Thailand - Last Stop..Koh Samet!

After leaving Koh Chang after a week of fun and frolics we decided to spend our last week in Koh Samet rather than cramming in 2 more islands at the others sounded very quiet and expensive...
The journey there was a bit of a trek as it was meant to only take 4/5 hours but took us more like 7/8 hours...we should have been used to the 'Thai time' by now.
One hour boat ride and a 3 hour crammed bus ride with no air con later we arrived at the pier where Samet was only 30mins boat away but we got on the boat and sat there for over an hour, waiting for the school kids to get on and for them to load it up with tonnes of food!! anyway, by 6 in the evening we happily arrived in Samet, getting a taxi truck to Ao Pai which Ben knew was the better and busier place to stay.  We scooted around for 10mins, finding accomodation and ended up in a lovely 3 bed, white bungalow with a lovely big balcony right in the centre of it all :)
We headed down to the beach for food and found a cool place straight away playing good house music, tables lined up with mats where you sat on the floor to eat! 
Koh Samet was a lovely small island with very basic dirt track roads and Ao Pai felt like a fairy land, with twinkling lights everywhere and very cute! The beach was lined with small bars, bean bags to cooch on the beach, fireshows, restaurants and a few parties (sadly mostly playing cheesy pop/dance music).
We had a nice few drinks on the beach our first night and a yummy chocolate crepe and went off to bed after a long day travelling.

 cocktails

 yummy nutella pancake

 beer o clock

 chilling on the beach

yummy cocktails

Our first morning we were happy to see the sun was shining bright, which was alot better than it had been in Koh Chang..so set off down to our beach to catch some rays!! The beach was very small and full of travellers, Thai people selling fruit and bbq meat (which Ben enjoyed) and had a very relaxed atmosphere.
We explored further down the beach, into the main town to stock up on alcohol and spent the night playing 'ring of fire' drinking game at the bungalow..all getting rather drunk and having a giggle and checking out the reggae bar down the road.

sunbathing :)

 bbq chicken on the beach

 tuck in!

chilling

ha like brother like sister

 in the town center 

stocked up with drinks

 on our balcony

 time for cards

 drinking games

 ring of fire!

out on the razz

Day 2 we were eager to explore more of the island so got a taxi to another beach further down the island and had some breakfast on the front..we walked along to another small little beach which was lovely but not the one Ben was looking for (as he had been to Koh Samet before).  After a while we ended up at a beeeaautiful beach called Ao Phrao which again, wasn't massive but had gorgeous white sand, clear blue sea and the water was very calm here.  We plotted up here for the remainder of the afternoon, enjoying the scorching hot sun, having a bat and ball rally and generally playing about in the sand..on our way home we stopped at the infamous Seven Eleven where we became obsessed with their cheese and ham toastie, and chicken burger snacks lol!! had to be done!!

 taxi to the beach

 first beach we stopped at

beach

arrived at Ao Phrao beach- beautiful

 taking a dip

 welcome to Koh Samet

 bat and ball

 lazy bat and ball

the infamous chicken burgers from 7 eleven :)

We moved out of our white bungalow as they were fully booked but stumbled across a dirt cheap place around the corner, costing a quarter of the price!! result! ok so the beds weren't as big and cosy and the place was a bit stuffier than the last (lol) but it was fine for what we wanted..the only thing that HORRIFIED us was the HUGE spider who we named Derek close to our room..! Seriously the biggest spider I have seen in Thailand and coming close to the Huntsmans in Oz!! gross.

meet derek!

