My friend and I will have four days on Koh Samui and are trying to choose a beach to stay at. We're looking for something quieter and less touristy, and thus are staying away from Chaweng. We would like some sort of town with shops and restaurants though, as well as a decent beach. Lamai Beach, Maenam and Bophut keep popping up as interesting possibilities ... any thoughts about any of these? Also, is Fisherman's Village as neat/quaint as I'm seeing reported? Thanks in advance for the help!

the beach at bophut is not all that nice but the views are lovely and the small town is fantastic with good restaurants... i would stay there again...
we loved having a cheap rental jeep there also..

Hi Trvlgrl2010,

This is an excerpt of my travel journal from a trip to Samui 2 years ago when we stayed a Choeng Mon Beach at the inexpensive Whitehouse Resort ....

MONDAY 8TH JUNE.

We decide that today will be a “Seinfeld Day”, a day about nothing. Not nothing as such, more like not very much.

Breakfast is comprehensive for a fairly inexpensive resort. The obligatory Egg Station, bacon, ham, potato bake, tomatoes, a thai stir fry, noodles, various cereals, pastries, fresh fruits and assorted sliced meats and salads. Plenty of choice and a difficult job to control the calorie intake at under my pre-noon quota of 2500. I manage to keep it to 4 courses, but only as I want to keep some room for lunch. I ran up and down hills for about an hour this morning to prepare myself for this culinary assult, so my guilt levels are low.

It is low tide at Choeng Mon beach this morning and the retracting waters have revealed a few rocky spots at either end of this little bay which detracts ever so slightly from the near perfect vision that we were greated with last night. The beach directly in front of us is still a vision of beauty and obstruction free. At this time of day, you need to walk about 100m into the sea to get out of your depth, not ideal for some, but it is a fantastic beach for kids. The sand is powdery and clean and the view out to sea is close to perfect. There are a few expensive looking yachts including a multi million dollar twin hull cat anchored close enough to shore to swim out to. I feel extremely lucky to be here.

The resort, like many in Samui, is absolute beachfront on a long and narrow strip of land. The rooms are contained in beautiful Thai style villas of a maximum height of 2 storey. We have booked a junior suite that is large enough to comfortably accommodate the four of us and we have been given room number 2. This room is in a perfect position, we open our front door, take 5 steps and reach the pool. On the other side of the pool is the small restaurant and beyond that is the beach. The rooms don’t have a balcony area but the close proximity to the never crowded pool makes up for this.

It is hard to get a guage on occupancy levels at the moment, but I would be surprised if the place was at 50%. There is no scramble for a beach or pool chair, no queing at the egg station, no need to rush, no need to stress. I have made a great choice of hotel for our expectations.

We are centrally located on this idyllic beach. There are several other resorts of all types with the impressive looking Muang Samui currently under construction. Most of the work is being done at the road end of this property so it doesn’t have any effect on us. There are beachfront restaraunts of varying levels of price and quality strung along the shoreline. The beach chairs make way for table settings in the evening, having dinner whilst feeling powdery sand between your toes is what dining on Samui is all about.

The place that we ate at last night was an absolute budget priced gem and we decide to return for lunch. We are not high end travellers and like to find value in our dining options. I generally like to eat at the “Mum and Dad” type local restaraunts and we rarely choose anything but Thai food as this is what these places do well. The first dish that I look for on the menu is a Pad Thai, not because I always order one, but the pricing of this dish will say a lot about the restaurant. I call it the “Pad Thai Index”. A PTI of greater than 120 baht would normally be a special occasion restaurant for us that has to offer something outstanding in terms of location or service. This little place which is connected to the “cheap and cheerful” Island View Bungalow Resort has a PTI of 70. This is extremely good value for beachfront dining and the food is well presented, of generous portion size and authentic flavour.

Again I go for the Shark, but this time in a hot curry sauce. It is cooked to perfection with the flesh of the fish soft and moist on the inside but firm and textured on the outside. The taste of this dish is just incredible. Kerry gets a Tom Kha Gai, her favorite, a coconut milk soup with chicken ,mushrooms and Thai eggplant flavored, among many things, with lemongrass. It is a mildly spiced soup with a tantalizing zing to it and again the Island View produces an A grade version of this signature dish. We accompany these choices with fried and steamed rice, the boys also have fried rice and with drinks the meal comes in at around 600 baht. The service is “familiar” rather than friendly if that makes sense. You feel that you are wanted but not needed.

The rest of the day is spent swimming and playing on the beach. Kerry and the boys buy a few bits and pieces from the passing parade of beach traders. They are not pushy but they are good at making you aware of their presence. We realize that you always pay a premium for anything bought on the beach but we are happy to help this local economy and the good natured way that price is negotiated by these beach marketeers makes it an enjoyable way to do business. These guys have to be super friendly to survive at this competitive game and they realise that you are generally there for a week or so and this effects the way they deal with you.

