Getting Off Koh Chang

[Guilt Gland]

Spent a wonderful week there last week with wife and family as well as cousin visiting from U.K. only for the whole experience to be sullied by petty rip off merchants as we sought to book transport from KC back to BKK.

There were various options offered by Mr. Noom most of which involved making ones own way to the port by island taxi (who are fairly notorious rip off merchants themselves) and then getting onto van or 'big bus' on the mainland.

We opted for the, in line with Buddhism 'middle path', of 610 B van off the island including pick up from hotel. With four adults it meant an extra 900 B but what hell eh! The extra money was paid as punctuality and safety were 100 % guaranteed by Mr. Noom.

Instead of being picked up at 11.00 am it was 11.30am. Instead of van leaving port at 12.30pm it became 1.30pm . And instead of back in BKK at 4.00 pm we ended up in fookin Trat for hour and half waiting on two more bods simply to fill the van.Then the van made four LPG stops along the way. Arrived back in BKK 7.00 pm non too pleased with the service.

So you have three options it seems to me :

take your own transport, which I expect most of the TD community will do anyway,
splash out 900 B each on swanky van that picks you up in KC and drops you in BKK or
go for the cheap n cheerful 450 B option after you've made your way to the port yourself.

Screw the middle path and the middle man as the extra 200 B each is simply lining Mr. Noom's pockets on a daily basis.
It's a real pity because it really took the shine off what was otherwise a perfect week.

P.S. Vans from the mainland leave on the half hour not the hour despite what Mr. Noom and his cronies might say. And if you want to get to Mor Chit remember they only got there after Victory Monument (in rush hours!! aagh).