The first week

7 days on the road! Southeast Asia or Thailand as a starting point proves to be extremely practical because A.) it's cheap B.) warm=finally summer C.) The low season has started, so it's almost empty.

We, as new visitors, still need some time to acclimate, me to recover from a light but annoying cold (as usual from the AC in the 🛫), and together we need to readjust the resilience of our circulatory systems! We also wonder how the mostly agile retirees manage to jog towards us on the beach?

Time will tell, and then comes action/drive.

So far, we have completed the landing in Phuket and the 2 days & nights stay there, and here for the first time we dared to unpack our backpacks to continue the journey to Koh Samui and dive into the backpacker life there, only Samui seems to be a luxurious preliminary stage... Beach bars and hotels line up everywhere.

We walk a lot, which seems unusual as we are usually the only pedestrians on the roadside, which I already noticed in Phuket when we walked from Bang Tao to Kamala beach!

Which is about 5 km (one way) with winding roads and 3 other beach sections that we passed, no pedestrians and cyclists came towards us. We paused at the first beach together with a class of children who were sitting in a circle and playing. We had our first 🥃fruitshake. To our amazement, as we continued, a young elephant in a pickup truck 🐘 with 4 escorts passed by us. Wow, what a sight, as well as the view of Kamala beach from the hill next to a sign of the deceased Thai king last year.

Impressive is also the HQ, an art gallery right on the beach, there is a lot to see here and we linger here on the beach and gradually settle in more and more! It looks like rain a few hours later, we start making our way back and after 15 minutes the drizzle starts and gradually gets stronger. Adrienne uses our umbrella, but it is too small to run behind each other *hmm on one of the next hills there was a well-built shelter that many scooter riders were already using!

An enforced rain break is planned there for now.

We continue our way home, even though it is still raining 🌦☔ but with gently decreasing rain until it stops completely when we reach Bang Tao. After gathering all the information for tomorrow's trip and making the booking, we go for dinner and then pack.

Morning pick-up by a Lompraya minibus 🚐 works wonderfully and even a few forgotten clothes are brought to me by the hotel staff 😶.

Minibus to the bus terminal about 30 minutes. Stickers are then applied to the luggage & the passengers.

Wifi access 'lovelomprayah' helps to check for expensive taxis on Samui in advance and to use the minibus service again.

Then drive to the ferry with a short stop in about 6 hours.

At the 300m long pier, the skateboard is used for the first time as a luggage transporter, with a little problem at first, but then I try steering by shifting weight and the ride goes well. Mega exhausted, I arrive at the restaurant/cafe pier and am happy about a cold Coke.

16:30 boarding and in the cool belly of the ferry we go to Samui.

Continuing to the Chor Chang Villa resort about 25 km by minibus.

Finally there, luggage in the room and check out the surrounding area...

*Today there is also a Fullmoon Party on Koh Phangan, but we are exhausted for now and plan to attend the Halfmoon Party on 14.9.