That night we peel ourselves off the beach and hit the street outside the resort. It is a very quiet area but it still has everything you need. Right next door is a mini-mart, next to that is a hair dressing salon followed by a nice little restaurant, a massage place and then another restaurant.
Across the road is a bakery that is also a laundry and travel agent, next to that is a Tailor an Indian restaurant, a Chemist and a car rental service. All of these places are no more than a 50m walk from the lobby of our resort. A slightly further walk will get you to a bank, an optometrist several shops and other restaraunts. There are no Beer Bars or Go Go’s, it is not that kind of place.


BELOW IS MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE VARIOUS SAMUI BEACHES TAKEN FROM THE SAME JOURNAL. I HOPE YOU FIND IT HELPFUL....

MONDAY 8TH TO THURSDAY 18TH JUNE.


I will always have a soft place in my heart for Koh Samui. It was the highlight of my first trip to Thailand, a major part of my first overseas trip with Kerry and where we decided to return to later for our Honeymoon in1996. It was also a place that we returned to in 2004 with our children and several other family members. They came with high expectations after we had built it up for many years, and it let neither them nor us down.

It was with some trepidation that we returned for this trip, as we had read many negative reports about the massive amounts of development that had ravaged the once idyllic tropical paradise. In the end, we came back almost by default. We had looked at other alternatives but could find no other Island that suited all our needs. We wanted a relatively quiet and beautiful beach on a gulf Island, due to the season, that was not too difficult to get to. We wanted a good range of activities to occupy the kids and access to a range of restaurants and bars. It needed to have a bit of shopping, a bit of culture and most importantly it needed to be distinctively Thai. I wanted an Island that didn’t exist purely for tourists, that still had little local markets and villages that retained some of that Thai charm and character.

It certainly has changed, probably less so than in the time between my previous two trips, but still at an alarming rate on some parts of the Island. However, for us it was perfect, and now that I returned back to my geographical home, I think daily of soon going back to my spiritual one. We all had an absolutely fantastic time and were so happy that we choose to spend a large portion of our time there.

THE BEACHES..

Chaweng Beach was where we stayed on all of our previous trips and even in 2004, it was starting to loose some of its appeal. Most of the small, bungalow based, beachfront accommodation has been replaced and the unique family owned beach restaurants have disappeared. There are many, very nice resorts but they are all priced well over our budget and anything more reasonably priced tends to be very run-down. You can still find some value if you don’t want beachfront, but in my opinion, you don’t come to an Island like Samui to be crossing a road to get to the beach.

The main road is know packed with buildings for its complete length, row after row of Optometrists, Tailors, Banks, Day Spa’s and shops. It has every ice cream shop known to man, a KFC, Burger King, Starbucks and even 2 McDonalds. All this on a strip of about 3 kms in length. It has restaurants representing every major cuisine from around the world, most of which seemed very highly priced by Thai standards. Gone is the man cooking fish over hot coals on a cut down 44 gallon drum, with Mama knocking up 60 baht Pad Thai in the kitchen. In fact, it is very hard to find a reasonably priced Thai meal on the main beach road these days.

Fortunately there is still another side of Chaweng, but it is well away from the beach. The central part of the beach road is now one way, with traffic only heading in a southerly direction and there has been another road built, inland, around Chaweng lake. It is at either end of this road where you will find some open air eateries and food markets that are more representative of what Thai cuisine is to me.

The actual beach in Chaweng, particularly at the southern end is still visually attractive but it is now totally overrun by overly persistent beach vendors and Jet Ski’s and no longer strikes me as a relaxing place to spend your day. Overall, we were happy we decided not to stay on Chaweng this trip.


Lamai beach has certainly changed a bit too, it even has a McDonalds now, but it still retains that Samui feel. There are plenty of small eateries with wooden chairs on the beach, serving very good Thai food at prices around the 100 baht mark. We drove there twice at night for a meal on the beach and ate at two of the beachfront places next to Lamai Wanta resort, both meals were excellent. You don’t need to wander far from the beach to find lots of street vendors at night and there is still a choice of European places if you feel that way inclined.

There are just enough shops and massage places, still too many tailors and the odd optometrist and 7-11. It does seem to have a more open “bar” scene than in Chaweng as most of the “action” in Chaweng is centred around some small dead end soi’s, but it is far from the seediness of Patong in Phuket.

I really like the beach at Lamai. The water is clean, the sand is fine and powdery, there is plenty of room and you can escape the few more populated areas quite easily. There are still many beach vendors and Jet Ski’s but nowhere near as many and as annoying as in Chaweng. I would consider this beach for our next trip.


