I am supposed to be meeting up with my truck mates today at Ko Samui, where they are catching a 5pm ferry to Surat Thani. I assume a ferry to Samui from Ko Tao at 3pm which gets to Samui at 5pm is the same ferry they are catching to Surat Thani. However, when I go to buy the ticket at reception, they tell me this is not the case, so I decide to go by night ferry direct to Surat Thani (9pm to 5am). This is only 50B more expensive than the ferry to Samui anyway. The final bill for my 2 courses and 6 nights’ accommodation plus the ferry is £375. There can’t be a better place to introduce yourself to diving than here.
I have time to kill today, so wonder to town for the first time, where there is not much to see. I realise at some point that I have lost my cash card (again!). Remembering that I got out some money at the ATM near the Australian bar last night, I go back to the bank to see if I left it in the machine. However, when I get there, I am told to come back at 1pm as the teller there doesn’t have the keys. It’s about 11 by now, so I go for some lunch - a very filling Tex Mex burger with Chilli con Carne - and then onto the beach.
When I go back to the bank, I am told to come back in another half hour. There was a 2:30 ferry I could have caught to Ko Samui, so it is a good thing I didn’t book this. Eventually, I do retrieve my card though and head back to the beach.
I choose a spot closer to the hotel under the shade near some beach villas. In one of these are a group of one American and two Chinese American kids. I say kids, I mean young men, but they have that annoying way of talking as if they were the coolest people in the world. A group of attractive Korean girls walk by in the beach gear, and the American calls out, ‘hey, you want some Rum & Coke?’, to which one of the Koreans replies ‘yeah, that would be great’. I am both annoyed and jealous of the nerve of some people. Anyway, there follows some loud irritating conversational questioning from the American like ’how do you like to party?’ and ’why do you sound British?’ (she doesn’t).
Meanwhile, I am lying near an attractive young lady who glances occasionally to me as if to say ’I wish they would shut up’. I wish I was staying another day…… The Korean girls are still with the villa boys when I get up to leave. It’s about 4:30, and I have to catch the hotel taxi to the pier at 7pm, so I kill some more time in the bar.
Why I have to go at 7 is unclear as I am the only one on the taxi, and the ferry doesn’t leave until 9. However, I am happy to hang out on the boat when I find my ’bed’ is next to some Dutchmen offering whisky. I will be sharing my not considerable mattress with one particular fat and bald Dutchman in his fifties, not unlike a typical sex tourist profile. However, the whisky means we are quickly friends. Not all the Dutch men and women know each other. It seems that three different Dutch parties have been allocated a Dutch corner, with me as the exception.
After a few whiskies, I fall asleep quickly, and do not wake up until 4:55 am, just as we are pulling into port, strangely almost exactly on time.
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| it's going to get cosy in here |
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