Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, Thailand: Last days on the islands

After the Full Moon Party on July 17th we still had 2 night nights booked at our resort on Koh Phangan. We spent that time resting and relaxing by the pool.

The resort we were staying at was quite interesting. It was run by a large Thai family who spoke very little English. It’s hard to say whether or not the resort was a “nice” resort because there were so many inconsistencies. The pool area was awesome and had 4 basins on 3 levels (there is another level below that is not visible in the photo above). We were staying in a private bungalow with air conditioning and hot water (those two features are not a given and you generally have to pay extra for them); we also had a private terrace.

There were also a number of negative aspects, for example, when we arrived the lock on the window in our room was broken. This meant that anyone who walked to the front of our bungalow could easily slide the window open and climb in. We told the front reception and they told us to make sure we always took all our valuables with us wherever we went so that if someone came in they couldn’t steal them. That wasn’t an acceptable answer for me; was I supposed to bring my laptop and passport to the Full Moon Party? Anyway we persuaded them to fix it, and they did.

A couple days later our tap water turned brown and we were unable to shower or use the taps. We complained to reception but they told us that everyone in the resort had brown water and they were working on fixing it. We had brown water for the remainder of our time at the resort. The wireless internet also stopped working. When we asked if we could use the computer in the lobby instead they told us that it was “sleeping” and no one could use it anymore.

It was all very strange. We also had some issues with the restaurant. The resort was so isolated that we had no choice but to eat at the restaurant. We never knew what we would get no matter what we would order. One day I ordered boiled eggs for breakfast and they brought me 2 very runny eggs; the next day I ordered the exact same thing and I got 1 very hard egg. When I asked where my 2nd egg was they didn’t say anything to me but silently went back into the kitchen, boiled one, and brought it to me 15 minutes later. Other times we would both order the exact same dish (green curry for example) and Mads would get hers 15 minutes before mine came out. One day I wasn’t feeling too well and needed some toast, so Mads went and asked for a plate of plain toast. It took about 20 minutes and 4 different family members to prepare the plate of plain bread for us. We couldn’t quite figure out what went on in that kitchen! This was definitely one of the strangest places we’d ever stayed at!

We were happy to leave on July 20th when we boarded a boat to take us back to the island of Koh Samui. We booked one night there before our flight to Bangkok the following morning.

In Koh Samui (after our experience in Koh Phangan) we felt like we were living in luxury! We had beautiful clear tap water, and our bathroom even had a rainfall shower! We had a luxurious king sized bed and a very nice private balcony. The restaurant at the hotel was also fabulous, quick, our meals were exactly what we ordered, they arrived at the same time and we enjoyed them while sitting on the beach!

We spent the afternoon enjoying the sun and the water. This was our last day on the beach for the remainder of our trip.

Since it was our last night in a beach resort we decided to treat ourselves to a festive cake to celebrate our trip thus far and to say goodbye to the beautiful beaches of Southeast Asia! We had spent nearly an entire month hopping from one beach resort to another (with the exception of our 3 days in Singapore) and we had an amazing time! We bought a pink cake decorated with crabs to eat on our private balcony:

Eating the cake reminded us of when we were 15 years old and we used to buy large cakes from Loblaws together and eat the entire thing in one sitting. Sigh….Oh the joys of a teenage metabolism! Now that 10 years has past since those days we opted for a “mini” cake!

We thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring the Thai islands and we were sad to say goodbye to them. But we were equally as excited to see Bangkok! We had both already been there (I was there 8 weeks ago ago when I started my trip), so we knew the city already and could spend our time having fun and exploring some other areas of the city that we both hadn’t already seen.