Bo-put is a charming little village with many midrange resorts. It is home to some outstanding restaurants, some quite pricey, and the main strip referred to as the “Fishermans Village” had quite a few upmarket shops that seemed to be owned by ex-pats. What lets it down as a place to stay, IMHO, is that the beach is not very wide and just not as pretty as the east coast beaches. It is a lovely place to go out for dinner and you get some magnificent view across to Koh Phangan but I personally wouldn’t stay there.

Nearby Big Buddha beach also has some outstanding views but a less appealing shoreline. There is a vibrant local market there and a tourist orientated market near the “Buddha” itself. Well worth a visit, but again, not a location that I would stay.

I loved Choeng Mon and it is a great location for a family stay, particularly if you are sensitive towards exposing the kids to the seedy side of Thailand as there is none. It is a place that lends itself to hiring your own mode a transport as the taxi’s and tuk-tuks are less frequent and relatively expensive. You can hire a small jeep locally for 600-700 baht per day depending on the length of hire. There is very limited “night-life”, just a few small bars that were generally patronised by a handful of people at one time. The beachfront restaurants were never over half full and all the ones that we ate at were reasonably priced and served great food. The service was always friendly; they valued your business and wanted you to come back, unlike the feel at most of the beachfront Chaweng restaurants.

I think that Lamai would be the best all-rounder. A place that you would not have to leave in a 2 week stay and has a nice balance of peaceful beach dining and a vibrant collection of bars, a nightclub, Thai boxing bar and shopping. It has a great lounging and swimming beach as it tends to be a little deeper than other areas at low tide. It retains a “Thai” feel whereas Chaweng has now become more “cosmopolitan”. We used to have a saying about Chaweng “Plenty to do, No-where to be”, I think that Lamai know deserves this label.
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I really like Fisherman's Village, but have to admit there's not much of a beach there. I wouldn't call it quaint, but it has a good selection of restaurants and almost none of the sleaze you get in other beach areas. The Smile Resort is right in the middle of the place. Anantara is at one end. There's also a new Hansara (?) between the two.

Thank you for such quick and helpful replies, and for including excerpts from your journal, shanek. It sounds like Lamai Beach is going in the direction of Chaweng, and thus not quite what we're looking for.

Are the Bophut beaches awful or just not as amazing as others? We're not planning on sitting on the beach too much, so that may be okay as it sounds like you like Bophut and Fisherman's Village. I will also look into Choeng Mon and the other resorts you all mentioned. Thank you!

Bophut beaches aren't awful. The sand is grainy rather than powdery and the water is not so clear. Choengmon is the "picture-postcard" type white sand beach, but there is more activity in Bophut.

What kind of coffee you drinking there, Shanek?

Long time....hope you've been well!

trvlgrl, will you have a vehicle on Samui? If so, you may want to look at Crystal Bay Resort on its own mostly private stretch of great white beach. The problem with Crystal Bay is that it isn't one of those places where you walk out the door of the resort and find lots of food/entertainment options. You'd have to motorbike, drive, or take a tuk-tuk to just about everywhere. But the resort is nice, if you don't have to have a pool, and you don't require 5*. I'd call it at least 3*.

Hey Mango,

I'm sitting in Glenelg in South Australia sipping on a tall skinny latte in Mcdonald's and had a laugh reading your comment.

The reply was just a cut and paste from some previous journal entries.

Shane.... I really enjoyed Glenelg the two times I've been there so far. Loved taking the train there from Adelaide... ahhhh, would be nice to be there now, rather than sitting here in nearly 2 feet of snow!

Thanks again Shane and Carol ... we won't have a vehicle, Carol (though Crystal Bay looks great), so being able to walk to food/entertainment is helpful. Looks like Bophut is exactly what we're looking for!
Jen

By the way, trvlgrl, one of the best restaurants we found (for a special meal) is right next door to Crystal Bay. It's the Cliff Restaurant and it has a fabulous view. Worth the taxi/tuk tuk to get there, in my opinion, if you want a more romantic meal.

Thanks - will check into it (though traveling with a friend, not a romantic trip !

Just back from Glenelg Carol. The weather was nice there, but the rest of South East Australia, including my own town, is in flood at the momment. I've come home to knee deep pools of water in my front and back garden, but luckily it stopped short of the house. We had 200mm of rain in 2 days, almost 9 months worth on our averages. I would still take this instead of 2 feel of snow!!!! The only issue is that our water pump is totally submerged, so I need to go to the Gym to have a shower.

Shane, good luck with your water problems! I'll take snow over a flood anyday.