The Songserm Joint Ticket

Many visitors to Thailand choose to travel to Koh Samui, Koh Phangan or Koh Tao, three islands located close to each other in the Gulf of Thailand, 700km south of Bangkok in the Suratthani province.

Most people choose Koh Samui, the largest of these islands, as their first destination, and explore the other islands in the area from there. There are already many websites advertising the beauty and wonder of Koh Samui and the surrounding islands and hundreds of beautiful pictures of this delightful area. Although, you will only truly discover the wonder of this area by visiting yourself.

The easiest way to get to Koh Samui is to fly directly to the island from Bangkok. This is a short and comfortable flight, but many find this form of transport too expensive as Bangkok Airways own the island's airport and charge much higher rates and airport taxes than other equivalent trips. Many people boycott this manner of transport purely in protest to Bangkok Airways' non-competitiveness.

Remaining, popular, possibilities for getting to Koh Samui include :

• Flying to to Suratthani - There are a few domestic airlines that fly to Suratthani, with very low prices available if you book online or/and in advance.
• Sleeper Train - Although there are other trains that go from Bangkok to Suratthani, most travellers prefer and recommend the cheap, fairly comfortable night sleeper trains. Beds are comfortable and the trip is shortened by sleeping for the majority of the trip.
• Tour Bus - I have personally never taken this mode of transport as it is easier and more comfortable to sleep on the train. I have heard that it is even possible that your bus may board a ferry and take you to one of the more major towns on Koh Samui.

The purpose of this article is neither to discuss these islands, nor to recommend any particular mode of transport or to advise prices and schedules. Instead I would like to take the opportunity to provide some insight and details of how one particular company operates and hopefully give you good reason to avoid using them.

If you choose to take a Tour Bus or the train to Suratthani, and you book from Bangkok or over the internet, then you will probably be offered a joint ticket through Songserm. This ticket is an open, non refundable ticket; so you can use it on any day, any time in the future, but can not get a refund for it. Although sold as one ticket, you will receive a train/bus ticket and then a separate Songserm bus (transfer from Suratthani to the ferry - 1 hour) and ferry ticket.

Pleased be warned before purchasing a ticket from this company, and if you still choose to, please be careful.

The Songserm service is advertised as a fast/express boat. The boat is definitely their fastest boat, mainly due to the fact that this company only has one boat from Suratthani to Koh Samui. In fact, this service is the slowest service you could choose to take. The other companies all have much faster boats with better schedules and, more importantly, for a much cheaper price.

Some places advertise that this boat sales from Suratthani to Koh Samui once per day, and some say it sales twice per day. Going to the office at the Suratthani wharf and speaking Thai does not clarify this question. Some staff say "once per day" and some staff say "twice". I even spoke with one gentleman who changed his answer 2-3 times during our conversation leaving me no clue as to how many sailings there actually are.

How many sailings there are makes a difference as your bus or train could quite likely arrive late at Suratthani, and if it does, you may have to wait 6 hours for the afternoon sailing (if they decide to have one) or you may have to wait until the next day. Of course, the other option is to burn your ticket and buy a much cheaper ticket on a much more reliable service.

Recently my wife and I (we live in Bangkok) wanted to take a short holiday, and although I have previously experienced some of the more trivial pitfalls of using this company in the past, I chose to purchase a joint ticket (taking the train) for the ease of paying all at once in Bangkok, instead of having to organise how we would get to Koh Samui once we arrived in Suratthani. There was little chance of things going wrong anyway as our train was one of the earliest ones, scheduled to arrive very early in the morning.

Unfortunately, our train had problems, and we were overtaken by every other sleeper train. We finally arrived at Suratthani after 9am. Because we were so late, and because I knew that there is possibly only one Songserm sailing per day, and because all of the ferrys are quite some distance from Suratthani (up to 1 hour), and all of the others are miles away from the Songserm wharf, and because I can speak Thai, I chose to ask the Songserm staff member who met us at the train a few questions.

I was quite prepared to keep our non-refundable tickets for some other trip in the future, or to give to a friend, and to instead take one of the other forms of transport to another ferry terminal and buy further tickets. We couldn't really be unhappy - what could we do? There was nothing we could do about our train arriving late, and there was nothing we could do if Songserm's sailing had already departed.

The Songserm staff member who met us confirmed quite clearly that the boat had been held as a few trains had arrived late and that it was waiting for us. She was also selling joint tickets at the train to travellers who did not yet have ferry tickets.

We arrived at the wharf to find that the boat had left on time and we were told that we could wait 24 hours for the next one (in the middle of no-where - no where to stay - no transport - nothing) or we could pay an additional price for a complementary service offered by Songserm to take us to the nearest competitors terminal (over an hour away).

Even the Thai people were angry! The Songserm staff said that it was completely the passenger's faults as we had taken a slow train and they stated that they did not need to offer a transfer service to a competitors terminal and that because we had bought Songserm tickets they could leave us waiting there until the next day.

Well, what could we do? This was obviously a scam to get another few baht out of us... It did not worry me too much. We had lost some extra hours because of the lies and needless detour, and we were about to lose some baht for this complementary transfer service. But we still had our ferry tickets for next time or to give to a friend some time in the future. But no. The cost of this complementary transfer service is to surrender your ferry ticket and also to pay an additional 50 baht per person.

So, if Songserm had not lied at the train station, I would have taken another ferry, paying a small additional fee, but still keeping my open, non-refundable Songserm ticket - not a big deal. But instead, we ended up buying this [more] expensive Songserm ticket which we then had to surrender, unused. We then had to pay an additional price to be able to go to another ferry company to be able to buy a reasonable priced ticket on a better service.

So, if you plan to travel to Samui on Songserm, make sure that you confirm the sailing time before you leave Bangkok, and if you arrive in Suratthani any later than 1 hour before sailing time, do not believe anything they say, but take a more reliable service instead.

I asked Songserm about this situation as it seems so extraordinary. Songserm confirmed with me that it is their standard service to take all ticket holders to the wharf, and if the daily sailing has already departed, to then 'transfer' them to a competitor. They also noted that since trains are often late, this situation happens quite frequently.

If you plan to go to Samui, then please take this advice. You should worry about how you will get to a ferry terminal once you have arrived in Suratthani. There are a couple of competing services which have ferrys that leave most hours - some even offer a free transfer to the ferry terminal. And all of the companies have representatives at your arrival point in Suratthani.

I must say that of all my trips to Samui, I have used the Songserm service, successfully, on two occasions. I guess that I have been lucky ;) I know that there are always unavoidable circumstances, and I know that some Thai people in the more touristy areas are trying to take as much money from foreigners as they can by any means (which embarrasses the majority of Thai people), and we take most things as a learning experience.

But this company, first of all, advertises themselves as something that they are not. Don't believe me? Go visit them and one of their competitors and make your own comparison. Secondly, they openly admit that they have a policy to lie to their customers and have this complementary transfer policy, which is such a major ongoing scam that they admit occurs frequently.

How you get to Samui is your choice, and you may opt for the convenience of buying a joint Songserm ticket from the train station, Kao San Rd, or your favourite (and reliable) tourist agent. But it is a gamble as to whether you will get to Samui on that ticket or not. Are you prepared to pay their steeper prices for the worst (go compare the boats and terminals and schedules yourself) service just to gamble that you may then have to pay extra to be taken to a reliable, cheaper service?

Your choice.