touch the distant sands

When I lived in Ban Phe, these islands taunted me. There is a cluster of islands east of Ko Samet, and one you can see from way out in Laem Mae Phim. Autumn and I schemed to build a boat or to kayak out to them and have an untouched, tropical paradise to ourselves for a weekend.

I'm glad we didn't.

This time around, I signed up for one of the speedboat tours offered from Ko Samet to the neighboring islands.

This is Ko Thalu, the one that's furthest east, by Laem Mae Phim.


Then you come around and it's full of speedboats. You can rent beach chairs for 20 baht. There is a restaurant.


The island tour was good, though. There was snorkeling between a couple of little rock islands in the cluster by Ko Samet.


Even there, we were not alone.


On one of the islands near Ko Samet (with bungalows and a mini shop,) there's a nice little hike.


The last part of the tour brought us to the Ko Samet Fish Farm, which looks like this:

Some of the boards are a little broken, but it's fine.

There was a shark, which was far less frightening than the prospect of losing my balance and my camera.