The New Mosquito Island

Trip Start Feb 25, 2006
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Trip End Jun 24, 2009


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Friday, September 28, 2007

OK, Lang Kawi is now off the hook for being Mosquito Island. Although Samet doesn't have jellyfish like Lang Kawi, it has massive swarms of mozzies! Where as Lang Kawi has very strong armored mozzies, Samet has thousands of little ones that you can't see very well and fly very fast. The worst part is they are not limited to a few hours in the early morning and a few hours at dusk. They are out any time of day and always out looking for a feast. That said, Samet didn't suck (except for the mozzies) as much as I had expected it to from the stories I've heard. It's the closest island to Bangkok and as such gets lots of weekend traffic. It was my friend's bday so I waited for her to get off work to head down to the islands where the air is fresher and cleaner than anything I had been breathing for the past 4+ months. Unfortunately, that meant that we would miss the last ferry to the island for the day and that we wouldn't get there until after 7pm. Luckily there were 2 other girls that wanted to go so we chartered a speed boat to take us to the island Candle Light Resort
Candle Light Resort
 . It worked out pretty well actually. Even though Samet is horribly over developed, it's still classified as a National Park and as such subject to the 400B entry fee. If we had caught the ferry over, we would have had to pay the fee, but since we snuck in under cover of darkness on a speed boat we were able to get dropped off at our beach and away from the watchful eyes of the Rangers. We found a nice place right on the water for 500B. The food left a lot to be desired on Candlelight Beach, but I've heard that it's better on the more popular beaches. I ate a club sandwich that had me regretting the day I was born for most of the night and into the next morning. At least before the sandwich struck, we were able to walk to the other side of the island (5mins) and watch the sunset on the mozzie free side. There was a very strong breeze on the rocky west side so we could sit there undisturbed drinking our beers catching the last rays of the day. The beach area on the east side was small, but the sand was a beautiful white powder good for swims or lounging about in the sea. It's much too short a time to visit for just the weekend, but it's definitely better than a sharp stick in the eye or sitting in Bangkok traffic.
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