I got a quick connection from the Sky Train stop at Ekamai to the 9am bus bound for Ban Phe and the ferry boat to Ko Samet Island, a national park.
This is the ferry boat pier for ferry boats that service Ko Samet.
She is a mermaid that helped a prince escape from his underwater exile and freed him to Ko Samet where he plays a magic flute to defeat the giant that had exiled him.
A 30 baht bus ride dropped me off at the Silver Sands Resort where I walked along the beach to my favorite Pudsa Bungalows where I had stayed over the past 15 years in visiting Thailand.
When I first went there in 2004, these beachfront bungalows only had the fan running in the evenings, there were only cold showers, and the drain was just a hole in the floor—frogs would sometimes climb up, with a squat toilet that drained who knows where. The discount cost for 5 or more days was 500 Baht per night. It is now 1,000 Baht per night during the weekdays and 2,000 Baht on the weekends to take advantage of the hordes of Thai Bangkok partygoers. I can now run the fan all the time, the showers are hot and the open drain is now enclosed. Some of the bungalows now offer A/C.
The beach is still beautiful and now sports a rock balancing garden. The crew there remembered me, but I still had to pay 1,000 Baht per night and the place was fully booked for the weekend crowd.
My bungalow is the second one from the left by where the monk is walking.
Sunrise in front of my bungalow just before my morning swim.
Mid-week as I walked along the beach back toward the village, I noticed that at the first beach area called Ao Hin Khok, where I saw large numbers of Chinese tour groups there when I first arrived. Today there were none. In the afternoon the area was practically empty. Apparently, the Coronavirus has really taken its toll on Chinese tourism here and elsewhere in Thailand.
Here I only have access to the internet and no TV so it is really calming my spirits by not having to see and hear about the most divisive political our nation has faced in my generation. I am enjoying slow walks along the beach and the trails to other of the many coves here on Ko Samet.
Most facilities have a spirit house somewhere on their premises that are given offerings and people receive merit.
Even unicorns reside here.
These trails are now almost liter free compared to what we saw about 10 years ago. The local grocery stores now have a ban on the use of plastic grocery bags. Also notice the trees are losing their foliage due to a long-term lack of rain.
My other delight is burning through various books. Boys in the Boat, Kill Me If You Can, No Mans Land are some of the hard copy books, and now I have to check out my eReader for other books to read. It seems like the backpackers leave behind books in German, Swedish, and French and not many English language ones.
At daybreak, I take a quick swim in the surf before showering and having breakfast. Then it is off to walk along the beach trail that takes me to the other coves.
I explored the coastline trail down to Ao Wai beach which was about 3.5 miles from my place at Ao Pudsa Bungalows. Along the way past several coves, I noticed many of the trees were losing their leaves and the locals tell me it is from a long-term lack of rainfall.
Most of the resorts here import their water from the mainland by using these kinds of boats.
On my way to the ferry boat, I saw that there were two 7-11 stores just across from each other. These 7-11 stores are found everywhere throughout Thailand—-many more than there were Starbucks.
For all people arriving at Ko Samet island, they were met by medical screeners who took their temperatures and had them use hand sanitizers before allowing them to enter the island.
The ferry boat has now returned to the Ban Phe pier and the end of my Ko Samet Adventure.
I have recently uploaded all of my travel videos to YouTube now that they allow longer uploads and you may want to see my travel adventures there. That link is
https://www.youtube.com/c/huntforgold.
If you do go there, please subscribe to my video channel since it will help me eventually get some income there and help with my future travels. Fewer people are using DVDs so I am transitioning to streaming my travels on my YouTube channel.
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