We spent a couple of days longer at Koh Samed than we first intended, and rented a motorcycle one day and cruised around on the island. We also did the four-wheeler thing one more time before leaving, racing around for an entire day with Nat and the Swedish girl we met on one vehicle and me and the Swedish guy on a vehicle each. Weather was cloudy throughout our stay on the island, but temperatures were high and the island was cool enough to chill out on no matter what weather. Last night we stayed in a newly built bungalow on the beach that was really nice.
We went on a minivan to go to the island Koh Chang, located east from Koh Samed. This island is much bigger than Samed, and is referred to as "the 2nd Phuket" and also "the elephant island". As far as I'm concerned, the massive tourist invasion is definately among the similarities. The island is an entire jungle and has a very hilly landscape with small mountains. I'm sure this island is really nice when the sun is shining, but we were unfortunate enough to arrive in the middle of a 3 day monsoon period and this was also the reason we stayed no more than two nights. We rented a motorcycle one day and tried to drive around the entire island, which however didn't lead us any longer than to a dead end street after two hours. The landscape is amazing and it was indeed very cool to cross the jungle on these hilly roads. With bad weather and a lot of tourists, people tend to run out of activities after a while and spend their evenings drinking alcohol and listening to live music. So did we. I must say the live music of Thailand are well over my expectations, the bands we've seen so far have been very good on western music.
Our withdrawal from Koh Chang was, in mild terms, chaotic. We missed the da!n boat because of the very complicated and unlogic organization of taxis on this island, and had to buy a new boat ticket and transport ourselves by taxi on the mainland in order to catch up with our bus to Bangkok. Finally on the bus, it took us 9 hours to reach the capital due to floods and heavy rain on the countryside, and HEAVY traffic in Bangkok. Two hours of the trip was within Bangkok.
We're currently staying at a cheap hotel close to the tourist heart of Bangkok: Kosan Road. These blocks are so international it almost feels like being in Europe or North America.
Weather is still crap but and it was raining the entire evening last night, but trust me, it doesn't matter when you're in a live music bar in a city of 9 million people. For 1000 baht each (200kr), me and Nat had a full night out in Bangkok. This amount was enough to finance a 70cl bottle of rum in a live music bar, 4 bottles of coke to mix with, two bowls of ice, about one hour in taxi in Bangkok (we were ripped off twice!), entrance to two clubs and finally food on the street around 5 o'clock.
Went to China Town in Bangkok today. Pretty cool place, they sell all kind of crazy stuff on the streets (pretty much ranging from live frogs intended for eating and different types of weapons such as stun guns, to Chinese groceries and copies of brand clothing.
The reason we went back to Bangkok was because we're going to a wedding in the city of Surin tomorrow. Nat's sister's son is getting married. Sure will be interesting to attend a traditional Thai wedding. We will stay at Nat's mom's house for two nights or so and then continue into Cambodia.
Will keep you updated.
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