Ben was determined we get a quad bike out for the day to explore the island and so off we set, all 3 of us on one along the bumpiest dirt track I have ever seen!! We come across a few obstacles where me and Amy got off as it was far too bumpy and scary to stay on but it was part of the adventure! I freaked out a couple of times and at first didn't enjoy the ride too much but after a while it became fun and a good way to get around here as taxis were fairly pricey.

 drink on the pier

 lovely little spot

 not a bad view aye!

 the 3 musketeers set to go on the quad

ben on the quad bike

We went from beach to beach, finding really cool secluded places lined with hammocks in the trees, bars that went out onto the pier and headed South of the Island to watch the sunset as this was the best spot in Samet, sitting on the rocks looking out to sea..! we spent a few hours here, walking up to the cliff top which had a lovely view, and enjoyed a nice beer watching a local fisherman catch some squid and the sun slowly setting in the background-bliss!

 hammock time

 pretty flowers :)

yummy lunch

 broom broom!

having a stroll to the cliff

 weeeee!!

 we made our own rock formation

up on the cliffs

sunset

 ive got the whole sun in my hands

picking up the ball of sun!

 ahhh singha!

 waiting for sunset on the rocks

 end to a great day out

cheese

We had a mooch around the shops and got our quad back for 8 so had spent 12 hours out on it during the day! had some great fun and ended the day in the Reggae Bar with some live Bob Marley music! Wicked!

 driving us back

 enjoying the ride

 the invisible keg of beer!

 reggae bar!

drinks in reggae bar

We ended up spending the rest of our days back at Ao Phrao beach which we all agreed, after exploring the whole island, was most definately the most picturesque and stunning one to stay on during the day. The food here was really good, it was pretty quiet and the water was warm, clear and calm!
We had a boules competition on the beach one evening, while the sun was setting which some of the passers by found interesting as they hadnt seen this game before..Ben won all 3 games!! but it was a very close call on the last match with our scores coming in at 7 to Ben and 6 to both me and Amy!! ooohh!

 our little spot on the rocks

 heehee!!

 chilling by the sea

 wicked view from the swing!

 sunset!

swing!

 o look its beer o'clock!

 the pic i wanted all holiday!

 love this pic :)

 boules on the beach

 ooo who's is closest!?

 boules at sunset

 ruuuun!!

haha crazy under the leg boules

 The night times in Samet were cool but pretty chilled out and we found the bars which were busier certainly didn't play our taste in music which was a shame but again we made our own fun and headed down to the beach one night with the good old masks! We plotted up on a bench with a few drinks and put on the masks, making people passing on the beach look over..some people were horrified, some pretended they hadn't acknowledged us whilst others come over to take photos and found it very amusing.  We walked off down the beach wearing our masks still and were called into a bar down the road as they loved the masks! when we entered the guy behind the bar also had a mask which made us giggle and we stayed there for some drinks and had fun with the UV paint where you could paint on their walls!! some laughing balloons and buckets later we went with the locals down to the next bar where there was a party but not great music again but got the masks out again and had some good fun winding people up and joking about.. "If anyone can its the candyman can.." (private joke)

 buckets

 drinks on the beach

our lantern!!

make a wish!

 mask time!!

 compare the meeerkat!

 bar stop

 our painting on the wall in the bar

 balloooons make u giggle :)

 ben horrifying the bar staff

got a few weird looks in the bar

We had lots of nice meals on the beach, cocktails and beers at night and funny times even back in our room where we spent a few nights ending it with a nice film! 
Our time in Samet was wicked and we all caught a good old colour too..everyday was blazing hot sunshine so we couldn't complain.
It was sooo nice having Ben out with us for 2 weeks.  We've been waiting to go to Thailand together for ages and we finally accomplished our mission, having a great experience! We were definitely sad to be leaving the land of smiles!!

 going down the stinky road to the shops!

 bens last night with us :(

fab time having ben with us!!

 Our journey back to Bangkok started early at 8 in the morning getting the boat back to mainland and then a minibus ride (again, very cramped and stuffy) and a few hours spent in the dreaded Bangkok before me and Amy were to get on a nightbus to make our to Malaysia and Ben was catching his flight from the airport back home :( Very emotional saying goodbye but we had a fab time in Koh Chang and Samet and have come away with some amazing memories!!

Next stop Malaysia..!