I arrive on an Thai Air Asia flight at around 4pm. I will stay one week at Ko Samui. Do you have any ideas getting from the airport URT (mainland Thailand) to Chaweng Beach. Any ferry information would be great. Thanks for your help.

there is a thailand forum that probably has a lot of info for you....its below...good luck...

EDDS, as this is best posed in the Travel->Thailand forum, I'll move it there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

There should be plenty of taxis available. Chaweng Beach is very close to the airport. No ferries necessary.

Do you know where you will be staying on Chaweng?

OK, I just tried my hand at 'editing' my own post and had no success. Hmmm...

I just reread the OP and I see that you are not landing on Samui but somewhere else on the mainland. The taxi comment does not apply, unless you will, indeed, fly onward to Samui. Sounds like you are wanting a ferry though.

URT is the airport code to Surat Thani airport which is on the mainland (as OP indicated in his post). So OP certainly needs ground transport + ferry from Don Sak pier.

There should still be a ticket counter at Surat airport arrivals where you can buy bus ticket direct to DonSak pier, or maybe even a combined bus-ferry ticket for the entire journey. (I've heard advice NOT to buy this ticket in advance from Air Asia in BKK, as they charge twice as much and also try to sucker you with threats of bus being full if you don't buy from them.) You can also get a different bus ticket just as far as Surat Thani town, then buy a ticket from a town bus-to-ferry office once there. This should be Plan B. Somebody should be outside the Surat terminal directing people into the right buses for their destination. The trip from airport to pier isn't short--it's about 100 km and should take over an hour. There never used to be waiting taxis available at URT for a (expensive) direct transfer, but maybe this situation has changed.

Once on Samui, you can get a taxi to Chaweng...but it won't be cheap, you may have to negotiate price if they refuse to use meter, and the pier is quite far from Chaweng. There is shared public songthaew transport that is cheap, if you are used to using them elsewhere in Thailand, but you'd need to be lightly luggaged. If you were planning to rent a car and drive Samui, then having a meet-up/pick-up at ferry would be the way to go (arrange car in advance).

Yes, Chaweng Buri Resort. Do you know some good and cheap restaurants in this area?


Thank you very much jiejie ! Do you know how much the combined bus-ferry ticket is? Have the organisations any websites?

EDDS: The 1st question is a legitimate FT question the 2nd isn't. IMHO, FT isn't here to answer questions that can be Googled in a fraction of a second. Our opinions on Nok vs Air Asia, train vs bus, good hotel in Chaweng, best seafood restaurant - no problem. Jiejie was very kind to put it all on your plate for you. Don't ask to be spoon-fed. Do your own research please, and we'll try help you out with the rest. Chock Dee: wj

Would love to know how your stay is. We stayed there in '99 and loved it. There were a ton of restaurants within walking distance just out the property entrance. Finding reasonable food shouldn't be a problem but back then they were still in the process of paving the main road.