13 steps.
Minibus, boat, bus, taxi, accommodation, taxi, plane, taxi, accommodation, wander, taxi, plane, taxi and I’m there. It’s that easy to get from Koh Samui to Bali.
I’ll tell you about my adventures that I had while moving on.
Thursday: Koh Samui – Surat Thani
Since I had maxed out Wednesday in every way, I didn’t feel like unpacking the huge amount of stuff I had been living my life with for the past three months.
So the morning started by proving what I had thought and said many times in the past months. I can really pack everything in 10 minutes. The fact that I “live a minimalist life” makes this task a lot easier.
I asked for the minibus that provided the transfer to my regular place for the last few weeks. It was funny because on Wednesday evening – I’m not kidding – they called me sixteen times on WhatsApp to arrange the time and location. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the phone ring. When I got home, in addition to the missed calls, there were two more emails waiting for me, asking me to please tell them the name of the hotel, where I live, and where I want to get on the bus. For some reason, everyone is riding on this hotel theme. When I tell them that I don’t live in a hotel, so the building doesn’t have a name… Then they won’t be interested anymore. If you don’t live in a hotel, you’re not interesting!
So, in the evening I answered the email and called one of the few numbers back. Let’s just say it wasn’t a great experience, because we arranged the time without having any idea what English(?) the lady spoke, and the location was only right because – not wanting to burden this communication breakdown with complex sentences – I just kept repeating Greenlight, Greenlight. I thought that if the location was right, then at most I would go there at dawn and wait until they came to pick me up.
Fortunately, however, I heard back on the chat interface what I dared to think: Greenlight, between 10:00 and 10:15. Somehow we understood each other.
My morning calm was only slightly disturbed by the fact that new emails arrived at night to tell me… The name of the hotel where I was staying, and the place where I would be picked up… I answered these too, so I was very confident that there would be someone at the start to pick me up.
I also bought a new eSIM data package the day before, just in case I got stuck. I tried it out during the day on Wednesday, everything worked great. So it was a bit of a slap in the face when I arrived at the hotel and noticed that I didn’t have internet. I imagined they were calling me and since they weren’t answering, they would leave without me. Luckily, the mobile internet worked – and, worried that my pants would get wet – I turned it on. I already had three messages from the driver…
We finally found each other. I didn’t give myself the pleasure of getting off at Greenlight. When I saw that the car was stopping two hotels away, I went there and signed in, so that it wouldn’t drive past me because of the unanswered messages.
You can probably guess that this will be a longer post, because we’ve only just gotten through the first step. I got a sticker on my shirt, and a boat and a bus ticket. We headed for the port. I fell asleep right away.
I woke up at the port and, driven by fresh energy, jumped out of the minibus. I showed him where the virtus grows. Let’s just say that I forgot my phone in the car with this act, but the attentive driver ran after me with it. I was happy for him, although at that moment I didn’t find it of much use: you can play maxium solitaire with it without internet… …and I don’t even know if the solitaire is still on it.
Get on board!
This country can be quite a letdown if I don’t have internet and no one speaks English around me. Thai writing is a very pleasant collection of drawn pictures to me.
I’m writing this little side note because I got completely lost in the signs at the port.
Thai writing is the way it is because:
- It was originally written on palm leaves, where the smooth, round shapes were durable, preventing the leaves from cracking
- the small circles help distinguish the letters,
- calligraphic tools were shaped this way,
- its historical predecessors were similar.
There are about 80 different basic characters in this language and the number will be 100+ if we include rarely used characters. The AI gave me a few examples to help me understand what and how it works, but unfortunately I was a bad student. I didn’t understand a single letter.
Actually, I also learned from the AI that you have to read it the same way as Hungarian or English: from left to right, horizontally.
Oh, and reading is not made any easier by only using spaces between sentences, i.e. Thai people break up words while reading. For example, this post has the title:
เส้นทางที่ผมได้ลองรถทุกคัน
Back to the ship: There is no internet, they don’t speak English and I only saw signs in Thai. It’s true that there was only one ship there, and when I asked which one I should get on, they pointed without saying anything, because I wasn’t entirely sure that I was getting on the right ship. I also remembered my adventure written about in the post “Wales 2”, when I was able to get on a train in England going in the opposite direction. When the ship left, I prayed a little that it wouldn’t go to Cambodia.
