A well-deserved holiday for teacher Alesh

I already wanted to go to the seaside when I moved to Thailand in October. But everything happened so fast back then that I didn’t really have a chance to make it happen. But I knew right from the moment the semester started that I would go to the seaside at New Year.

Perhaps 3 or 4 of my friends or travelers recommended me to go to Koh Chang. “It’s beautiful,” they said. And so, this island made it to my list of the places I wanted to visit.

Did I go to Koh Chang? I did not. When I was looking for accommodation, and it was very last minute, everything was fairly expensive at Koh Chang. But I was lucky to find reasonably priced accommodation at Koh Kood, which is a small island south of Koh Chang and it’s the closest island to Cambodia.

And as it turned out, it was the best thing I could have done. Go to Koh Kood. You will find out why.

Initially, I wanted to travel alone but I changed my mind and went with a Thai friend. So here’s my New Year’s adventure story.

Dan Khun Thod, the town where I live, is kind of in the middle of nowhere. I cannot really go anywhere directly apart from Bangkok and the provincial capital of Korat. I cannot book tickets in advance and knowing a lot of people would travel around New Year I wasn’t sure how to travel myself. I needed to go to the town of Trat where there are ferries to the island from.

So I took a bus to Korat after school not knowing if there were any night buses to Trat. I went to the only counter I knew sold bus tickets to Trat, but all the tickets were sold out. They advised me to try another counter at a different part of the station. I was glad to find out there were more companies operating on that route. And when I came to the other counter, I was even happier to find out there was a night bus to Trat and tickets were available. So I bought a ticket. My bus departed at 9 pm and the journey would take about 8 hours (a long one).

I met my friend in Trat and then we took a songthaew to the port. The songthaew normally costs 80 baht per person but after talking to the driver my friend decided that we go on our own so that we had a higher chance of buying tickets for a ferry. So we paid 300 baht for the ride (too much for my liking) only to find out that the tickets for the available ferries cost 600 baht. The 350 baht ferry was sold out. We made a mistake of not having booked the trip in advance overpaying for both the ferry and songthaew.

On top of that, we waited for around 4 hours for the ferry to depart followed by a journey of over and hour to Koh Kood. After disembarking we were taken by a songthaew to the accommodation we had booked. I spent 19 hours travelling before I finally reached the guesthouse. That’s quite a lot considering the distance.

But it was so totally worth it. Koh Kood is an amazing island. After we checked in, we headed to the beach. And it was absolutely freaking amazing. A long white sandy beach, crystal clear sea and blue sky. I was so happy to take that dip and finally start my well-deserved holiday. What was a huge plus was that there were very few tourists. Not just on the beach we went to first but on the entire island.

I found out there were much fewer tourists at Koh Kood than at Koh Chang and so I was very pleased I had made a decision to go to this very island. I dislike crowds. And what I really needed after two months at Dan Khun Thod School was peace and quiet (and no screaming, crying, fighting and biting children within a 50 km radius).

We rented a motorbike for two days and spent both days exploring the island. We visited three waterfalls, two fishing villages and perhaps four beaches. It wasn’t a good season to visit waterfall but the third one was super nice as there was a pool where one could take a dip. And so I did which was very refreshing. We made it back on the following day too. The beaches were stunning. And so was the sea.

And so I spent the very last day of the year 2018 at Koh Kood. My thoughts while I was watching the sunset on the beach were: ‘Dear 2018, thank you for having been an amazing and generous year. Thank you for all the adventures and opportunities that spiced up my life. Thank you for enabling me to visit 7 new countries reaching number 62. Thank you for presenting me with a new job that I had desired for so long. I welcomed you in 🇹🇭 and I am unexpectedly bidding you farewell in 🇹🇭!’

And how much does it cost to go to Koh Kood? Let’s take a look:

Transportation	Price in baht	Note
Bus Dan Khun Thod – Korat	33
Bus Korat – Trat	297
Songthaew to the port	300	can be less
Ferry to Koh Kood	600	can be less
Ferry from Koh Kood	350	the cheapest
Songthaew from the port	40
Bus Trat – Bangkok	230
Bus Bangkok – Dan Khun Thod	218
Accommodation	2100	2 people, 3 nights; good price
Motorbike rental	250	1 day
Meals	60 and up	more than in most areas
Coffee	50 and up
Water	20