Part 2 of our journey to the islands.

We boarded the bus taking us to the pier and had the lower floor all to ourselves.  It was quite nice reclining in the air-conditioned seats, watching the world pass by.  Alex took full advantage of the rest opportunity.

Chloe read while I took photos through the window.  Ben complained about being if he was in even an inch of sunlight, so spent most of the trip with the curtain closed, eating crisps and playing a game on my phone. We were told it was an hour to the pier. Technically, this was correct – it was an hour of actual driving, however our trip also included an unexplained half hour wait by the side of the road. A not uncommon occurrence during bus trips in Asia, in my experience.

We arrived at the pier, boarded the boat and immediately got underway. It was a blastingly hot sunny morning with the emerald sea spread out before us under an azure sky.  Islands rising out of the waters in vertical limestone cliffs topped with jungle green. Beautiful.

Just ignore the diesel fumes.

Chloe enjoyed the breeze while Ben was fine as long as he was constantly eating. No change there then.

After a stop at Koh Samui to drop off and pick up more passengers, we arrived at Koh Phangan at 11:45am. We tied up to the pier, disembarked into the midday heat and made our way to find a taxi.  On this island, taxis services are provided by Songthaew.  We loaded into the back of a packed truck full of other holiday-makers, paying THB 200 each (kids went free).  This was substantially more expensive than 10 years ago, when the price was about THB 70/person.  I guess as islands become more developed for midrange – luxury tourism, prices go up.  I also suspect that getting off a boat, weighed down by heavy backpacks in the midday sun puts one in a poor bargaining position.

A 10 minute ride found us dropped off at the 7/11 in Hin Kong, our base on the west coast of the island.  We walked a minute or two down the road, found our house for the coming days with keys in the door, dropped our bags and settled in.  One thing was for certain, with taxi prices being so high we were going to need to source alternate transportation.

 

 

 

All content including images © Leigh Eros 2017. Do not reproduce without permission.