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What an experience in Koh Samui! The island is a beautiful place, with mountains and rain-forests and white sandy beaches, with the bluest ocean i've ever seen, that stretch for miles. A far cry from the cramped, dirty conditions in Bangkok, unless of course you go to Chaweng Road.
The street is dirty and very smelly at times, not exactly a place you would want to sit and watch the world go by, but is lined with all the amenities you need; bars, restaurants, cafes, shops, markets, pharmacies and spas (to name a few). It's quiet in the mornings but come midday it is packed full of 100s of tourists going about their business. Most of the people there seem to be 18 year old Australians enjoying their first group holiday away from their parents, but there are some occasional couples or pairs of people, who seem to be mostly French.
The markets there are great, much less hassle than those in Bangkok, you are free to browse without somebody following you around trying to sell you something. The stalls are predominantly run by women who are far less aggressive than the Thai men; often their children are with them at the stall. Sadly these young children are left to sit on the street while their mother tries to earn a living selling products for pennies all afternoon and evening. One night we saw a little girl no older than 9 months crawling up and down the filthy streets with a piece of food in her hand, as hundreds of tourists walked past her on the narrow pavement. It seems unfair that children should have to grow up that way, when often in the UK you overhear children having a tantrum because they can't have a Mcdonalds for tea, or they can't go to their friends party, or Santa didn't get them that game they wanted for their Nintendo DS.
It seems that many British children don't appreciate the life that they have. And that goes for adults too. Not that I agree that taxes should be so high, but I can certainly appreciate where the money goes a little more. Clean water, safe roads, maintenance of power cables, sanitation and sewage systems, bin collection from your door step, free education; all these things that we consider to be simple and basic are of complete luxury to the majority of people who live in Thailand, and it's sad that I've only been able to see this by coming here.
6 days has flown by and we are completely ready to move on to Phuket now. I'm writing this from the comfort of a partially air conditioned coach (although it doesn't seem that way since the bus was over booked and 4 people are having to sit in the isle for the full 5 hour journey). We departed our hotel at 8:30am after breakfast and checking out, the bus then proceeded to collect around 20 more people from different hotels in the area before heading to the ferry port. This first bus didn't look like it had ever been cleaned, but was hilariously decorated with frilly pink curtains, was this to make you feel better about the state of the rest of the interior? When we got to the ferry port a scary Thai man came and put a sticker on everyone with a certain code on (I felt like a branded cattle), after that we had to leave the coach, collect our bag from the luggage hold and transfer it to another coach (this one). We then had to walk onto the ferry, guessing which one out of three that we were supposed to be on, some foolish French men thought that following us would be the best idea (no pressure then) but we sensibly waited for the coach to drive on before embarking. We went up onto the passenger deck which was equipped with high tech air con (5 or 6 fans hung up by some rope), before venturing to the loo. Luckily for Amelia, she didn't have to go! Down some stairs was a dingy skinny cabin with 3 'cubicles', inside the cubicle was a hole in the boat and two foot print shaped stands either side, this was an interesting experience, but there was an open porthole so I had a lovely view to take my mind off it all! We spent most of our ferry journey on the top deck soaking up the sun and admiring the stunning views of the islands, we arrived at the port and disembarked to wait for our coach.
We will be on this coach for 5 hours, we are due to arrive in Phuket town at 6:15pm and then we have to get on another coach to get to our hotel in Patong. Amelia is enjoying her sleep, and ill try to get some myself.
- comments
Sarah Bailey Enjoy. How interesting. I wouldn't have gone to toilet! X
Fiona Loving reading your blog, so well wrtten , it feels like we're there with you x