Goodbye to Koh Tao

Our departure from Koh Tao, though a long travel day, was nothing like our arrival. We got the early “taxi” from Black Tip (have we described the pickup truck with the benches fitted in the bed?), stopped at the bank to cash enough traveller’s checks to pay for the hotel for the week (saving the 2.3% credit card fee)(a woman from the resort came with us, holding tightly to our passports until we paid her in full), and got, with some trepidation, onto the ferry. Fortunately, the weather was calm (sea rippled) and the ferry was the idyllic two hours chugging between gorgeous islands that we had imagined it would be.

The Samui airport was also painless—they’ve spent a ton of money upgrading it and building an outdoor shopping mall. Not that we shopped, and it looked rather as if no one else was shopping either, but the open air promenade, the shaded but open air departure lounge, the free pastries, fruit and beverage, made the whole thing the most pleasant zen-like experience I’ve ever had in an airport. I think the lack of ear splitting announcements about boarding one’s flight or not leaving one’s bags helped a lot.

We flew to Bangkok, made an easy transfer to our flight to Phnom Penh, and arrived in Cambodia a mere 12 hours after we had woken up in the morning. Contrary to all expectations, the arrival was piece of cake. Getting our visas as we arrived took all of 10 minutes (and Declan was only $5, unlike the $20 for the rest of us), our luggage was awaiting us after we cleared immigration, and we walked out the door to a taxi driver who took us straight to the hotel we had picked out.

And even that worked well. We were worried because we hadn’t made any reservations, and pictured the endless backpackers trek from one skuzzy guest house to the next seeking bedbug free rooms. But, the Indochine 2, the place we’d decided to start with, had two rooms available, and we moved right in. The place is clean, though our room is horrifically noisy. It’s centrally located, and the price is right. ($20 a room, including en suite bathrooms, air con, and cable).