Koh Samui

- Koh Samui island is one of the absolute top tourist destinations in Thailand.

Beautiful beaches with breathtaking panoramas almost everywhere.

Hot nightlife and beach parties (most famous are the  monthly Full Moon Parties) are a top attraction. Myriads of restaurants on Koh Samui (some right on the beach) with the usual wide selection of tasty seafood, curries, white meat and red meat give you any reason to be happy. Koh Samui Bars are plenty and a might-be companion is almost for sure waiting there for some action.

Moving around the island is quite easy. Rent a car or a “motocyc” and use the ring road which will leads automatically to most of the scenic spots on Koh Samui. Koh Samui Thailand has around 45 000 permanent residents and the true locals have their roots in the Malay Peninsula and in southern China. It is not known when they first came to the island. Koh Samui lies adjacent to the small archipelago of Ang Thong National Marine Park in the Gulf of southern Thailand just off Surat Thani province.

Samui has a great atmosphere and is a busy spot like many other Islands in Thailand. Driving along the circular road either by a rented car or rented motor bike will continuously open great views towards the emerald sea. Aside of the great beach scenery Koh Samui is quite often a big helter skelter where an almost uncontrolled market economy broke free. There are myriads of hotels, beach resorts, bungalows, cottages, apartments, villas and so on waiting for the tourists, many of the them are right on the beachfront and you can just walk from your room into the sea without having to cross a road.

Some great waterfalls on Koh Samui invite for a splash in the basin or maybe watch a monkey show where the small monkey rush up the coconut palm and harvest coconuts.

Koh Samui is not only for jump and splash visitors, some come and never leave, or maybe only to Ranong on the visa run.

More and more people encounter Koh Samui as a retirement destination moving in to have a life near the beach or elsewhere, its affordable, offers a reasonable infrastructure -ok I know it could be better- but what can we do?

Very popular are elephant ride's in the still dense tropical jungle, its more a mixed jungle with tress and bamboo thickets. Tropical life with lush vegetation, good food, nice beaches and so on, it's the right place to have a good life, but take enough money with you, don't think you can make a living in Koh Samui beaches there is not much to work for western guys and gals.

Healthcare is also not so bad and quite lower priced than in Europe, US etc. but healthcare prices are moving upwards quite quickly.

Things to enjoy are not only some diving in the emerald waters around Koh Samui, one could also explore the many islands around with pristine, hidden beaches. Some attractive waterfalls -nam tok- in Thai and a untouched vegetation, on the islands off Koh Samui and on some parts on Koh Samui itself are to be explored.

Some parts of Koh Samui are still calm with a emerald water front, white to yellow beaches so the attraction to move in is permanent.

But keep in mind Koh Samui might be not your tropical paradise, its very back to earth business.

Northern Koh Samui and the Southwest of Koh Samui are new tourist hotspots.
 

Koh Samui Lady Monk

Koh Samui temple guardian

Koh Samui beautiful beach

Koh Samui at Chaweng Beach

- The little problem this days is that the whole island is extremely over commercialized,

unfortunately the people don't know when enough is enough. This applies especially to the only airline flying to the island and make flights from Bangkok to Koh Samui the most expensive ones to any destination in Thailand, the philosophy behind this behavior is a very simple one, since 95% of all visitors to Koh Samui are foreigners, ..milk the foreigner.

There are so many other attractive holiday destinations in Thailand like Phuket, Krabi, Trang ... actually Trang is the best of all, they are just not able to market themselves properly Bangkok Air charged not long ago a airport tax of about US$ 50,- when using Koh Samui airport, the foreigners had no choice since there is only one airport and it belongs to Bangkok Air. Keep one thing in mind when you consider to choose Koh Samui and the area around for your holiday, its a extreme material world.

Construction works in Koh Samui are going on since several years, villas, houses, condos, with our without pools are on 24 hours almost everywhere, not cheap stuff and one should keep in mind that in Koh Samui like elsewhere in Thailand foreigners cant own land. So if  foreigner wants to buy some property peculiar legal constructions are needed, inviting some funny games to pull money from the buyer. If you think maybe to move in with a local girlfriend, be very careful, it happens all the time that after all legal works is done, the girl has all homework finished, she will drop you a paper to move out and come in with her Thai boy friend who was hidden in the back or just sell the stuff, move back to Isaan and have enough money for the rest of here life. You have no chance to challenge this in legal terms.