From Ayutthaya to Ko Samui

How to get from a city, about 90 km north of Bangkok, to Ko Samui, an island well 600 km south of it in the Gulf of Thailand?

In several day stages? Then by long-distance buses.

In one day? Then only by flying. However, the Ko Samui airport is operated by Bangkok Airways and is only served by this airline. In accordance with this monopoly position, the prices for a direct flight are steep.

As a third alternative, a financially lucrative but time-consuming combination offer from Air Asia remains:

Flight from Bangkok to Surat Thani, then by bus to the pier in Don Sak and then by ferry to Koh Samui.

Ultimately, we decided on this option.

We organized the route from our accommodation in Ayutthaya to Don Mueng National Airport in Bangkok ourselves.

We started from our accommodation with a Tuk Tuk to the train station in Ayutthaya.

The train, which stops at Don Mueang (Bangkok's airport for domestic flights), cost 11 Baht (30 Euro cents!!) for the approximately 60 km journey for each of us. - The Tuk Tuk in Ayutthaya cost 80 Baht for the three of us! -

However, the train only had third-class facilities: hard seats, no air conditioning (only a fan), no seat reservation, but with several roaming vendors who sold food or travel literature during the journey.

The train arrived on time, we found seats, and the morning temperature was still bearable without air conditioning.

At the airport, we had to "pull" our tickets ourselves at the machine, which was not a problem, as we were assisted by an airport employee. Since we were traveling with "heavy" luggage, we still needed a counter to get rid of our backpacks. There, we were also told that someone in Surat Thani would be waiting for us to show us the way to the bus that would take us to the pier.

Actually, there was a counter where we received stickers with our destination. We were also recommended to book a transfer in a minivan from the pier to the hotel for a flat rate of 200 Baht per person.

The bus was easy to find.

After almost two hours of driving, we reached the pier.

The ferry headed towards Ko Samui at 4:00 pm.

The ship was very basic but functional.

Only the sooty exhaust gases from the chimneys sometimes made the crossing a bit uncomfortable.

When we arrived at the Raja company ferry port, the booked minivan was already waiting for us and 10 other passengers. As it turned out, our decision to book the 200 Baht transfer in advance through Air Asia was the best option financially. However, the passengers' accommodations were scattered all over the island. Unfortunately, our hotel was the last one to be approached. This meant that we had completed a tour of the island of about 90 minutes until we could check into our really great hotel (Anke will surely describe it in another blog). In the end, we were traveling for twelve hours and with six different means of transportation (Tuk Tuk, train, plane, bus, ferry, minivan). For Ines, who had checked into a hostel, it was slightly shorter.

But everything worked out well.

With this combined ticket, Air Asia offers a financially good alternative to the flight monopoly to Ko Samui by Bangkok Airways.