Chillaxin' Beach Time at Ko Samet and Pattaya---Nov. 25 to Dec 12, 2025

I spent a couple nights in Bangkok, after escaping the floods in Hat Yai. The remainder of my two weeks trip was on the beaches of Ko Samet and Pattaya.

While I was in Bangkok, they began to put up lots of Christmas decorations. Seems like there are even more than back home.

Here is a beer bottle Christmas Tree found along LK Metro, Pattaya.

I again took the big bus from Bangkok on November 28th for a four-hour ride down to Ban Phe where I again visited and got a massage at the Laksika  Massage Shop owned by Chollada Naka. I first met her four years ago on Ko Samet where she was a massage therapist at the Sirion Massage Shop.   Da had Lily, one of her massage therapists, give me a ride to and from Nuanthip Pier on her motorbike.

Da told me she decided that she wasn’t going to move to the place where the big hotel was going up because the construction was considerably delayed. Instead, she’ll stay where she is as she is gradually building up customers.

I stayed a week at the Runa Runa guesthouse, which was close to the center of Ko Samet Village and where I had stayed before. It was a comfortable simple room and very clean owned by a Thai woman and a Japanese man and cost $23 per night.

Throughout the village, they were doing some majory utilities construction which was pretty labor-intensive and used small concrete mixer trucks and lots of workers.

My usual routine was to first have some coffee, banana and pastry in my room and then head down to Chili’s restaurant where I had a full American breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, shredded cabbage, and coffee.

After that, I would get an hour massage at the Sirion massage shop where Da used to work, and then stop by the smoothie shop owned by Da‘s brother,  Wut.  Their mango smoothies, and other smoothies were pieces of art and for just ฿80 – –$3 USD.

Mango

Avocado and Coconut

Avocado and Chocolate

I would then get in my daily 3 miles of walking along the beach, followed by relaxing in the lounge chair under one of the sun umbrellas with occasional dips in the bathtub-warm water.  

At one end of the beach, I came across this Indian film crew.  The director said this was a Bengali romance drama and not a Bollywood extravaganza. He said they filmed here because of the scenery and low production costs.

On one of the evenings, I would go to the Reef Restaurant for their outstanding filet mignon with mushrooms, oniond, garlic, roasted potatoes, and tomatoes along with another mango smoothie at a cost of ฿850--$28 USD including tip.  

Other evenings, I would stop at a variety of restaurants to enjoy the music and the ambience of dining by the Gulf of Thailand.  Far out in the sea, I could see several boats with their green lights, searching for shrimp throughout the night.

Several of the restaurants offered entertainment as well as nightly fire shows, and the biggest one was the Ploy Talay with an 8 PM nightly performances.

My favorite dinners were the Penang curry dinners at Buddies Restaurant found right along the White Sand Beach.

After a week, I returned to Ban Phe, on the mainland, and was met by Lily on the Nuanthip pier who took me to Da's shop on her motorbike.  I got another massage at Da’s shop before catching a minibus to Pattaya where I spent my final week in Thailand.  

This bus was decked out on the interior with lots of gold, almost as though President Trump had designed it. 

It was just an hour and a half bus ride to the Pattaya Bus Station where I stopped to buy my final bus ticket to the Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) to catch my flight back to Seattle via Incheon on Korean Airlines on December 13th since it books up quickly.

From there, I caught a ฿50 bus ride that got me close to my hotel, Harry’s Restaurant, Bar and Guest House, for $39 per night. This place was located near LK Metro, a popular night spot with many bars, go-go bars, and music venues.

After a cheap breakfast ฿95 ($3 USD) – – eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, sausages, toast, and jam, and orange juice – – I would walk down to the beach and do my one-hour daily 3-mile walk before settling in on a lounge chair, reading another pocket book while sipping on a fresh coconut or mango smoothie.  During my time at Ko Samet and here in Pattaya, I read about eight books— mystery, cop, and spy books.

While I was shopping in the Night Market, I spotted this huge stack of Tiger Balm--the all purpose cure ointment.  I just had to buy a bottle.

Over the upcoming weekend, Pattaya will be having their Jazz Festival and here is some of the setup.

