I’m done with the first day, and the second is almost over. I know many of you are curious about how the first few hours went, so I’ll write about it before my first full week here in Thailand begins.
My third flight – I arrived in Koh Samui
After “My first long flight”, my journey was not over yet. I still had to get to the island from Bangkok. I didn’t want to make any mistakes here, so I immediately headed for the gate where I would be able to board. I feel like I did the right thing.
Here, the signs in Thai are already multiplying, there is a little less information that I understand, I had to pay a lot of attention to be able to interpret what was in front of me. It’s good that there are no communication problems, everyone here still spoke English. It’s true that I didn’t understand everything, of course, but that’s also the magic of pronunciation. In other words, I’m not always sure that I hear what they’re saying.
Here too, I had to take the airport train, like in London, but here I don’t have to buy a separate ticket for the train. Let’s just say, I have no other option, no other way, than to go where the train takes me. My third flight was in the domestic category, as I was already flying within the country.
I had to walk quite a bit to get close to the plane. There were two official counters before passport control, and it was not clear to me where I should go. So I went to the first one, where they told me to go to the second one. There were two lines in the second one. I got into the first one. From there, they sent me to the second one. When it was my turn, they asked me something in English, which I didn’t understand a word of, but in the end, they pantomimeed that I had to go back to the first counter. There I got a boarding pass, which surprised me because I had had it online since Istanbul. Then I went back to the second line of the second counter. When asked if I had a visa, I said no. (I’ll write later why I don’t have one.) Then they would have to make one, so they sent me to the corner. Where there were 3 or 4 tablets on a stand where I could do the work, but they were busy. So I started on my phone. The result was that with the help of a nice official, my “Thailand Digital Arrival Card” was ready, and I was finally able to go to the passport control. From there to the scanner and finally to the gate that would take me to the plane.
I had half an hour to wait here, so I rested a bit. They took us out to the plane by bus. I had a flight of over an hour ahead of me, so I was surprised when they served me a full lunch here. I was surprised and happy about it.
I first saw the island from the air.
In Bangkok, they stuck a sticker on my T-shirt before passport control. I didn’t understand why I got it, I almost took it off on the plane, but then I decided to wait it out. I did the right thing, because after we landed and it was not clear to me in any way how to leave the airport, I followed my nose. Then someone saw the sticker and my T-shirt and told me that I was going the wrong way. That’s how I got out of the airport.
Life is hard enough without the internet. But I could still get a signal outside the gate, so I decided to walk to the apartment. But since, as usual, I couldn’t take two steps without being bombarded with taxi offers, I listened to two offers. The first one bled. After we looked at where I was going and I said that I only had USD (thanks, bro!), I paid 15 USD for a walk. The next person who tried didn’t arrive so unexpectedly. I was able to tell him that I had 10 USD to take him. We agreed. His taxi already had wifi, which I could connect to, and so we reached the house using my phone. That is, close to it, I hoped. On the way, the lady told me that if I had any requests or travel-related matters, I should call her. She offered to be friends, so I was happy, but I took note that I finally had a friend on the island, and I hadn’t even been here for half an hour.
I wrote to the owner of the apartment – even from the airport – that I would arrive soon, although I told him that I would come on foot, and in the end I arrived at the place earlier. I say, I hope to the place. Because there are no house numbers or street name signs here. So, according to Google Maps, I was there, but I couldn’t verify this in any way. And I only had pictures of the apartment inside so far.
I needed help to move on. I saw a person. I went up to him. It must have been a stroke of luck, but he was French and only spoke a few words of English. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t enough for anything. Since the host was also French (I think from the fact that he wrote in French on Airbnb), he was willing to ask me if I knew him. He didn’t. As I later found out, they live about 20 meters apart.
Since this help didn’t work, I went to the nearby “The Deck Beach Club”. I dared to hope that there was wifi there. It really was, but not public. Nevertheless, I got access. That way I got a picture of the apartment from the outside. I had a damn good watermelon smoothie and a good coffee.
I marked the location of the apartment, the Beach Club and the pool I expected based on the preliminary Airbnb pictures in the picture below.
The host is very nice, we chatted a bit after I arrived. His dog was calm, he welcomed me very peacefully. The three of us share the house, because they also live here.
After I took my room, I went and tried the pool. It felt really good to refresh myself. It is really hot here to the point where I can say that water flows everywhere on you when you are outside.
After the bath, I wrote a little and published a post, then while editing the next post I wrote on the plane, I felt like I was going to fall asleep right away. So I went to implement this plan. My room has air conditioning, if it works, then you can survive there.
After waking up, I went for a four-kilometer round trip walk. I checked out the shops in the area. I got a lot of invitations for massages, because there are so many salons here. I found bars, clubs, cannabis shops, many beach clubs. Restaurants. I checked out a few. By the time I got to one where I could pay with a card, I was really hungry.
So I ate a red curry and a pad thai. Both were excellent, I seriously say that I have never eaten such delicious dishes of these types.
After dinner, I went into a 7-Eleven store, which my daughters introduced me to last year or the year before. Interesting fact: Seven Eleven is an international retail chain under the control of Seven Eleven Japan Co. Ltd. As the world’s largest franchise retail chain in terms of number of stores, it operates a total of 44,698 stores (as of December 2011) in 16 countries, including Japan, the United States, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
In the end, I didn’t buy here because I didn’t find the fruits beautiful. I bought them in a store where I didn’t understand anything based on the descriptions. I think I’ll have to get into shopping. Just in case, I bought myself water, fruits and a few bags of soup so that I would have something familiar and solid to eat.
I fell asleep quickly after arriving home, it was a pretty busy first day.
Sunday
Today is Sunday, my first full day since arriving yesterday.
I woke up at dawn and spent an hour or two in front of my laptop. Mostly working. Then I went back to sleep. Until 12:15.
After waking up, I went to the pool, took a bath and read. I started reading the only book I brought here.
In the afternoon I ate, wrote, worked, slept, talked, so my first full day was pretty relaxed.
It’s 7:17 PM now. I’m going to go swim and then lie down in my room. I’ll explore the area tomorrow.