We had planned to take the train down the coast to Surat Thani – either on a overnight train or with a stop in Hua Hin – and then ferry across to Samui. But when we saw how cheap the flights were we booked a ticket to Surat Thani departing on the morning of our 2nd day. The combined flight, bus, ferry and taxi ride made for a long day getting from Bangkok to Samui.
In hindsight I would have stuck with our original plan to take the train or have spent a bit more and flown directly to Ko Samui. (Bangkok Airways owns the airport on Samui and thus is the only airline to fly into the island.)
I’ve taken the overnight train before and the connections to the morning ferry across to Samui and Ko Pha Ngan are fairly painless. Not so with the plane.
A bus departs the airport for the ferry terminal and the trip takes a good two hours. Then wait for the ferry and another 2 hours across to Samui. It is hardly arduous travel but by the time we finally reached our hotel on the island we were exhausted.