By: Dani Howlett

This weekend, nine of us travelled from Bangkok to Ko Samet, an island off the southeast coast of Thailand. It was a crazy, beautiful, and eventful weekend to say the least! We arrived Friday evening and explored the beautiful beach that we were staying on (in a hotel for $14 a night once we split it!) Saturday morning we rented kayaks and went out on the ocean and explored around the island, it was gorgeous. The water was so warm and clear. That night, it started POURING rain. We ended up walking down the beach to a bar that was playing music, where people were dancing out on the stage in the downpour. We danced here for hours! It was such a fun time.

The next morning, four of us rented motorcycles an drove them around the island. This was kinda scary, because the roads on Ko Samet are terrible and people are whizzing around on ATVs and motorcycles everywhere. It was a good time though-lots of adrenaline! After that we went and got facials and massages (super cheap here!)

The last day (today) was a little crazy. We had to catch a boat back to the mainland, then a van back to Bangkok, witnessed in my life. Our boat pulls up right on the beach, so we ran out into the waves and pouring rain. Our clothes and all of our stuff was immediately soaked. We were all laughing and full of adrenaline at first, but after we had to make two more stops and our friend started throwing up off of the boat, the novelty wore off. After a slightly scary boat ride we finally made it back to the pier. We were dripping wet but so happy to be back.a cab to our hotel, but things ended up getting a little more complicated. To start off, one of the girls had really bad food poisoning and couldn’t hold anything down. And it was monsooning, as in the hardest downpour I have ever then

We caught our van, but then 2 hours later he dropped us off in an extremely busy square and we had no idea where we were. We didn’t even know if we were in Bangkok yet. So after struggling through some directions given to us by a cop, we made it onto the skytrain. After the skytrain we caught a cab to our hotel, now here I am!! Finally!

Despite a couple hitches, it was a fantastic weekend. We met some amazing locals, including a young Thai girl who came and sat in the ocean with us while it was raining one night. She just wanted to talk with us, even though she didn’t speak much English. That is a moment I will never forget 🙂 Her family ran a little crepe stand right on the beach, and we saw her and talked to her all weekend after that. I am learning so much and having so many experiences here, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the trip will bring 🙂