I’m not too sure exactly what it was about Koh Samui that won me over but this was definitely my favourite island of the trip (alongside phi phi). All of the hotels we stayed in during the trip were pretty central however with this one (Chaweng Villawee Hotel) in particular, the location was just perfect. It was off the main road, outside of our hotel was the market (and it wasn’t even noisy!), and then numerous bars, restaurants, spa parlours etc. The beach about a 5 min walk away too, as well as all the beach clubs. Everything we could’ve possibly needed was all on our doorstep. The island itself is quite small I believe, so I guess that’s why everything is so close by. Despite this, the area still didn’t seem too busy. You could walk down the street without getting haggled, and best of all it felt safe. I went out by myself for a few hours and felt completely fine (I’m yet to solo travel) would I have done this in Bangkok? Probably not.
When it came to eating in Koh Samui we were always spoilt for choice as there were so many appealing restaurants, serving/specialising in a wide range of cuisines. I would say the same goes for the bars however we ended up going to the same few bars each night; mainly because of our taste in music (they’d call it “urban”). Majority of their clubs/bars have open spaces which I prefer, similar to Croatia.
Prior to heading to Koh Samui we had planned to visit an elephant sanctuary however after arriving and enquiring about this it was much to our disappointment that the sanctuary was hours away and this sadly couldn’t fit into our itinerary. Instead of this we done a 8hr Around The Island tour which visited 8 or so attractions. This was very convenient as we had wanted to see visit most of these but planned to do so separately, which would’ve been very time consuming. The excursion can be booked at any of the tourism stalls, and several companies offer the same excursion so you will always find availability. The places included were: Big Buddha
Temple, Lad Koh Viewpoint, Mummified Monk, Na Muang Waterfall, Hin Ya & Hin Ta Rocks, Lamai Beach & Nathon Town.
Koh Samui also offers boats to the full moon parties. We didn’t actually go to one as we had planned to give this a miss from London. However once out there we slyly wished we did include it in our itinerary as it was all the talk, even the hotel staff were encouraging us to go (they attend themselves LOL). After all the encouragement we almost gave in to temptation however knew this would mean there’d be a 97% chance we’d miss our flight back to Bangkok. Therefore we decided to be sensible and keep our backsides where we were. Personally full moon seems a bit too much for me but anyway but I’ll probably attempt to go at least once; on my future Thailand travels.
xo
