Ban Phe and Koh Samet

This weekend, 30+ of us international students stayed in Ban Phe to beach and party. Our trip began with a 4 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Ban Phe, on which I practiced my mosquito slaying for almost the entire trip. We eventually made it into Ban Phe at around 6pm, just in time for a gorgeous sunset. The houses our group stayed in were right next to the beach, giving all of us a drunken-fool-proof route directly to the ocean at anytime. Unlike Bangkok, Ban Phe was not covered in a thick layer of smog--finally some fresh air! Around 10am on Saturday, we jumped on the local taxis and made our way to the ferry station to head over to Koh Samet, an island not too far off of the coast. Koh Samet ended up costing a more than all of us expected, but we are also very adjusted to the baht now. Between the 120฿ roundtrip ferry ride, the 20฿ entry on to the island, the 30฿ taxi ride to get to the beach, the 40฿ entry into the beach section of the island, and 40฿ rental beach chairs, we all felt like we shelled out a lot of cash just to sit on a beach. In reality, the whole day cost around $8. But like I said, we are so well acclimated to our new currency that we've become quite frugal.

One thing that I will never get used to, but that is all too common every where you go in Thailand, is the trash. Trash. Trash. Trash. Everywhere. I remarked to some of my friends that I bet this island would have been stunning 100 years ago. While it was definitely not the dirtiest beach in Thailand, the sand was still littered with cigarette butts, plastic bottles, and all sorts of forgotten items. I began to think about one study that my dad told me about that estimated that every handful of sand is now 20% or more plastic. But other than that, we all had a fantastic time. We waded in the water (which was quite warm compared to California, and it could have been a jacuzzi compared to the Oregon Coast), built a sand castle, and tanned. The sun absolutely zapped us of energy by the end of the day, so we were very ready to go home by 7pm.

Unfortunately, we did not get our deposit back on the house. But we had a blast. And that's all that mattered. Here's to many more adventures with these lovely folks.