After passing by this facial shop in Mike’s Shopping Mall, I decided to get the ฿499 special—$20 USD including tip. it was quite a one-hour treat to get pampered.

Here is what my facial included:

Complete Takashi Facial cleansing

Facial scrub and foaming cream

Ozone steaming, unclogs blocked pores

Remove blackheads and impurities

Facial massage in Takashi style

Acne mask light

Takashi nourishing treatment.

I also enjoyed getting oil massages and foot massages at the Nemos Massage shop.  Here I am getting a foot massage. These one-hour massages including tip are just  ฿350--$12USD.

I enjoy strolling along the crowded “Walking Street” where tourists mingle with several women and ladyboys advertising their restaurants, discos, go-go bars, beer bars, and other entertainment and food venues

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At the end of my trip, I took a motorbike—฿100— to the bus station where I caught the 1 1/2 hour bus to the Survarnambhumi Airport (BKK)—฿190 ($6 USD)—for my midnight flight on Korean Airlines to Seattle with a 7-hour stopover in Incheon, South Korea. While there, I had my last Thai meal of shrimp soup, cashew nut chicken with steamed rice, omelette, and mango smoothie at ฿830--$28 USD.

I enjoyed the Incheon Airport entertainment with traditional garbed performers singing the KPop Demon Hunters favorite—Golden—-and martial arts group carrying out some amazing moves. 

They had some great quiet lounge chair areas where I was able to nap about 4 hours before my flight.  I also enjoyed the heated-seat toilets with warm water butt spritzers.

My 10-hour flight was uneventful with some tasty Korean meals to break up the flight when I wasn’t sleeping.  

I arrived with a break in the atmospheric river hitting the Northwest weather, with massive flooding in the low lying areas. Our home in Duvall had become an island with all roads closed because of the flooding. I took the light rail into downtown Seattle. So cold here with a second atmospheric river on its way.  I am looking forward to returning to Thailand and Laos mid-January and its hot and sunny weather.

Escape from Hat Yai and Ko Lipe Monsoon and floods—-Nov. 19-25, 2025

Transferred to over-sized truck to take us through the Hat Yai flooded roads.

This was my first time in visiting Ko Lipe Island which is located in the far south of Thailand adjacent to Malaysia. I wanted to visit this island because it had inspired a travel blogger I follow, called Nomadic Matt— https://www.nomadicmatt.com— who spent a month there November 2006, with five other backpackers. It was after this visit that changed the trajectory of his life. He began a travel blog, followed by writing travel books, creating a hostel in Austin, Texas, and offering international tours and traveler meetups around the US. I even met him at a hostel in Crete.  

To get there, I took a night train from Bangkok to Hat Yai. After dinner of Penang curry on the train, I settled into my bottom bunk for the night. 

At daybreak, I noticed that it began raining outside as we approached the train station.

At the Hat Yai train station, a travel vendor approached me, and offered to sell me a round-trip ticket to Ko Lipe, which included a two hour minivan ride to the Pak Bara pier followed by a one and a half hour speedboat ride to Ko Lipe.  The round-trip ticket cost ฿2,000–$64 USD.

Hat Yai Junction Train Station

It continued to rain as we made our way by minivan and speedboat to Ko Lipe.

Through hostelworld.com, I had booked the Bloom Hostel at $14 per night, which was in the middle of the blue paved Walking Street area. The place lived up to its reviews. It was wonderful with lockers, electrical outlets by the reading lamps, and privacy curtains. The showers were hot and clean.

That was a good thing because for all four days I was there, it rained all the time, but one afternoon when I walked out to Sunset Beach, and lounged about while I had an expensive mango smoothie. At least the lounge chair was free. 

Sunset Beach

I also got wet while visiting the other two beaches, Pattaya and Sunrise, in my swimsuit on other days.

Pattaya Beach

Sunrise Beach

While there for four days, I enjoyed one hour oil massages before dinners found along the blue paved walking street.

With all the rain, I ended up spending a lot of time lounging around the hostel and reading two pocketbooks.

While on Ko Lipe, we began to hear that they had suspended all train and bus travel throughout the Hat Yai area.  Also heard that the airport at Hat Yai was open, but to get there, you had to transfer to a military transport vehicle to get through the flooded waters.

