The nicest airport we’ve been in.

The time had come to leave Thailand and do a visa run. A lot of people take a bus through southern Thailand and into Penang, Malaysia or to Laos, but a 15 hour bus ride didn’t sound too alluring to us. Luckily we found out about Firefly Airways, one of Asia’s low cost airline. So for $30 each we bought our tickets to Kuala Lumpur and showed up at the airport.

Kind of like the movie theatres in Bangkok, the airport on Koh Samui blew me away. An open air design, there’s lots of plants, free WIFI and more importantly, FREE SNACKS! That’s right folks, I’m dedicating 2 whole pictures to the awesomeness of this airport. Juice, coffee, donuts, croisants, this is the way to treat your customers. They obviously aren’t worried about the single penny like the cheap-ass North American airlines that order you the craptastic food that even food banks would refuse. Here they treat you like a respected customer, not cows on an assembly line waiting to be moved. Or worse, suspected criminals with full body scans, patdowns and the bullshit no-liquid policy they have. Service versus complete incompetence. Who would have thought that this business model could work?

Landing in Kuala Lumpur we followed our Footprints guidebooks advice and went to the StayOrange hotel chain. StayOrange is the cheaper alternative for the Carleton Hotel Group. Much like the IBIS chain all over Europe is the cheaper version of Sofitel (and generally great). We had stayed at the Carleton as a treat when we were in Utrecht, and were looking for something comfortable with wifi access while we got our visas.

Carleton Utrecht vs StayOrange Kuala Lumpur – just not the same.

We like Orange things. We own an Orange Loft (yes, painted all orange) and it was pretty small. All 485 square feet of it. We lived in it for 3 years in Calgary and were perfectly happy, so when I say that the StayOrange Hotel room is small, I have some context. About 2 feet wider than the double bed, there ain’t much room. But we’ve been traveling and used to small rooms, so that wasn’t really the problem.

Is that dirt? No Betsy, it’s deadly mold. I guess they don’t want repeat customers, or healthy ones.

Strategically placed bag and quick action!

It’s a good thing that the room was so small, as the only place to put my backpack was against the clear glass window of the bathroom. I’m not sure who designed this room, but I always like a little privacy while doing the deed. Know how hard it is to concentrate, reading a book and take care of business when you feel like your in the zoo? Talk about performance anxiety.

After a couple nights of the AC not working, and the workmen working outside our window at 6.30AM we decided to leave. Lucky for us we found another budget hotel called Citin Hotel, and man are we happy we found it. This was more like it, with a frosted door on the bathroom and a big comfy bed and pillows. Add in free breakfast and their recommendation to the best Indian food we’ve ever had, and it really gets 5 stars from us.

I know what your thinking – what about our Thai visas? This was actually the easiest part of the trip. We went to the embassy and waited in line for an hour and put in our application. At the time they were giving the visas for free, saving us $50 each or so, and it was super easy to do. Our big recommendation if your doing a visa run is to walk straight in and get a number before filling out the application. So many people would go get an application, spend 30 minutes filling it out and then get the number. We saved tons of time doing it this way.

If your doing a visa run into Kuala Lumpur, defiantly stay at the Citin Hotel. It was a great price (125 ringit including breakfast) and has excellent food next to it. But StayAway from StayOrange unless you like mold and watching other people take a shit.

I was not paid to write this review, but if somehow Citin Hotels is reading this please contact me! I’d love to stay at your hotel again for free!

Arriving to the Jungle Club helped us forget the horrible 24 hours we had spent in search of the perfect beach bungalow. We had arrived at Lamai beach only to find our confirmed email reservation didn’t mean anything. They had given up our bungalow before we got there. We then chose another place that ended up ripping us off for one shitty ass sleep. It seemed everything was going wrong that day.

We walked around and found another place to stay, Sunshine Bungalows. It had WIFI, was on the beach, and wasn’t too expensive at 700 baht. We checked in, put our bags down and went for some food right away. While we were eating we overheard the owner talking to someone about a bungalow for 400 baht, and as soon as he left we asked her about it. It seems she didn’t show us that one because it was “small” but we could change to it if we wanted to. So, we moved into the smaller bungalow, went to the beach to watch the comets and then to bed.

Well, the pillows were shit, the bed wasn’t any better, the bathroom door didn’t close and the beach had broken coral sand that makes my feet want to cry. The next morning we immediately decided to get the f* out of there (GTFO). The problem was on checkout, the crazy lady was charging us the 700 baht not the 400. She said that she had to clean the sheets of the bungalow we didn’t stay in – which wasn’t needed nor done I’m sure. 15 minutes of going nowhere arguing went by that resulted in Scott throwing the extra money at her as we left. Word to the wise, if your looking for accommodation on Lamai Beach, don’t go to Sunshine Bungalows. They don’t have mosquito nets, there outer and inner doors do not seal, the WIFI is weak and very slow, their beds are crap and they like to rip you off. You’d be much better going to the next place we went to!