The ship trip was uneventful. The sky was cloudy and gray, the water was a brownish-green color. The wind blew, as if this was fun on a ship. For example, once the ship tilted so much to the side that the entire stock of the shop behind me fell to the floor. The poor shopkeeper was still packing it back when we docked.
I had a total of 16 Baht, and I couldn’t pay with a card, so overspending wasn’t a part of my life right now. Surviving two hours on 16 Baht: that’s almost a Buddhist practice. There was nothing left to do: I slept.
When I woke up, I was cold as a dog. For the first time, I seriously considered that it could be winter here. And I only have one sweater, which I haven’t worn once since I’ve lived here. The meaning of the word coat seriously increased in my mind. I was completely embarrassed that winter had suddenly come and I wasn’t prepared.
My lamentation lasted until someone opened the deck door behind me and a heat wave hit my neck. The heat hit my face like someone turning off the winter simulation on Earth. It was nice to realize that it wasn’t winter, but someone had set the air conditioning to penguin mode. In the joy of recognition, I went out on deck to warm up.
Get on the bus!
Luckily we landed… I had no idea where. Without internet I couldn’t look it up, there was no readable sign and no one to ask. Luckily the parking spaces of the transfer company were signposted, so I went to where I assumed the bus would pick me up.
(While writing this, I checked where I was: the ticket didn’t say anything, but based on the photo data I already know that… I’ll never know! Since there was no internet, the photo was taken in the middle of Koh Samui based on the GPS coordinates of the given photo. I’m sure there’s no sea there. According to the GPS, I took the photo of the sea arrival in the middle of Samui. It seems my phone was lost just like me.)
I feel quite safe when I have to rely on such instincts to find my way around in a foreign country. Oh, no!
I saw a young girl who looked lost with her grandmother. She asked me for help to tell her where their bus was leaving from. I also remembered the saying “the blind lead the blind”, and of course I couldn’t help her. But I almost offered to pray together for enlightenment.
I mean, I was sitting under the bus company logo, next to a sign that said Surat Thani. It left me a little doubtful that several buses had left the station with this logo and the logo of this company, and I wasn’t on any of them.
It must have been around noon at that time. I wondered if there was a chance I would miss my flight the next morning, but then I pushed the dark clouds away.
Then a bus stopped in front of the bench. Then another one. Hallelujah, I thought. Then it turned out that my joy was premature. Both drivers left the bus, one of them, in response to the girl’s question, said about he signaled with his hand that “I’ll answer later, it’s lunch break now, everyone just hang out!”
The other driver left the bus without stopping the bus. His engine was right in front of my face. I don’t know what he was thinking when he left the bus like that. Maybe he was afraid that in the suddenly arriving air-conditioned winter, it wouldn’t start because of the cold. Or maybe he thought that we would get bored of the silence of nature and need some background music. I don’t know. We listened to the pleasant rumble of the engine like that.
For an hour and a half. I’m not kidding! Despite all the difficulties and doubts, the approximately 90 minutes flew by and two buses pulled up. With the company’s logo! With the words Surat Thani! I was about to jump up to finally sit down again after a long time sitting, but one of the drivers quickly cooled me down. This is not my bus! They go to Surat Thani train station, and I didn’t buy my ticket that far. The man read all this from the sticker stuck to my chest…
Fuck! (I’ve been thinking a lot in English lately.) I asked if I could buy an additional ticket on the bus with my card, because I thought that we wouldn’t be successful with my 16 bucks. I could have bought an additional ticket, but then I told myself to be patient: don’t waste my money! Be patient, take the bus my ticket is for.
They said within 5 minutes, which was ridiculous compared to the previous ones, that I would be welcome to get on, because they almost left me here. Fuck…
I slept on the bus. Then it occurred to me that I could get internet for myself with the expensive Hungarian mobile network, so after yesterday I bought a data package today too, which started working after 5 minutes of nerve-wracking waiting.
I returned to digital reality with a big sigh.
After a two-hour uneventful bus ride, we arrived in Surat Thani. The bus stopped in what looked like the middle of a big city. I was pretty fed up with sitting around, so I got off. The driver was pretty upset because he thought I should have traveled further. He might have been right. But my autonomic nervous system had a different opinion. I thanked him for his kind care and got off. I took off my sticker because I felt like my life had become an open book by wearing it.
