Relaxing on Koh Samui

The patio at our Koh Samui hostel 

When planning a trip to Thailand there are three popular locations that people have on their list: Bangkok, Chiang Mai and the islands in the south. Although I've been in Thailand for six months and visited quite a few beautiful islands, I've never made it down south to the infamous Thai islands. Fortunately for me, this past month my sister came to visit with her roommate and boyfriend, and they were all ready to explore the beauty of the southern islands! When researching the islands there are at least ten popular ones that come up, and even more smaller ones, so we struggled at first deciding where it is we wanted to go. In the end we decided to pick two islands to see during our week down south and we decided on Koh Samui and Koh Tao. ("Koh" is Thai for "island"). Although each of the islands have something unique to each of them, we weren't catering towards any specific plans (such as scuba diving or hiking) so we decided to pick two that were popular and close together.

Blogging with a view 

We flew from the northern city of Chiang Mai down to Surat Thani and then took a ferry over to Koh Samui. I was grateful that our island hopping also matched up with the plans of three other English teachers that I've become friends with. We quickly merged our groups, blending ages and histories, and managed to do a lot of activities together over the next week. We stayed at Chill Inn Hostel  which was right on the beach, offering calm waters and beautiful sun rises. Our itinerary was very simple for the islands: relax, get a tan, take advantage of the cheap massages, and drink out of coconuts. On our first full day we were able to check everything off of our list and started off our beach vacation on the right note.
Samui offers various tours and adventures such as snorkeling trips, renting jet skis and parasailing, but I was pretty content with my book and a shady chair on the beach. The great thing about all of the islands is that there are endless resorts right on the beach and they're happy to have outsiders relax pool side as long as you're willing to purchase a drink or two. We spent our days bouncing between various resorts, checking out their pools and private beaches. And of course it wouldn't be a Thai vacation without a massage, and we managed to find some right on the beach for the great price of $7/hour.

View from the bar of the Conrad Hotel. See those floating squares close to shore?
They're personal little islands with a palm tree and lounge chairs for the hotel guests. 

Our last evening on the island we decided to check out the much talked about views from the Conrad Hotel. Located high on a hill on the southwest corner of the island, the Conrad offers stunning views of the sunset and the ocean below. Owned by Hilton, it is most definitely out of our price range, but they're accommodating towards any visitors who want to stop in for happy hour. We splurged on their buy one get one free deal, spending about $12 for two drinks, which is actually a really good deal, especially compared to SkyBar. The hotel itself has more of a resort feel and it appears that each room is it's own stand alone building on the side of the cliff. Even as visitors we got excellent service and I definitely felt fancy in my elephant print dress and $3 sandals as we got driven around in golf carts and rode in a private SUV back to our hostel, which cost us the same amount as our drinks.

The next morning we were picked up at our hostel by a scheduled van (which we booked through the hostel) and were driven to the ferry docks and we boarded an air conditioned ferry on to our next destination of Koh Tao. Read about that here!

Although vacation in Southeast Asia can be cheap, the ferry and general transportation definitely adds up, especially when on a budget. We paid about $16 to get from the mainland of Thailand over to Samui, and then another $22 to get to Koh Tao. From Koh Tao to the mainland we took a ferry for $17. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're budgeting $20-30 a day to cover accommodations and food it completely ruins the budget!

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Logistical Info

- Although the islands are still relatively inexpensive the ferry rides can add up. We flew into Surat Thani to get to Samui because flights directly into Samui were too expensive. We booked a bus, ferry, taxi combo to get to our location in Samui, costing us 550 baht ($16).
- There are numerous overnight buses and even ferries that go from Bangkok to the islands. These are much cheaper than flying.

- Chill Inn Hostel $12-$16/night