Ko Samet

Koh Samet; Koh Samed; Ko Samet; Koh Samed… Peu importe comment le nom de cette petite île du golfe de Thaïlande est traduis, c’est toujours joli. Nous nous y sommes rendus après avoir passé trois jours à Bangkok pendant lesquels nous nous sommes remis du décalage horaire et nous sommes promener un peu dans les rues colorées de la ville. Bangkok ce trouve à 200 km de Ban Phe, un village de pêcheurs de calmars, à partir duquel on prend un ferry qui nous emmène sur l’une des plages de Koh Samet.

Le chauffeur de fourgonnette qui nous devait nous emmener à Ban Phe nous à laissé à quelques kilomètres de la côte nous disant que nous étions à Ban Phe. Nous avons donc du prendre un autobus Thaï, un pick-up avec des sièges dans la benne, jusqu’à la mer. Nous avons demandé au chauffeur de nous laisser près d’un hôtel à Ban Phe. Le village étant populaire auprès des surfeurs, l’hôtel de ce petit bled était vraiment démesuré par rapport à la taille du village, pour accommoder les nombreux surfeurs pendant la haute saison. Nous, par contre, étions la en pleine basse saison et nous sommes vite rendus compte que nous étions les seules résidents dans cet énorme hôtel. Très bizarre… La Thaïlande étant déjà un pays extrêmement humide, avec la mer à coté, les murs de la chambre d’Hôtel étaient couverts de moisissure verdâtre qui donnait au lieu une teinte et une odeur bien particulière. Avant de nous coucher, nous nous sommes rendus sur la plage ou deux jeunes Thaïlandaise avaient un petit resto sur la plage. Nous avons mangé des fruits de mers et une soupe Tam Yum Kung, dont je vous donnerais la recette bientôt ici même.

Nous avons pris le ferry le lendemain à partir du port de Ban Phe, le trajet sur mer dure environ trois-quarts d’heures. Le ferry ne pouvant pas accoster sur la plage, il ‘s’arrête a environ 50 mètres de la rive et les résidents de l’ile viennent chercher les passager sur une petite barge plate que la houle recouvre d’eau à toutes les 10 secondes. Nous et nos bagages complètement trempés, nous avons alors découvert le véritable petit paradis qu’est la plage d’Ao Wai : Presque personne, les touristes sont rares et en majorité Thaïlandais. La plage de sable blanc est immaculée, la mer turquoise est chaude, est les habitants de l’île sont vraiment très sympathiques. On y dort dans des petites huttes de style Thaï au bord de l’eau et la nuit le bruit des vagues est interrompus par les chants étranges de geckos, c’est gentil lézards qui pullulent sur l’île.

J’espère que le petit film ci-dessous vous plaira. Il suffit d'appuyer sur play. Laissez vos commentaires! Vous pouvez aussi cliquer sur le bouton en bas à droite du film et selectionner go to google video pour voir une version plein écran du film.

Koh Samet, Ko Samet, Koh Samed, Ko Samed, no matter how you spell it the result is the same- a charming Island paradise nestled into the Gulf of Thailand! After three days in Bangkok where we slowly recovered from our jet lag, walked around the city and ate a lot of fabulous food, we made our way out to Ban Phe, a surf city located about 200km outside of Bangkok. Well actually, we made our way out to a small off season surf beach just outside of Ban Phe, where we would take the ferry on the nest day out to Koh Samet.

While visiting exotic locations in the low season can have great benefits, lower costs, more privacy, less tourists etc., it can also produce some rather startling results. Let me explain! After taking a mini bus out to the region of Ban Phe, we explained to our driver that we wanted to get off at a hotel that was near to the pier as we had an early morning ferry to catch. He seemed to understand by this that we needed to do groceries and dropped us off in the parking lot of what looked like a large supermarket. Figuring that he had done this because we would find a cab that could take us more easily to a hotel, we disembarked.

There were no cabs that we could see, however, so Pablo very nicely spoke to a man who drove a sort of converted flat-bed truck that doubles as a sort of bus for commuters in the region. We explained to him what we wanted and he seemed to understand so we climbed in to the back of the truck and made our way.

After a little too long in the back of his truck, however, we wondered if he hadn’t misunderstood! We tapped on the window and using the words from the back of our guidebook, said again that we were looking for a hotel outside of Ban Phe- this time we could see that he understood. He turned around and within about five minutes he drove up to a beautiful white stucco hotel right on the beach, and explained that the pier was a 5 min walk from here.

Delighted with our hotel, we went inside to get a room for the night, and then to head out to the beach where we saw a few little restaurants waiting for us! The clerk was pretty helpful, and we got signed in without any wait. He took our bags and began walking in front of us to lead us up to our room. As we passed through a completely empty dinning room and lobby (I mean empty, with no lights on and no sign of any other guests) we started to think that we might have come during the wrong season. This impression was confirmed when we got up to our room on the fourth floor, and the clerk had to turn on the lights FOR THE WHOLE FLOOR before he could show us where our room was.

We got to our room, which was clean enough, and he brought our bags in for us. After he left, we noticed that it smelled a little musty, so we decided to open up our windows. As we pulled back the curtains, we noticed that the walls were more or less evenly covered with a light dusting of bright green mold! The combination of it being hot and humid, next to the sea, and in low season (so the air conditioning was always turned off) had encouraged the growth of the mold…. Oh well! It was too late to go any where else, and we knew that we still had to eat, and that we had an early departure the next day so we decided that we could handle the mold-palace for one night, and head out as quickly as possible for the longest dinner of our whole trip!

Our accommodations in Koh Samet were absolutely beautiful, though, and I think that we enjoyed our three days on the beach even more for having had an adventure in getting there!

I will add a little more to this post in a bit, but for now, have a look at the movie that Pablo put together, and you will have an idea of how much we enjoyed our time in Koh Samet!