I don’t know why, but there’s a 7-11 every 500 meters. So I bought a coffee and a water at the first one. No, not the 16 Baht one! That’s history.
With my phone working again, I found an internet cafe 400 meters from the shop with excellent reviews. I thought I’d just wander over there, now that I could use my legs again. How nice it would be to play digital nomad there. Coffee, internet and laptop.
The plan was to wait there until the evening, then go to the airport, where I would have a nice sleep on the floor in a small quiet corner.
Luckily, I remembered my ex-roommate’s warning: this is a small airport that will probably be closed for the night. I looked it up and it turned out to be true.
Then I took out Booking and within a minute I found a hotel room near the airport for 3,000 HUF. With a bed and a bathroom.
So I called a Grab taxi, 5 minutes later I was sitting in it, and I forgot that I wanted to imitate a digital nomad in the nearby cafe.
The accommodation was impeccable. The only flaw was that I had to wait about half an hour for the owner lady at the reception to be able to occupy my room. I didn’t write a negative review about it because she had brought her beautiful little girl home from school. I had waited here and there so much today that these 30 minutes didn’t really matter.
The hotel was close to the airport, in Hungarian, in the middle of nowhere, or a little further in. There were two small restaurants next to it, and an antique gun shop, but apart from that, there really wasn’t anything. Let’s just say that in the event of a zombie attack, the infrastructure elements would have been present in an ideal combination.
The room was so big that next to the double bed there was only a small table made from a feed barrel, a chair made from a smaller barrel, a mini fridge, and a bathroom. I loved it! It was tastefully painted, the bed was comfortable, and it proved once again that a table and a bed are enough for me.
It’s true that my laptop only half fit on top of the small barrel, but I was able to email and write, so I still had a little digital nomad imitation before falling asleep.
Before I could finish this, I ordered my morning Grab taxi.
But then I actually slept. A good one! I dreamed that I had been traveling all day and being a digital nomad.
Friday: Surat Thani – Bangkok
I didn’t have to get up too early. I showered, packed everything in 2 minutes and was ready to go to the taxi. The airport was still closed when I arrived, but it opened soon.
The airport is really small in Surat Thani. There’s only one waiting room, which is about the size of a train waiting room in a small town. It has only one security checkpoint and maybe 4 boarding gates. So I found myself on my plane pretty quickly.
I meditated after taking my seat. I waited for the plane to take off, then fell asleep 500 meters above the ground. So this trip was also pretty uneventful.
I woke up before landing.
I immediately called a Grab taxi. Grab is a well-functioning app, it’s easy to organize all kinds of rides with it. You can choose a taxi, motorbike, car, luxury car. As a woman, you can even say that you want a female driver. Despite all its good features, it is quite annoying that for some reason it was programmed to send at least one message to its user every minute.
It is also okay that – despite the countdown timer that appears very professionally on the phone – it sends a message every minute about where the driver is. In addition to these automatic messages, the driver also sends messages that say “I am on my way”, “I am close”, “I will be there soon”, “I cannot see you”. And the system also sends offers and discount coupons.
So, I felt a little embarrassed when the phone indicated that the driver would arrive in 5 minutes, so I quickly went to the toilet, where the driver started sending his messages while peeing, saying that he was here, that he could not see me. But luckily he waited for me….
I scored an own goal with the Bangkok trip, but I have known this for two weeks now. My ex-roommate helped me find accommodation. He sent me a link to a cheap accommodation, close to the airport, which I booked with great enthusiasm. Then we started talking about it, and it turned out that Bangkok has two airports. I was arriving at the same airport as I was departing from. But my accommodation was close to the other airport. So it was far from mine…
Anyway. At least I was traveling through the city. This was not the first time in my life that I had walked through a road between skyscrapers. I had experienced something like this in London. But here, in Bangkok, the experience was completely different. Lots of skyscrapers. We passed by more and more beautiful buildings.
We talked to the taxi driver from yesterday during the trip using Google Translate, and I learned some interesting things from him. The one from today said “No English” and somehow indicated that silence was better. To be honest, it was good for me too.
