Weddingbee Blog

In the first part of our adventure, the Glasses explored Bangkok and found it to be interesting and amazing but were becoming tired of the city. The next day, we packed up our bags and headed to…

…the island of Koh Samet! To get there, we had to go to Ekkamai bus terminal and ride almost four hours through the countryside to Ban Phe. Most travel information online will tell you the ride is two hours and forty-five minutes, but that is a LIE. We missed our hotel boat because of this and had to pay for a private jet boat. The jet boat was pretty pimp, and we had fun riding the waves as our driver was provoked to go faster!

We stayed at Samed Club Resort. When we hopped off the boat onto Samed’s private beach, we were greeted by the waiting hotel staff with juice and our check-in information. There was a problem with our cheaper garden cottage room, so they upgraded us to a deluxe room! Sweet! I had been pulling the “we’re on our honeymoon!” card the whole trip, and it never worked. We had a late lunch and chilled out by the blue water on the beach. Then we played in the pool, took showers and naps, and got ready for the evening. We hopped on the bed of a truck that acted as a taxi to the beach bars.

The beach bars on Koh Samet are super fun. We sat on bean bags on the beach and watched incredible fire shows. As the night wore on and people got drunker, a DJ was brought out and the dance stage filled with people. I drank Malibu Rum + 7-Up out of a bucket—that’s right a BUCKET—and we smoked shisha. We had way too much to drink and got into the party spirit of the beach, Thailand, and the good times everyone was having.

The next day, we picked ourselves up and enjoyed the complimentary American-style breakfast buffet Club Samed offered. You have no idea how long it had been since I’d had a breakfast of bacon, pancakes, and cereal! It was good, and I might have gone back for seconds and thirds. Then it was time to check out. We caught our hotel’s free boat back to the Ban Phe area and sat on the bus back to Bangkok.

We tried to go shopping in Bangkok’s Rajprasong district for wedding rings, but it turned out all the major shopping malls had been burned down in the recent Red Shirt protests. All that we could find were little mom-and-pop shops that we didn’t trust, which only sold women’s jewelry that was all too blingy for my taste. I am sorry I STILL don’t have a bling post for you, hive!

I really thought I would feel unsafe in Bangkok, but I actually felt relatively comfortable the whole time. The Thai people are friendly and appreciate your tips. We did fall for a couple scams though: you know the wooden cutout things with a hole for your face in them so you can take a silly picture, like the one up top with Mr. G? The things that are usually around tourist areas and are free? As soon as I took that picture, a tiny Thai woman popped out of no where and said, “40 BAHT!” Another scam we fell for was at our restaurant in Patpong. It started to rain hard while we were eating, so when we were finished, we asked our waitress where the nearest convenience store was so we could buy an umbrella. The waitress led us to her friend’s beat up little store, and her friend led us to the back and pointed to used, tiny umbrellas and said, “300 baht!” So we paid $9 for a tiny used umbrella! Actually, if you ask anything of anyone, they’ll usually lead you to their friend’s shop or service. That’s how we wound up in a shady, unmarked van packed with 15 people, headed to what we hoped would be the airport four days later.

Whew! Thailand was a lot of fun. Things are incredibly cheap (we had major sticker shock when we came back to expensive Tokyo!), and you can see and taste lots of interesting things; I definitely recommend getting out of the city and visiting an island if you can. Another plus is that everyone tries to speak English, which is more than I can say for the Japanese.

This adventure has been super long, and if you’ve followed it to the end:

Drunk Miss Glasses thanks you for your time.

Got any travel tips for anywhere cool you’ve been? Share ’em here, please!