Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Far East 2009
Onwards to Koh Samui
It was time to leave one of my favourite cities in the world, one that I felt I knew quite well, and set off for somewhere that I'd only ever heard about. Having sampled Phuket as part of my RTW 2006-07 trip, I thought it would be nice to try a reasonably well-known island off the opposite coast, in the Gulf of Thailand.
There was no need to be up and about especially early. It was another gloriously sunny, but chilly, Hong Kong morning, and I enjoyed my last short stroll along the TST waterfront in search of some breakfast. Back at the IC, it didn't take me long to get everything organised and check out. As I was checking out, I finally asked the question that had been bothering me for the last couple of days : "Is this weather normal for January?" The answer was very definitely a negative; apparently 22C or 23C would have been far more typical. At least that settled it!
I made my way to Chek Lap Kok via the K4 shuttle and the Airport Express, making use of the In-Town Check-In facility at Kowloon Station. At the airport itself, I quickly passed through the various formalities and, in no time at all, arrived at the Thai Airways lounge adjacent to Gate 40, where I was ushered into the First Class section, and where the staff seemed keen to bring me anything I wanted to my seat. I had the rather odd-sounding combination of two cups of coffee, a bowl of soup and a glass of wine. The lounge was very comfortable and gave excellent views onto the apron below.
(Link to flight log in side panel)
On arrival at Bangkok, to my complete surprise, I was met at the aircraft door by a Thai Airways representative, who was there to escort me through the new Suvarnabhumi terminal to my choice of the Arrivals Lounge or the Domestic Lounge. I decided on the latter because, while it wasn't a tight connection, I didn't think I had huge amounts of time to spare, either. At the lounge, I was on the lookout for FlyerTalker KRS (a.k.a. Kristian), who had contacted me by private message to point out that our itineraries were strangely similar. He was off to Phuket for a few days, then we were both due to fly down to Singapore on LX182 to attend the Singapore Do. My eagle eyes soon spotted the FT luggage tags, and we had time for an introductory chat before going our separate ways.
I got to the boarding gate for my next flight more than half an
hour prior to the scheduled departure time and was surprised to see
that loading of the buses was almost finished!
(Link to flight log in side panel)
Arrival at Koh Samui's little airport reminded me just a little of Canouan the previous Spring, although this was a good deal bigger and busier. The airside transfer vehicles were a hoot, looking as though they'd escaped from theme park ownership. I was met landside by representatives of the Renaissance, who would transfer me to the hotel. To my consternation, I couldn't get my bank card to work in any of the ATMs, which meant that I was going to be cashless for a while!
I was soon settling in to my latest accommodation, which seemed very nice. As the evening wore on, however, I started to feel just a little bit under the weather. I thought it was just all the travelling catching up with me and decided to go to bed early in the hope that it would pass.