So we traveled the entire hour-long journey together without saying a word. The silence was broken only by the sound of my phone imitating a camera. Quite often, because during the trip I played the happy Japanese tourist who takes pictures of everything.
The taxi was not a bad choice, because even he had difficulty finding the hotel. What would have become of me without it?
I didn’t see a reception at the hotel, nor any indication of what I needed to do. So my instincts led me to the supposed back of the building, where I quickly found someone who didn’t speak English, but who recognized the booking confirmation and was able to call the lady who spoke English and knew who I was.
And we made the return trip on a three-wheeled motorbike. There was a separate passenger seat for me under the tarpaulin roof of the vehicle. It was like a small mini carriage. I was very happy to try this vehicle. My joy was not diminished by the fact that we traveled about 300 meters back with it. For that much, I wouldn’t have even started it, but luckily the lady thought differently.
I got the keys, and the lady showed me up to my room. In the meantime, she told me that she had exchanged my room for a bigger one, if that was okay. I assured her that it was absolutely okay. I didn’t tell him that I didn’t think they had rooms that small for me to be small.
Then he showed me my room the size of a tennis court. I think it was about 40 m2, plus the bathroom. I was a little scared when he opened the door and I saw the size of the room. I was afraid that I wouldn’t have enough energy to make the short hike to the bed. The room was 20 steps long. It was covered with such beautiful marble tiles that at first I didn’t even dare to step on it.
Well, I’m not kidding anymore. It was a very nice room, it provided me with truly luxurious conditions in my minimalist life.
I rested for a while and then took a 10-kilometer walk around the area.
Where I was now living was an outer suburb of the city. So my walk took on a small-town, industrial feel.
First, I found a larger area with a market on the back of a market. With lots of fruit, ready-made food, fresh meat and everything else. I looked at about 100 places offering food, until I finally chose one and ate a pad thai – again prepared in front of my eyes.
I continued my walk. I know I’ve already written about it here on the blog, but I have to repeat that I really enjoy going where the moment dictates in an unknown place. You know, I trust the flow and let my soul guide me.
I got caught in a light rain. I wandered into a deserted area. I ate a fruit in a market that I don’t know the name of. I met a small group of dogs who tried to scare me.
I also wandered into a great area where I saw a lot of contemporary art works together with authentic oriental monuments. I’m talking about an area around a magical lake that also functioned as a hotel.
I spent a couple of hours walking this walk. In the end, I had an excellent coffee and enjoyed the sunshine sitting on a bench.
Then I returned to my room, or rather my mini hangar. I worked a little, rested, talked to my daughters for a long time, a friend called me. In the meantime, I had time to shower and write about Thursday’s adventures.
I listened to the sounds of the night party. A group of people near me were having a great time and I was happy to listen to their laughter.
I slept with the window open. For the first time in months. There was no mosquito net on the window of my room in Koh Samui, so I didn’t dare to take any risks. Due to the size of the room, the air was always quite stale in the morning. And that week, when my host’s dog also slept with me, the atmosphere became especially toxic every morning.
So, I was finally able to sleep with the window open again. Accordingly, I wrapped myself up for the first time in three months this morning because I was cold.
Despite all this, I slept very well. I dreamed that I was a plane in my own hangar and that I was about to take off.
Sunday: Bangkok – Denpasar
In the morning I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock. In the first moments I didn’t even know where I was, why the clock was ticking, and what planet was this?
A few minutes later I was down on the street. I went so close to breakfast that I stopped the Garmin distance measurement I had started, because I would have been ashamed to record this walk as a walk.
Two ladies were running the shop at the restaurant. They didn’t speak English, so I didn’t really put much effort into choosing food. They looked at me, measured me, and then asked if crab pad thai would be good? It must be obvious from my aura that I’ve been eating this relatively often in the past few months.
I also wanted to drink an iced coffee, which was only on offer because there was no ice. The coffee was the most similar to coffee in color, but since “The gastronomic revolution eluded me,” it didn’t hurt that it was neither cold nor delicious.
Returning to my room, I took a shower, then thought I would write a little more in the half hour I had available.
But there was no half hour available, because the taxi driver had arrived earlier. And Grab was already anxious after 3 minutes to see if we were together and how I was feeling during the trip.
