I started my journey from the Ekkamai bus terminal by taking the 9:45 am bus to Trat, some 4 hours south east of Bangkok. While on the bus ride, I got talking to my neighbor his name was Deez, from Ireland, and he was heading to Ko Chang Island that day.
I, instead, spent the night at the Trat Center Hotel. While there I toured the public markets nearby the hotel, and had a simple dinner.
In the morning I caught ฿100 ride out to the ferry boat pier where I just made the vehicle ferry boat that cost ฿80.
While on the ferry boat, I met a college professor named Apple who was going over to Ko Chang where she was giving presentations on marketing strategies to local business people.
The ride over was just under an hour, and when I arrived, I caught a sangthaew to the other side of the mountainous island to the White Sands Beach area that cost another ฿100.
Since I didn’t have any hotel reservations, I looked at the Lonely Planet guide and they had a couple bungalows on the White Sand Beach area. They were really cheap at around 600 to 800 baht per night. The only way to reach them was to walk north along the beach past the KC Grand Resort about a half mile.
I couldn’t believe my luck— these bungalows all had views to the water, but they only had fan no A/C and one bungalow had a shared bathroom and showers. I stayed the Star Beach Bungalow for one night and the Rock Sand Beach Resort the second night since the Star Beach was full for the second night.
While moving to the Rock Sand Beach Resort, I met up again with Deez, the Irish man from my bus ride to Trat. He was in a beach chair and was staying at the Bo Bungalows also mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook. We later had dinner at my resort overlooking the Gulf of Thailand and the White Sand Beach.
My bungalow at the Rock Sands Resort is in the middle on the top floor.
This entire beach area was very beautiful and full of high end resorts. As evening came, staff begin putting tables out on the beach sands as the tide went out.
After two days here, I then booked a ferry boat to Koh Mak. On the sangthaew to the ferry landing, I met a German couple from Berlin who were renting a place for a month here on Ko Chang. We talked while we were riding the ferry boat and it turns out they had last been to Ko Samet Island over 39 years ago.
They indicated they were planning to revisit that island before they return to Berlin. One of the interesting things he mentioned was that his father was a prisoner of war held in Wyoming during World War II. He also indicated that his father had revisited the place.
When we disembarked from the ferry boat at Koh Mak, we had to transfer to a smaller outboard boat, and then wade to shore. From there, we caught a sangthaew to our various accommodations that cost ฿100 for the short ride.
I had booked the Bamboo Hideaway for $38/night before I arrived, and I saw that it was quite a ways from the beaches so I end up getting more exercise than I counted to get to beaches and restaurants.
The Palm Beach resort was over a mile from the Bamboo Hideaway. It had a beautiful beach and I enjoyed the meal I had there.
This island is filled with rubber tree plantations, and apparently owned by just five families. Thai residence number about 500 and most of them seem to work for the tourist industry.
I ended up staying on Ko Mak three nights instead of two because I couldn’t get any accommodations on Ko Kood that were less than $300 per night.
By moving my two night stay, I was able to book the BB dorms on Ko Kood at a cost just ฿700 for both nights—under $10 USD/night. It would be my first dorm that I’d stayed at in Thailand, and also I learned it was fan only and had no hot water. Actually, the brisk showers were not too bad in this hot weather.
For my third night on Koh Mak I stayed on the beach at the Baan Yai Resort for ฿1,400 which included breakfast—$40 USD. No bargain accommodations on these islands.
Well, I was walking to my different guesthouse, a local Thai woman offered me a free ride there. It would’ve been a 3 mile walk so her ride was a welcome reprieve. On the way, we passed a couple phone booths that were completely overgrown by vegetation. I guess the popularity of cell phones caused the demise of these 2 phone booths and others around the country and even world.
I saw the Berliners again on their motorbike, as I was heading toward my second place.
Throughout the day, the seas were rough in front of my new guesthouse, so I was glad I was not going by boat on that day to Koh Kood Island.
Many of the guest houses I stay at have a book exchange, but this one had a lot of books, but none of them were in English. Most were in German, Dutch, French, Swedish, and so on.
After a full breakfast, I headed over to the ferry boat area that was just a half hour walk from the new resort that I’d stayed at.
When the ferry boat arrived, we again had to wade through the water to board a small boat to get to the ferry boat that would take us to Koh Kood, about an hour away.
The two staff members at the BB Dorms, Jam and Pen, were very helpful in letting me know that I could take a boat from Koh Kood all the way to Hat Lek, on the Cambodian border so I wouldn’t have to backtrack to Trat to enter Cambodia. This would save me two days of travel.
I enjoyed lounging at the high-end resorts like the Tinker Bell Resort at cost of just a mango drink and or a plate of fresh fruit. The nightly cost here is between 7,100 and 9,000 Baht per night—$200-$250 USD/night.
Motorbikes would be handy to get around this island and others, but I just don’t care to take the risk at this time.
The food and service here is good especially the scallops dinner. I had my first night here at the Stray Dogs Restaurant.
After enjoying these three islands, my favorite island remains Ko Samet where I plan to return to near the end of my time here in Southeast Asia.
I was able to get an early complete breakfast next-door at the kmonlos Restaurant, and finished breakfast just as the sangthaew showed up at 8 AM.
I was the last person aboard. It was a 45 minute windy drive to the catamaran that we would take north to the Thai mainland at Laem Sok.
When we got to the Laem Sok pier, the BoonSiri Boat company had a centralized departure center where I got the minibus to their Hat Lek office.
I was originally supposed to go to Hat Lek at the Cambodian border, but the tide was too low so instead I ended up taking an hour and a half drive, which got me to the boat company’s Hat Lek pier that was 4 miles north of the Cambodian border.
I told the boat representative I thought I was supposed to get to Hat Lek at the border of Cambodia rather than this pier. They told me I would have to get a taxi to take me to the border. When I looked at Google maps, it looked like it was only a 2 km distance to the border so instead of paying ฿250 that they were asking for, I decided to walk.
After 2 km I realized Google maps indicated that was the city border and not the Cambodian border, which was another 2 km. Fortunately, a car turned around and picked me up. It was a Thai woman travel agent that was taking a German fellow to do a border stamp run because he was wanting to extend his time in Thailand and that’s one way to extend your time.
Departing Thailand was pretty straightforward since the official merely stamped my passport with a departure stamp by the entry stamp. The German and I then proceeded to the Cambodian Immigration office.
The Cambodia Crossing is always interesting because you never know how much extra you’re going to pay for “expedited service“. The official asked me to pay ฿1600–$45 USD. The official fee is $30 plus a $7 service fee. The bribe ended up being about $8 USD.
The official then proceeded to fill out my immigration Visa card, as well as took the photo I provided to him and stuck it in a drawer. Once one officer filled out the form and collected my money, the second officer pulled out his rubber stamp, and wielded his rubber stamp about four times on various forms and documents, including my passport and visa form that they stapled in my passport. There were another three officers in the interview room that appeared to be observers—-or verifying the bribe amount.
I thought I was done when I left the interview room, but then I was instructed to go to another window and hand over my passport with the well stamped visa forms. This window had a fingerprint reader, but the official didn’t use it. He just did something with my passport and then gave it back to me after 5 minutes. The German finished about the same time, and he headed back to Thailand with his Thai guide.