Bangkok and Ko Samui on your own

First of all I strongly recommend you rely on a good paper guidebook; we used the Routard of Thailand and it was a spot-on choice!!!!Bangkok is a very particular city, in which the sacred and the profane, the modern and the ancient coexist; it is worth spending a couple of days there to come into contact with the most Westernised side of the Eastern world...

To get around the city it is best to use the famous tuk tuks, very cheap and quick for weaving through a dense tangle of roads, lanes and alleys constantly invaded by cars and smog at every hour of the day!! I recommend you do not let the driver of your tuk tuk or taxi take you to a restaurant he suggests (choose it yourself!!!) since they are often in cahoots to rip off tourists and then make them pay sky-high bills that would be the envy of our most exclusive restaurants!! unfortunately we fell into the trap and lost a good chunk of our holiday budget!! Absolutely not to be missed are WAT PHRA KAEO and THE GRAND PALACE; remember to go with your legs and shoulders covered..but if you forget there is still the possibility of renting what you need for entry.

The museum of the reclining Buddha (45 m long and 15 m high) is also absolutely worth seeing; the latter is part of a group of temples inside WAT PHO. The trip along the CHAO PHRAYA river using a local little boat rented for a few baht at one of the many pier stops is truly worth doing!! You escape the confusion of the streets and concrete to immerse yourself in what must have been the city of angels several decades ago!! After 2 days we leave Bangkok to venture onto a tiny little island that we hoped was not yet contaminated by the mass tourism of Phuket or Pattaya..... After 1 hour and 20 minutes of flight we arrive on the island of Ko Samui. What can I say? Concrete has taken hold here too, but there are still splendid semi-deserted beaches where you can walk in solitude and contemplate the transparency of the water.

Avoid Lamai beach and Chaweng, real ghettos for tourists!! rent a motorbike or a car and with your trusty Routard under your arm explore the interior and the coast, they are worth seeing!! Eat in one of the countless little restaurants scattered here and there and treat yourself to a massage every day for the modest sum of 5 dollars...buy every kind of souvenir (T-shirts cost 2 dollars!!!) and rest as much as possible!! Ko Samui is the island of relaxation!!!