In the past 3 days Nico and I have been busy leaving our island paradise and making our way to the Laos border. In truth, we both felt so at home in Haad Gruad, the small private beachfront that our hotel was on, that leaving felt like sacrificing a summer of relaxing bliss for one of uncertain adventure. However, given both of our lust for new and different things, Nico and I overcame our trepedation and said goodbye to many of the lost travelers that had found themselves staying indefinitely in that little cove.
After saying our goodbyes, and tipping our Burmese friend Min more hansomely than most (he did sneak us into the front of the line for drinks and food), we took off headed for the high speed ferry. We had opted for plane tickets from Koh Samui to Chang Rai in order to both stay an extra day on Island and miss two nights of consecutive night trains - as we were less than impressed with our first.
Late in the afternoon, we hopped off the boat in Koh Samui and I was able to experience what Nico had described first hand. Koh Samui, even more so than Koh Phagnan, is a British resort island. Everyone on the island seemed to speak English, the beaches were lined with netted swimming areas, cabannas and uniformed servers, and views of million dollar yachts lining the water. I exhaled deeply and was thankful that I agreed to skip spending a significant amount of time on that island... that is a date place, and Nico would make a pretty hairy, broad shouldered, date. We walked about half a mile from the hotel we stumbled upon (complete with BBC and Fox News - why Fox News, don't ask me, Thai people must think Americans are mentally deficient), and found the one restaurant that looked like it would blow over in a minor breeze and dined like kings. I.e., we had (great) spicy Thai food again!
At 7:30 in the morning, we took off for the airport. While Nico rightly complained that this was too early for our 9:30 flight, I maintained that we could get held up if any of our information didn't match our passports, etc. He just accepted my craziness and went with it. Luckily, the Koh Samui airport is unlike the IAD and IAH's of the World. Koh Samui International, is a 6 gate, open air, haven of travel necessity. We were provided with free coffee, breakfast snacks, and designer shopping locations. Have I mentioned that English tourists know how to live? Believe me, this airport made Aspen Airport look like the Greyhound Bus Stop at Ski Liberty... and I am talking about the Aspen Private Jet Airport.
It was a fitting way to see ourselves off the islands and begin our trek north.
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