Weekend in Kho Samet

So on the dinner cruise, a group of us decided to spontaneously use the weekend to go to Kho Samet, which is the closest beach to Bangkok. If we had a car, we could just drive there in 1.5 hours probably, but by our means it took much longer. 13 of us decided to go: the 6 UNC kids (Malhar, Madiha, Grace, Trang, Ratchany and me) and Pooyang (German), Alex and Kelly (New Jersey), Beth (Hawaii/ Miami for college), Julia and Tiffany (San Francisco) and Ivan (Virginia). We don’t all live together so we took the 45 minute taxi to a metro station and met up there, and then took a 20 minutes skytrain ride to a bus station, where we took a 3.5 hour trip to the mainland (all of this only costing $8 max). It took us a while to figure things out since we did it as we went, so we got there about 5pm and decided to stay on the mainland at the place we booked that morning. We got in this taxi that pretty much turned it’s truck bed into two benches, so we could all fit, and went to the hotel which was right on the beach! We got there just in time from sunset, went for a swim, and then walked a bit up the road to a restaurant that advertised German-Thai food. The group is smart and intellectually curious and there was so much to talk about, especially since most of us had just met the day before. We slept 3 to a bed to save money (making it $6 per person) but were glad that we didn’t notice the ants in the sheets until we woke up! We woke up early, got back to the pier, and took a speed boat to the middle of the island, where we easily found housing right on the beach, although we did stick 9 people in my room with just 2 double beds… The island is green, but the sand is soft and white and the water bright blue and about 80 degrees! The whole day was spent eating great food at restaurants right on the sand, swimming, laying out, drinking beers, going to local markets, talking with each other, and chatting with Americans and Europeans who moved to Thailand for many different reasons. That night we ate at some restaurant that had several low tables on the beach with pillows as seats and lanterns adorning all the trees- it was a very enchanting setting. Fire dancers came up the beach- its not a super developed area (all dirt roads around us) but definitely tourists around- and there were throwing flamed batons to each other and making pyramids. We then went to a great bar across our hotel with lots of friendly people and great music. The trip was a great way to start my time here and to get to know a lot of people quickly- we spent about 3 days just chatting together- and I’m excited about the friendships to come.