Ko Samet

A few weeks ago a me, Jeff, and several other employees from his company all headed to Ko Samet, a small island not too far from Rayong. The island is technically a national park, but they have allowed some hotels and restaurants to develop along the coast, while still preserving the trees and wildlife inland. We met up at the pier and caught a boat to Ao Prao Resort on the island's remote west side.

The island is known for its beautiful beaches, so we were definitely excited to spend some time swimming and playing frisbee.

Well, some time turned into 4 hours or so, and we ended up with some pretty rocking sunburn by the end of the day. But we had fun, so that's all that counts, right :) After showering and cleaning ourselves up we took some great pictures of the sunset.

After a relaxing dinner we all headed to the other side of the island to the Silver Sands bar. We had a feeling it was going to be a great night as soon as one of Jeff's co-workers informed us that drinks were served by the bucket! We sat on pillows and rugs on the floor and were treated to a great fire show.

Later the early 90's music started and we all showed off our skills on the dance floor.

This area of Thailand has many "ladyboys" and we had fun dancing with this particular one.

At the end of the night Jeff, Zudtky and I decided to walk back to the hotel on the other side of the island, which probably wasn't the greatest idea since we didn't really know the way and since it was PITCH black outside (remember, we were walking through the national park, so there were no lights). We thought there was just one road across the island, but when that road took us to a youth camp we knew we were in trouble. We resorted to taking pictures of the signs (like I said, PITCH black) to try and figure out where to go.

Luckily we were saved when a taxi came by and took us home. It turns out there was a slight turn to the left we missed that would have taken us straight to our hotel. Lesson learned!

The next day all of Jeff's co-workers were heading back to Rayong, but we stayed an extra night on the island. We decided to stay on the east (and more popular) side of the island for the second night, so everyone came over with us to spend they day at the beach before heading back to the mainland. Unfortunately because we got so sunburned the day before we spent the majority of the day in the shade. However we did have fun walking on the rocks from our hotel to the beach.

After everyone departed Jeff and I spent the evening relaxing at our hotel and the night strolling the many kilometers of beaches. The next morning we packed up and headed back to land. It was a short trip, but we had lots of fun and even found some time to relax!