Our morning in Ko Samui was a tranquil one. We had a great breakfast (interrupted briefly by a giant wasp which flew under our table and stuffed a large caterpillar into its nest). Nicole took a dip in the water, which now appeared to be jellyfish-free. We soaked in some sun and decided it was time to move on.
We hailed a taxi back to the pier and tried to get combined ferry/bus tickets at the main counter. The price was expensive and did not include a bus combo, so we headed back to the pierside town and asked around at some travel agencies. We found one that offered the combo trip for about half the price we'd found elsewhere, so we sprang for it. In the meantime, we grabbed some drinks at a coffee shop while we waited. It was some of the best coffee I've ever had, Nicole had a delicious coconut shake. There was also a crazy bulbous-headed fish in a tank.
We boarded the ferry and, since Samui is the closest island to the mainland, it was not very long before we were on our bus back to the airport. We ate a late lunch while waiting for our flight, since we had a few hours to kill in the Surat Thani airport. We watched some tv showing footage of the protests in Bangkok, which had turned violent only a couple days earlier. We were glad we did not see any of it, and hoped on our return we wouldn't catch any violence. Interesting to see similar discontent as we had witnessed in Cambodia about a week prior. I wondered if Southeast Asia might see an arab-spring type of moment in which discontent manifested throughout the region in protests against their regimes. Our last hotel of the trip was closer to the shopping malls and Sukhumvit. It was a five star hotel called The Sukosol and was booked through my credit card rewards. It was one of the fanciest hotels I've been in. The staff were hand over foot friendly and we had a sweet room with a view of the Bangkok high-rises. It was just what we needed to rest up for the next day and our long flight ahead. Since it was getting late, we ordered room-service for a decent price and talked about our plans to squeeze every last drop out of our trip. The goal was to visit the Grand Palace first thing in the morning before checking out of the hotel!
- C
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