We found ourselves an internet cafe and searched once again for a place to stay on Koh Samui, beach or not. Just something different! I saw the words “Jungle Club” go by on the screen and thought to myself the worlds jungle and club in the same sentence has never failed us and I told Scott to click on it. Low and behold we found a very unique place to spend our last days on the island.

The Jungle Club is located at the top of a mountain on Koh Samui between Chaweng and Lamai beach. The only way to get to it is by a 4×4, up a very steep and bumpy dirt road. It’s quite an adventure just to get there! Before I say anymore let me show you some pictures.

  

  

Has anyone ever seen a nicer looking infinity pool?

Don’t these images make you want to stay here?? I know they sure make me want to go back. On top of this beautiful place, the staff are amazing, the food is divine (GREEN CURRY FOR THE WIN!), the blended drinks are mouth watering, and the free wifi actually WORKS! You can even get a massage up here, play a game of volleyball/badminton, watch a DVD movie and use their free shuttle to town twice a day. Looking to stay in something more luxurious? They do have more expensive guesthouses that all look like a perfect romantic getaway. Seriously, if you are coming to Koh Samui, try and stay here!! I can’t stress this enough. The only drawback of the Jungle Club is the restaurant is a bit more expensive… but you are at the top of a hard to access mountain, what else can you expect? Check out their website here and book yourself a hut!

It was a day in our travels we’ve been anticipating for many years. To finally set foot onto a small island in thailand and enjoy the carefree beach life. To stay in a small beach bungalow for mere dollars a day. To frolic in the sand and float in the calm ocean. To bask in the sun and have to apply sunscreen so many times in one day it gets hard to count. To stare at the pristine beauty of white sand, palm trees, and crystal blue water. Yes, I have been REALLY looking forward to this portion of our travels.

Our decision to go Koh Samui as our first island experience was a logistics one. We had about 10 days left with our entry stamps in Thailand before we needed to do a visa run. After much research we decided flying to Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia was the easiest for us to obtain our actual tourist Visas, so spending time on a island with an international airport was key.

Looks like paradise is covered in rain!

Much like any first time experience, my first thai island experience was not at all how I envisioned it. Our travel to the island included all forms of transportation. Land, Sea and Air. We flew from Bangkok to Surat Thani, took a mini bus to the Don Sak ferry, then took the ferry over to the island. We’ve heard many a story about the ferries of Thailand, from bad to good. Our ride was quite pleasant. We opted to sit outside right at the front of the boat. Drank some beers and just chatted about life. Samui came into sight and it appeared half the island was covered in rain clouds. Soon enough we had to vacate from our outside seats as it started to downpour on us. However, it passed and we arrived to the island under a hot glowing sun.

Our chosen accommodation for Samui was a tricky one. All of our searching for that perfect beach bungalow came up dismal. It didn’t seem to exist on the island, or if it did the place was way too overpriced, or looked like a heap of garbage. So instead we found a place called Tropical Garden Lounge, Mae Nom beach on hostelbookers.com with a decent rate. It had a pool with swim up bar, was only 8 min walk to the beach and free wifi! We figured we’d go here, then search the island with our own eyes for that beach bungalow.

Much to our surprise, Tropical Garden Lounge was a treat. The bungalow was amazing with a huge comfy bed, the pool was divine and a swim up bar where you can play Jenga with the bartender. It’s an unbeatable way to spend your afternoons, especially when he lets you plug in your own music to listen to!

But we still wanted to stay right on a beach, so we mustered up the energy to walk down to the beach and check out what sort of options there were. The walk seemed longer than 8 minutes, something we have found often in Thailand. The walking times are always far off! We had to cut through a fancy complex of ‘Buy to own” beachfront bungalows with private pools before we set foot onto the beach itself.

The beach was picturesque in terms of the water and palm trees, but the sand did not make my feet happy. Infact, the further we walked down the beach the more and more the sand made me want to cry! To the point it wasn’t even sand anymore, but just sharp pieces of broken up coral, making it impossible to walk on. We soon decided this beach was not for us and didn’t even bother to look at the cheaper beach bungalows available.

We still ended up extending our stay at Tropical Garden Lounge longer then we expected as it really was a great little place. However time came that we felt we should see the rest of the island and check out the other beaches to see if they were any better. We read some good reviews about Lamai beach having good budget options on a nice beach so that is where we are heading.