Menu

3 Nights in Bangkok and the World’s Your Oyster

0 Comment

June 16 – travel day!

How hard could it be? By now we had our travel days down pat. Pack, load into crazy open air taxi, wait for ferry, etc. With that as our blueprint we grabbed a casual breakfast overlooking our gorgeous beach as the kids consumed some well earned screen time. 

Before we left, Evie took some quick picks of the place we didn’t stay and their ‘pool.’


Our ferry left at 12:00 and we wanted to do some last minute shopping so we got a 10:00 songthaew-taxi. At 10:45 we were back in Thong Sala..Evie quickly tried on and bought her second $7 romper, this one even cuter than the first. Tom and Tyler enjoyed fruit shakes for $1 and perused flip flops. Unfortunately the food market wasn’t really going yet so no ice cream was had. At 11:45 we joined the masses at the pier and waited in the heat to board the ferry. 


The ferry was not going to Nathon pier as scheduled but instead to Maenam pier, 20 minutes closer to the airport. At 12:30, we were at Koh Samui with plenty of time to catch our 2:45 flight, so we decided to grab lunch at a beachside restaurant. This turned out to be much slower than hoped and at 1:30 we took our lunch to go and hopped in an actual taxi for the 25 minute drive to the small airport. 

We had underestimated the size of the airport and the place was jam packed with tourists and the check in line was out the door. Using our Kramer-powers, we bypassed the line and learned that our 2:45 flight was delayed until 6pm, but they could put us on the 12:00 flight that was now delayed and leaving at 2:40. Fine with us!

During the flight, we met a couple who had also been diving a Sail Rock a few days before us. They had seen the elusive whale shark that we had hoped for. They shared the photo of the baby whale shark which was amazing. I guess we’ll need to go back!


We scampered though the open air airport to the departure lounge and around 2:40 they began the boarding process. Organized chaos reigned but by 3:15 we were up in the air and by 4:15 we were back on the ground. At 5 we were on the efficient airport train in Bangkok and after negotiating the Skytrain we arrived at our swishy Landmark Hotel in the center of Sukhumvit around 6:30pm. 

Our evening plan was to meet up with Tom’s high school roommate Tak, who had followed his theatrical passions and in addition to managing a local TV station, directing Thai plays, and producing original works, was responsible for the building a 1,500 seat theater that enabled touring productions like Phantom of the Opera and Cats to come to Bangkok for the first time. 

After some quick showers, we met Tak in the lobby and drove to a nearby, high-end Thai restaurant. Our dinner was exceptional and it was a pleasure to reconnect with Tak. His life story was riveting and entertaining and for most of the evening the kids held it together despite the late hour and the long day. Around 10:30 it was finally time to head home. 

It was Sunday night and the streets were packed with buses, cars, tuk-tuks, street vendors, ladies of ambiguous gender, tourists and a surprising number of middle easterners. Tak had graciously offered to have his driver take us to the main sights near the grand palace the next day. Around 11pm we bid Tak goodnight and dashed into the quiet respite of our 5-star hotel.