Koh Samui on NYE

Our office was closed for the holidays and so me and 3 of my friends decided to have a road trip to Koh Samui. It is the second largest island of Thailand and I wrote about it previously on a blog post titled Half Day Tour in Samui Island. I was thrilled to come back to the island and this time with friends who have never been there before. 

Last 31 December, we drove out from Phuket at around 5am towards Surat Thani province. It is the largest of the southern provinces of Thailand where Koh Samui belongs. It was a 5 hour trip but there was little to no traffic as we were early. 

Thailand has mostly concrete roads with a number of gasoline stations along the way. This was taken at one of our stops. This particular gas station has some interesting things on display.

image taken from Mel's FB page

We arrived at the pier early and so we had time to stretch our legs and chill. Our ferry tickets were booked in advance so we didn't stress with the other passengers who still had to purchase their own. We paid 120THB each for our fare and 400THB for the car as one way fare. As it was a holiday, there were a lot of people on the ferry and heading out to Samui Island.

We relied solely with GPS to get to Surat Thani province. Arriving in Samui, we still used our GPS to locate our hotel. This application really is useful. Language is challenging in Thailand and so it gets easier and faster to rely with GPS.

Our hotel, Baan Rawee, was not difficult to find. It was a room that can accommodate up to 4 people. It was a lovely place to stay for the night as it was quite a distance from the beach and party place. 

After settling down and freshening up, we then sought for a nice restaurant to stuff ourselves. It was almost 4 in the afternoon and we truly were starved for some decent food. 

We didn't have any concrete plans to celebrate the new year except to have it by the Beach. We first explored Samui's Central Mall, then headed off to get some nice foot massage and finally found ourselves in one of the relaxing beach bars on Chaweng Beach.

We talked, sipped our cocktails, observed people, took photos and talked some more while waiting for the clock to strike midnight. We were expecting for a countdown and was disappointed when there was none and just suddenly the skies were lighted with fireworks. I didn't know where to turn my head as there were a lot in different directions. 

Finally, the bar where we were in lighted this in front of us.

It is nice to spend and greet the New Year with family but nevertheless close friends ultimately become family too. Our new year's eve celebration was a nice, safe and memorable. I hope you all had one, too. Thank you for reading and 'til next blog! :)