Thailand forum

They're very different beaches. Choengmon is quite small and more fits the "gleaming white sand" postcard idea, while Maenam is a very long, yellower sand beach, with quite coarse sand in places. There's far more places to stay at the latter and I've never, ever seen it overcrowded. Choengmon, given it's smaller size, gets a little more crowded and attracts more daytrippers at it is not toooo far from Chaweng.

All that said, if I was choosing one over the other, for a quite beach vacation, I'd pick Mae Nam.

I've not seen Sala Peninsula, but I found Sala Samui to be a particularly lavish little spot. The rooms were excellent with ample-sized private plunge pools and had all the mod cons you'd expect at their rather wicked prices. I also found the staff there to be outstanding -- and I mean really, really helpful and obliging. The pools down at the beach are well placed, overall I was very impressed -- I'd say Sala Samui and Evason remain the two top resorts on Samui (of the properties I've inspected)

Napasai is also very good, but personally I found Sala Samui to be the more impressive of the two. My impression of Napasai is clouded by the woman who showed me around -- very curt, with that patronising air you sometimes encounter at these high-end type places. The rooms were well decked out and pretty well positioned -- the pool was very photogenic -- as is the entire resort -- but I just felt it didn't live up to expectations. Yes it's on Ban Bai beach, which is around the western hook of Maenam -- it's a pretty isolated stretch, and from memory -- I could be wrong -- the beach was rocky out front -- I'm not positive though.

In my opinion, Santiburi is a non-starter compared to the above.

Hope that helps!