Thailand forum

Exacto,

It may not be backpacker style, but on Lamai Beach, Lamai Wanta is an absolute steal if you opt for one of the hotel style rooms, and their staff and restaurant are both excellent. It is often full, so you may want to drop them a line beforehand. One complaint is the jetskiis out front... Another good one is Samui Jasmine, which I was very impressed with, but again, its a resort.

For a more "old style samui feel" New Lamai Coconut is great, while if you want to go "super budget" New Hut and Beers are two good ones.

As you're going to be fasting while on Lamai this isn't such an issue, but I found the restaurant and bar scene on Lamai very very poor -- another reason why we gave Lamai Wanta the good write up we did. The bar-scene is dominated by bar-beers and very much aimed as single (or not) guys...

On Mae Nam, Home Bay has a great beach location (western end of the beach) and the beachfront bungalows are great -- a little old, but still very good. Up the eastern end there's a string of budget ones, of which Moon Huts is a personal favourite -- though when I passed through there recently, the UK owner was on holiday in the UK and the staff were very much on a "go slow" -- so slow in fact they had closed the restaurant till he returns -- much to the other guests horror!

Mae Nam Cheer was another very new place, that showed some promise.

With Big Buddha, the bar scene has really slipped down-market -- sufficiently I wouldn't bother staying there (particularly when combined with overflight noise) -- and I'd suggest considering Bophut instead -- Red House is unlike anything else on Samui, while Chalee Villa -- right up the other end of Bophut (past Zazan) has a couple of ok budget huts.

Lastly, if time allows try to fit in a drive up to Jungle Huts ... super spot, but a long long way from anything...

Oh and one more thing, there three bungalow operations on Ko Taen (the smallisland off the south coast of Samui) -- while I didn't have time to visit it this trip, I've heard it's a lovely spot...

cheers to both of you for the excellent suggestions. we'll have a look. thanks.

i saw that neeners was pretty keen on moon huts too there at mae nam beach, but that some of the other reviews weren't as enthusiastic.

thanks too somtam for the bkk to samui feature. we just booked a thai air asia flight online this morning, and are looking forward to the trip.

thanks again for the suggestions. for our time on mae nam beach, we stumbled across a place called Ubon Villa, which Travelfisher cmuell had recommened in a review of a different guesthouse. we paid 300 baht for a basic cold water bath room with fan. what we really liked about the place was the laid back and friendly atmosphere of this family-run place.

while walking the beach, we stopped in at new star, which has a free BBQ and punch night on sundays, along with a big beach bonfire that we really enjoyed.