News reports indicated that over 1,000 people were stranded at the airport so even if the planes were flying, it didn’t sound like a good place to be. Here’s a number of articles about the floods.

Some people talked about taking speedboats to some of the other islands like Phuket or Langkawi in Malaysia.

On the day, I left November 24, the rain was constant so I first stopped for a big breakfast since I didn’t know when I was going get my next meal, 

When I got my boarding pass for the speedboat, the staff told me that it would be difficult to get to the Hat Yai airport and the return minivan ride back to Hat Yai was canceled because of the flooding. To get a refund, he told me I needed to use WhatsApp to request it. I did but nothing’s happened— it was just about a $10 loss. 

I wasn’t sure where I was going to be at the end of the travel day.  I figured there would be vendors at the Pak Bara pier that would offer some transportation choices, but I wasn’t sure.

First, I thought I was going go to the Hat Yai airport, but I didn’t have an air ticket and the way there was flooded. 

It was a bone-jarring speedboat ride in the monsoon rain back to Pak Bara pier. 

After we got off the boat, a vendor approached me, and she offered to take me to Trang for ฿300. I thought from there, I might fly back to Bangkok or take a night bus. I waited for a half hour and then she came to me and asked if I wanted go to Krabi for another ฿350 since she had one more seat left on this songthaew— a covered pick up truck with seats. I figured Krabi would be better because there would be more travel options by air or bus. I thought it was well worth the $21 to get out of here

Tourist scrounging rides to dry land

I paid up and even I got the front seat with the driver.  We drove about 15 minutes and then hit the flooded streets of Hat Yai. We and others got out and got in this big oversize red truck that took us through the worst flooding parts of the city. 

Some of the people climbing on board this oversized truck were on five star resort tours, and others, like me, were backpackers. It didn’t seem to matter, since we all just wanted to get away from the flooded area before we were trapped by the rising waters. Some of us sat on the piled up luggage in the middle of the truck, and others had to stand as we made our way through the flood waters.

They had an unbelievable 14 inches of rain in 24 hours on my travel day—a 300 year record.

After getting past the flooded streets of Hat Yai, we transferred to minivans for the 4-hour drive to Krabi, and I again got the front seat.

During the rainy drive, I use my iPhone to check out Google flights for flights from Krabi to Bangkok and hotels near the Krabi Airport. Most flights on November 24th, cost between $150 and $250, but the following day, flights ranged from $60-$150.

Instead of taking a late night flight into Bangkok at a higher cost for the flight, taxi—metro transportation closes at midnight— and Bangkok hotel, I stayed the night in Krabi, and took a $90 morning flight on AirAsia, which got me to Bangkok about the same time as had I taken the suspended night train.

It rained all the way to the airport where I bought my ticket from a helpful agent with instructions to get my boarding pass the following morning.

Krabi Airport

I then used agoda.com to find the Baan Sup Mongkol Hotel near the Krabi Airport.  I caught a taxi at a whopping cost of ฿300 to the hotel that cost $21 for the night which was very clean and comfortable with a pleasant staff. 

There were no restaurants in the area, so I had some good shrimp pad Thai along with orange juice and Thai iced tea at this street food stall for ฿150.  Hey, thanks for watching. Don’t forget you can catch the today. Show every morning on NBC or just the podcast on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you listen.It was the first food since the morning breakfast and was tasty and filling.

The following morning on November 25th, the hotel staff offered me coffee and bananas before Sky drove me to the airport for ฿150–$5 USD.

When I got to the airport, the same AirAsia staff member got my boarding pass, and she surprised me with a first class window seat—it helps to be kind to people who you interact with.

As we approached Bangkok, the skies were clearing. Traveling on the two metros, I got my train refund of ฿1,103, and my bus ticket to Ban Phe for the 28th, on my way to the Cozy Stay Hotel for three nights at $35 per night.

This will be an adventure I remember for a long time. I’m so glad I just kept moving, because watching the news, I see there are thousands of tourist that are trapped in Hat Yai because the waters have kept rising, and they even suspended the military operation that transported people to the Hat Yai airport.  

It helps to be flexible in these uncertain times.