My wife Ying and I were invited to stay at Santiburi Beach Resort (http://www.agoda.com/santiburi-beach-resort-spa/hotel/samui-th.html?CID=1452029 affiliate link) on the island of Koh Samui for a couple of nights, and since neither of us had ever been to Koh Samui, we decided to go for it.
How to get from Bangkok to Koh Samui: There are a number of different options, depending on how much you want to spend and how much time you want to take. The fastest and most expensive way is to take a direct flight from Bangkok to Koh Samui on either Thai Airways or Bangkok Airways. The cheaper way to go is to take a flight from Bangkok to Surat Thani (สุราษฎร์ธานี), then take a bus to Donsak pier, and then take a ferry to Koh Samui – that’s what we did. You could also alternatively take a bus to Surat and do the same thing. We took a flight with Air Asia, which took 1 hour, then we took a bus which took another 1.5 hours to the ferry terminal. Then we had a 45 minute layover, and took the Seatran Ferry to Koh Samui which also took 1.5 hours. We left Bangkok at about 7 am and arrived in Koh Samui just after noon.
For our first lunch, we headed to a restaurant right at Nathon in Koh Samui just a 10 minute walk from the ferry. The food was alright, but not anything amazing. The best dish for me was the gaeng som, sour curry with turmeric and fish. That was pretty good, but the rest of the food was alright at best. After having a quick lunch, Ying and I jumped in the back of a rot songthaew (the back of the truck pickup public transportation in Thailand) and headed north to a beach on Koh Samui called Mae Nam. We got dropped off right in front of Santiburi Beach Resort and then walked into our resort for the next 2 nights.
Santiburi Beach Resort was incredible – and we had an ocean view villa right on the beach. The inside of our villa was probably the nicest place I’ve ever stayed. The design was elegant Thai, and there was an open seating room, then the main bedroom, and a giant bathroom with a circular tub, two sinks, and a huge walk in closet. Just outside the shower was a private courtyard with out own personal swimming pool. Santiburi Beach Resort was was even better outside – the grounds were well manicured with tropical flowers and plants, and the beach was perfectly maintained, quiet, and with a nice view of Koh Pha Ngan in the background. The water was beautiful. They invited us to try the spa, so that afternoon we went to enjoy the spa and I had the most amazing spa massage I’ve ever had – but I’ve only had a massage a few times in my life – nevertheless it was amazing. For dinner we ate at Santiburi Beach Resort and their beachside restaurant called Rim Talay. Overlooking the beach, it was a beautiful atmosphere and they served international food. The food was overall very good.
This video vlog is for Day 1, traveling from Bangkok to Koh Samui and checking into Santiburi Beach Resort.
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Music in this video is from Audio Network
This travel food video was produced by Mark Wiens and Ying Wiens, check out our blogs: http://migrationology.com/blog & http://www.eatingthaifood.com/ & http://www.travelbyying.com/
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NOTE: I was invited to stay at Santiburi Beach Resort from my blog (http://migrationology.com/blog/), NOT from my videos. But I personally decided to make this vlog just on my own because I wanted to, and all thoughts and opinions in this video are my own.