My first tropical island Ko Samet

Time to leave the cities behind and off to the small island of Ko Samet.  Neither of knew much about the place but it was advertised by the minibus companies so I thought why not.  In the morning we were picked up by a Toyota minivan and after a few stops we headed towards a small village that I never knew the name of and ferry to Ko Samet.

The ferry ride was very pleasant though it did to go past the whole of Ko Samet before docking at  Na Dan.  When I say dock though that would be an overstatement.  A small barge met in the bay and we slowly off loaded onto it until it was overfull and then they added more.  The barge then went most of the way to the bay and then stopped about 15 meters out.  At this point we just jumped off the barge into the shallow water green and wonderfully warm water.   From there it was a short walk to the sawngthaew stop.

If you do not know what a sawngthaew is well here goes.  It is a small pickup truck, likely Nissan or Toyota, that has a couple of unpadded benches in the back to haul passengers.  I saw a few in Bangkok, many in Pattaya, and they were very common on Ko Samet.  The trouble was the dirt road on the island had not been worked on since, well I do not know if it has ever been worked on.  It was the worst road I have ever seen and I have seen some bad bush roads in northern Canada.  After 20 minutes of being bounced around we arrived at our bungalows felling like a freshly popped popcorn kernel. 

We had another small disaster on Ko Samet.  We rented a scooter to ride around the island but Benny drove.   I did not bring my driving permit from Canada and it had been years since I rode a bike forget drive one.  The road kind of scared me as well, it was part tree roots, part loose sand, part rocks and very rough.  So Benny drove and I just hung on for dear life.

After a few hours of riding we were heading back and crash.  As we were heading back the front tire went over a loose rock that slipped on the sand and next thing I knew I was on top of bike that was lying on top of Benny.  A German man and I untangled Benny from the bike and road and looked at the damage. This time the bike was OK but Benny had done a number on her knee and was bleeding quite badly.  Nothing a quick run to the drug store could not fix and a hour later she was alright just very sore and wondering if crashed were normal for me.