Well, this driver was really great. I thanked him, he said hello back, and then we said goodbye an hour later. He didn’t even force his speech at the toll booths on the highway: he handed over the money, took the return ticket and the paper, and then we continued on.
In this way, I thought it was unnecessary to ask why he had come half an hour earlier.
It was funny, because at about the same time that Grab indicated that he would be there for me half an hour earlier, the airline sent a message that my flight was delayed by an hour.
I think if there was a name for this phenomenon, I would call it time dilettancy. The space has also expanded…
I’ll just tell you quietly that when I received an email a few days ago with the subject “changed schedule”, I almost had a heart attack. Luckily, they only pushed the time back by 15 minutes.
Anyway, now I know from experience that it’s easy to fit into the story that a flight’s departure time is changed three times.
Could this have been some kind of spiritual message disguised as technical information, that Thailand doesn’t want to let me go?
After a little fiddling around, I decided that – although I have plenty of time – it’s better to skip the official entry. Here’s where I’ll be staying for two overdays…
I saw so many gates, directions and signs, I was like, I had a bit of a Déjá vu, coming this way. Maybe you have to look for your own decoding code for each airport? Just to have a direction, where to, how many meters?
I found the airline counter. They said that everything would be taken care of here. Indeed, they checked my ticket, passport and Indonesian visa. Yay! Then I escaped punishment.
Let’s not get too excited! I’m telling you, then…
Because of course, after leaving this counter, I was wondering how to continue… There were several counters with customs signs, but I had already passed that. The second person at these counters knew at least enough to tell me that I had to go to the next area here.
He also checked my passport, by the way.
Then came the third counter, where they checked my papers. Here it became clear that I had been in the country for 2 days longer than I should have. Bring you a spiritual message in technical disguise! The authorities are telling you differently…
They said it would be 1,000 Baht, which I had prepared in my pocket in advance, so I simply put it on the counter.
It’s not like that. One of the ladies discreetly asked me to follow her. Like in the movies. They took me to a small office. Where we were taken out of the country for 5 minutes of paperwork.
The clerk said that they don’t talk about one day, but unfortunately this is the second one. I jokingly told her that I bought my flight ticket for today yesterday, but after all the changes…
All that was left was the security check. My first thought was that I had to buy new pants. I had twice run through airport runways without a belt in Europe, it was almost routine. But the result of the recent weight loss is that I’ve run out of these pants so much that if I don’t hold them, they’ll slide off me. This makes the examination quite funny.
My big backpack contains liquids larger than 20 ml, medicines, scissors, and a razor. They still took my laptop bag, and even then they were only interested in the power bank. Let’s just say it’s pretty difficult. If I threaten the pilot with it, the plane could definitely be hijacked.
Finally I was inside. It was already written down which gate I should look for. It’s not true how a one-hour delay would affect boarding.
So, for lack of a better word, I went to the gate and started writing there.
The time passed quite quickly, but I managed to get on the plane with great difficulty. Which was late even compared to the delayed, three-times-advanced departure time.
I meditated before takeoff. From the outside, this might seem like praying. I trust the pilot and the plane, so there was no need for prayer.
I waited for takeoff. Then I slept.
After I woke up, I started writing.
Then I felt the need to make a quick visit to the bathroom. The Indian woman sitting next to me has a pretty loose concept of personal space. I don’t mind that I already know a lot of the surface of her right side by touch.
But when I signaled that I had to go, she showed me that there was room between her knees and the back of the chair in front of her, and I had to tell her that it wasn’t so okay. She stood up with great difficulty and let me out.
A flight attendant was standing guard in front of the bathroom. She said I couldn’t go to the toilet because it wasn’t safe for me. I tried to explain to her that I was more worried about getting myself wet, but I didn’t want to get into that.
I went back to my seat and have been writing this post for the past half hour. I still have to go out, but there’s no one to tell me if it’s safe to pee now…
I don’t trust the pilot anymore. I’m slowly starting to pray…
After waiting for 15 minutes, I helped the Indian lady’s husband. I saw that he was struggling to open the vomit bag, so I took it from him and opened it for him. Then I thought it was time to go to the bathroom again. On the one hand, because I don’t want to be a world champion in this subject. On the other hand, if possible, I don’t want to be here when the uncle uses the opened bag.
