Our first weekend getaway was to this island, located inside the gulf along the eastern side of Thailand. It’s a very touristy island, and the main beach strip caters to the weekend crowd of University students that come to get away from Bangkok. We organized our trip with about 12 other students from our building, and coincidentally ended up running into several other groups of international students, so it seemed as if our program took over the island.
Our party split up into a couple bungalows, sneaking as many people in so that we could minimize the cost of the room for each person. The bungalows are large with 2 queen beds, but they charge you per person. So, a room for 2 actually means a room for 4 or 5.
We arrived right after sunset, so we spent the night eating on the beach and watching various attractions that happen nightly on the island. This included tourists buying fireworks and setting them off what might be considered dangerously close to everyone. They also sold balloon lanterns where you could write a wish on a balloon with some sort of light contraption attached, and then watch it float away until it disappeared next to the night stars. There was a fire show that would work its way down the beach, performing at the major bars and restaurants. This show involved about 10+ men who had fire batons and fireballs on strings that they would swing around. It was an amazing, indescribable show, which ended with the men standing on each others shoulders and running down the aisles of the beach blankets, so that you could actually feel the heat from the flames. Afterwards, one of the firemen was playing around showing off his baton sticks, and invited our group to go try spinning the batons ourselves. It was really exciting to try
The next day, a few of my friends decided to ride motorbikes around the island to go exploring. After dirtbiking for years, I know my motorskills well enough to decide I would probably run myself off the road within minutes, and opted to hop on the back of a more skilled friends bike instead. The island was mostly one long road with a few outlets leading to beach resorts. We found a more deserted beach where just one hotel was located, and we ate, snorkeled, and lounged on the beach there for the majority of the day.
At the end of the day, we ran into some other students and discovered that a lot of people didn’t have as good of luck on the motorbikes as we did. Two girls ran into a wall because there were two cars trying to pass at the same time, and they got pretty scraped up. The next day one boy even broke his arm and within the next few weeks, his doctor at home determined that the hospital here had set the bone wrong, and he had to be flown home to get it fixed. He’s still there right now, but hopefully will be returning within a few weeks. I managed to leave the island with only a burn on my leg from touching the exhaust pipe…now I have a scar so I’ll always remember my Thailand adventures! (At least its not a tattoo, right dad?)
Overall, the island was a beautiful way to start our “vacation” in Thailand.
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