09/03/10: Heading North
Posted by: LiteraryHero
After several days of relaxing at Mae Nam, Jisun and I finally decided to go to Northern Thailand for the rest of our trip. At this point we only had a week left, and that kind of limited our options. We were supposed to go to Cambodia or Laos, but the hassle involved wouldn't really have been worth it for a week, so we just settled on going to Chiang Mai instead.
I had never been to Chiang Mai, so I was interested in it. The only problem was that we had already bought bus tickets back to Bangkok. The trip from Koh Samui to Bangkok is an all day and all night affair, which isn't really a good time. Our schedule was to leave Mae Nam at noon in a taxi for the pier. The boat would leave at 1:30pm, and arrive at about 4:00pm at Surat Thani. At Surat Thani, we were to take a shuttle bus to a bus depot, and then wait until 6:30pm to take the bus to Bangkok. The bus was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok at about 5:00am. Not a good time at all.
Now, since we decided to go to Chiang Mai, Bangkok was actually only halfway there. First we tried to organize a train, but that didn't work out for us. We decided that we had enough of bus trips at this point, so weren't willing to sit in Bangkok all day long to take another overnight bus. That left flying. Fortunately we were able to get a flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai leaving at noon. So, we would arrive in Bangkok at noon and then have about seven hours to kill before the flight left. Not too terrible of a situation, and it was more or less better than any of the other options.
Any other options, that is, except for flying directly from the Samui airport or the Surat Thani airport. These options would have been slightly more expensive, but would have saved us the hassle of taking an overnight bus. However, I had already bought the bus tickets, and I am cheap as all get out, so refused to change our plans. Jisun wasn't too happy about this, but we survived after a torturous mixture of taxis, buses, boats, and airplanes. If only we had managed to ride a train, we could have covered every form of public transportation in only one trip.
That was the bad part. The good part was that when we were leaving Maenam, Marie- the lady who runs Seedaeng Bungalows- decided to knock another hundred baht off of our room rate. We didn't ask for it, that is just the type of lady she is. So we ended up paying 600 baht per night, which is about 18$ and not at all a bad price for a beachfront bungalow with a refrigerator and hot water.
So that was our trip from Koh Samui to Chiang Mai. What could have taken us two hours of flying ended up taking about 26 torturous hours of traveling. Hey, I never claimed that I did things the easy way!
I had never been to Chiang Mai, so I was interested in it. The only problem was that we had already bought bus tickets back to Bangkok. The trip from Koh Samui to Bangkok is an all day and all night affair, which isn't really a good time. Our schedule was to leave Mae Nam at noon in a taxi for the pier. The boat would leave at 1:30pm, and arrive at about 4:00pm at Surat Thani. At Surat Thani, we were to take a shuttle bus to a bus depot, and then wait until 6:30pm to take the bus to Bangkok. The bus was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok at about 5:00am. Not a good time at all.
Now, since we decided to go to Chiang Mai, Bangkok was actually only halfway there. First we tried to organize a train, but that didn't work out for us. We decided that we had enough of bus trips at this point, so weren't willing to sit in Bangkok all day long to take another overnight bus. That left flying. Fortunately we were able to get a flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai leaving at noon. So, we would arrive in Bangkok at noon and then have about seven hours to kill before the flight left. Not too terrible of a situation, and it was more or less better than any of the other options.
Any other options, that is, except for flying directly from the Samui airport or the Surat Thani airport. These options would have been slightly more expensive, but would have saved us the hassle of taking an overnight bus. However, I had already bought the bus tickets, and I am cheap as all get out, so refused to change our plans. Jisun wasn't too happy about this, but we survived after a torturous mixture of taxis, buses, boats, and airplanes. If only we had managed to ride a train, we could have covered every form of public transportation in only one trip.
That was the bad part. The good part was that when we were leaving Maenam, Marie- the lady who runs Seedaeng Bungalows- decided to knock another hundred baht off of our room rate. We didn't ask for it, that is just the type of lady she is. So we ended up paying 600 baht per night, which is about 18$ and not at all a bad price for a beachfront bungalow with a refrigerator and hot water.
So that was our trip from Koh Samui to Chiang Mai. What could have taken us two hours of flying ended up taking about 26 torturous hours of traveling. Hey, I never claimed that I did things the easy way!
