THAILAND

Koh Samui, the strutting megalomaniac of the Chumphon Archipelago, gawking smugly over its siblings, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, sits 35kms east of its guardian, The Kingdom of Thailand. Close enough to warrant a Tesco Lotus, a Makro and two Starbucks, but far enough away to offer western miscreants unfettered access to young ladies, young boys, and young lady-boys, Samui houses a variety of nationalities, locales, and anomalous whims.

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Perforating your senses like a sweltering fat man, who has just ran a marathon and smothered himself in aged-stilton, in a moment of celebratory passion, Chaweng accosts and attacks your nostrils, beating it to a pulp, before stealing its wallet, long before it greets your eyes. Home to some of the worst places on earth, which house some of the worst people on earth, welcome to Chaweng.

Welcoming you like a Frenchman who has just discovered that his béret has been soiled in, and, in a violent strop, with a baguette in hand, has stumbled across someone who, by chance, has had a coincidental toilet mishap, and whose hand is smeared in excrement, Le Fabrique has the kind of staff who look like they would rather stab you, than serve you, with a delicious, crumbly French loaf. However, instead of inserting his delicious, freshly baked baguette up your bottom, he hands it to you, with a slab of butter and a freshly ground cappuccino, much like the delicious foods the dour-faced Le Fabriquers serve you up, once you are certain that your life is not actually in danger. Located just past ‘Temple corner’ in Lamai, Le Fabrique offers a range of delicacies that make you drool like an obese school-boy on fish and chip day.

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​If Samui Airport was Italy; beautiful, exotic, sun-blessed and laid-back, then Bangkok Airways would be Benito Mussolini; a greedy, propagandising, self-glorifying fascist. Pompously grasping power over Kastellorizo (Samui), one of the Dodecanese islands, but under the watchful eye of Hitler (Thai Airways), who, if he wanted a small Greek island, could crush the Italian with one goose step. It may seem wholly unfair to liken Thailand’s major airline to an immoral Nazi lunatic, and it is, but it serves the purpose of describing Asia’s Boutique Airline’s precarious monopolising of Samui’s only airport. For the price of a flight on one of Captain Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth’s fleets’ journey from Bangkok to Samui, you could fly instead to destinations in Vietnam, India, The Philippines, Hong Kong, Laos, Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka, and even Australia, from the Thai capital. Moreover, for the same cost, you could fly you and four friends to Bangkok from neighbouring Surat-Thani, with Air Asia. Admittedly, Samui Airport is beautiful, and provides you with a free buffet and a Disneyland vibe, but this is all simply part of Il Duce’s propaganda to convince you that taking out a bank loan to fly with Bangkok Airways is a privilege. This, combined with the visual indoctrination video of beautiful Airhostesses gyrating besides a huge phallic Airbus, which greets you when you bored, is enough to program the mind of many of Samui’s sex-hungry punters about the sheer awesomeness of Bangkok Airways tropical island hub. Viva il Duce.

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