Internet Bargains

I am here on Chaweng Beach in Koh Samui!!!

Someone in Pattaya suggested I check out Koh Samui as my next stop, and he gave me a great website to check out - latestays.com.

Well, I did check it out and found this fantastic and very interesting guesthouse - Akwa, near Chaweng Beach in Koh Samui. At normally goes for about 1700 THB, but was discounted to only 699 THB ($21 a night!). The room is really eclectic, and has all kinds of nice touches. The most comfortable bed I have slept on in months, A/C, fan, a mini fridge, colour TV and DVD player, glass sink in the bathroom, free beach towel, even an incence burner. It has a nice little bar and restaurant, that served up the best eggs benny ever.














Another internet bargain got me to Koh Samui. I could have travelled back up to Bangkok, and taken the overnight train south to Surat Thani, then a five-hour bus/boat combo to get me to Samui, but sometimes you just say screw the adventure travel, lets get there fast.

So I checked with a couple of travel agents, as Bangkok Airways (a boutique airline) flies from U-Tapao airport near Pattaya direct to Koh Samui. They were quoting 3600 THB which is a little expensive at about $110.

So I went on Bangkok Airways website myself. I found if I left a day later, I could fly for only 2600 THB (about $75). Not bad for saving 2 days of travel. So I booked it myself, and made the above mentioned hotel reservations.

Unfortunately the day I left, the minibuses to the airport were all full, so I had to pay for a taxi. It took an hour to get to the airport, even though it was flying along at 130 clicks an hour. So, it didn't seem so bad that I spent a whole $24 on the ride.

The Pattaya Airport is an old US airbase for the Vietnam War. It is now a Thai airbase, and small regional airport that can take the biggest planes flying. Very convenient way to get out of Pattaya and avoid Bangkok.

So here I am in paradise, again, thinking about where to head to next. Maybe a return to Phuket might be in the picture, then down through Malaysia. I really should resume adventure travel soon, but you know how much I love my beaches.