles, total was like 50 cents.
We made it back in time to be picked up for our "second shuttle" to the pier. The pier had an amazing night market, Jen & I felt really scammed that we were stuck at this relatives store in the middle of no where for two hours, when we could have been enjoying all the shops & food available right on the pier. We didn't get too mad though because we did enjoy the authentic dinner experience we had at the mom & son's restaurant.
We hung out at the pier for about 2 hours, then boarded a cargo ship at 11:00pm for a 9 hour ride to the island of Koh Tao. The cargo ship's main purpose was hauling cargo, its secondary purpose was transporting cheap backpackers. The area we stayed in had a ceiling height of about 3 feet, so the 50 people it held had to crouch down to get into their sleeping area. The quarters were close with about 25 people lying next to each other on each side of the boat. Considering the environment, Jen & I both slept well. I woke up in the middle of the night to take a leak (the bathroom was a hole in the floor on the cargo floor). The crew was up smoking & playing poker, they were also very friendly.
Jen & I both woke up at about 6:15am and got to see the sunrise from the ship. We landed at 8:00am. We looked in our guidebook and decided where to stay over breakfast. We checked into a reasonably dive resort ($6 bucks a night) and are signed up for a 4 day PADI scuba diving course to get open water certified. Our first class is today at 4:00pm.