Now I’m really just sitting, waiting for us to land. There’s still a taxi waiting for me. Then the 3-day adventure will be over.
It’s true, I don’t know how long the flight is. Sleeping during the time zone change didn’t help me get my bearings. But I think I still have an hour and a half left of my four-hour journey.
For some reason, I have a feeling that this “I don’t know where I am” motif has appeared quite often on this trip.
It must be me, but I feel like I like it.
The Indian lady brought out some food that made my stomach immediately signal that I was hungry.
I couldn’t finish the word “immediately” in the previous paragraph, because without a word, she turned it over in her palm and put 3 biscuits in it. Which was divinely delicious. Its special taste is still swirling in my mouth.
I’m a little nervous about what noteworthy thing will happen before I arrive at the accommodation…
Something always happens! Miracles accompany my entire trip. I slept for a while. Now that I woke up, I just stared out the window. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.
The beautiful blue colors in the light of the sunset on my right side showed a very special picture. It was as if I saw islands below me. But in the vast blueness I couldn’t really tell where the sky began and the sea ended, if I could see it at all. For a moment I even thought there might be an ice rink below us.
This endless blue moment was amazing.
Of course, the lights had changed and I could actually see a huge island. Plus, I could feel the plane descending in my ears. As I wrote this, a very intense roller coaster ride began. I love flying!
Fireworks!
When my plane landed and was still taxiing, fireworks lights flashed near the airport. Since I have repeatedly said that there were no fireworks when I arrived in Koh Samui, I must now note that there were in this case…
As soon as I got off the plane, I felt my core in the finish line. Unfortunately, I drank the bear’s skin again!
It turned out that it was not enough to have a passport and a visa. I also needed an Indonesia Arrival Card. When I found out, the water started to beat. Everyone grouped around the sacred QR code placed on the wall. Everyone was fighting the elements.
I didn’t have internet, I thought, I’ll take care of it after landing. Well, the time has come. The airport wifi that the office offered didn’t want to work. My mobile internet was also very weak. I bought an Indonesian eSIM package, but it takes time to wake up. Meanwhile, my free taxi was waiting outside, already texting me where the hell I was!?
By the time I had a hard time getting internet, it turned out that the arrival card page wouldn’t load on my mobile. When I showed this to an official, he said there were a couple of computers in the corner, and I could do it there.
Hallejuah! There was no worm symbol on the keyboard, so I had to search for it online and copy and paste it to enter my email address. There wasn’t much of a problem at that point, except that I had to re-enter all the information I had already given for the visa, along with my visa number.
By the end of the process, I realized why this card was so important. If you don’t pay, it will be ready in 72 hours. I didn’t want to spend that much at the airport anyway. If you pay +12 USD, it will be there by tomorrow. If I celebrate my arrival with +25 USD, we’re done within 10 minutes. The base fee is 70 USD, so – it’s not hard to guess why I chose +25 USD – after spending 95 USD, I received the QR code for the card.
I waited 5 minutes and went to the small automatic gate with my passport. I tried to scan it about twenty times, but the gate always turned red…
I asked an inspector what to do if I had my visa, passport and 5 minutes ago my entry card. He also scanned one, and it turned red for him too. In vain, the man didn’t have magic hands. He pointed to a line, and in that case I should please stand at the end.
There were about 100 people in each line. I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t enough that I would definitely stand there for about two hours, I would even miss my free taxi, because the good man certainly wouldn’t wait for me.
Since the line didn’t move at all in 5 minutes, I got out of it and scanned my passport again. In the meantime, I prayed that the gate would be green. That’s what happened… I can tell you from experience that you don’t need much to be happy. Sometimes a little green is enough.
On the way out, I had to queue at another place. Honestly, I don’t understand these double, triple lines. They didn’t care about anything else here, just the card. Nobody cares about the passport and the visa anymore…
To no avail! With this fee, I’m actually paying 1,000 HUF in taxes a day just to be here.
The taxi driver waited for me. There was a sign with my name on it, I became a movie star:
I’m here at my accommodation. Finally! It was a great experience to get here, write the route and be happy that every task can be solved.
I’ll be living here for 44 days from now, the journey continues!
It’s 20:52. I’m off to explore the area.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
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Short introduction