Chaweng Walking Street

Saturday night, fun and music.

Chaweng walking street has the feel of a market -- nothing fancy. You'll see many happy people buying cheap food and drinks and enjoying the festive yet calm atmosphere.

The first gay bar on Samui

Across the street from the second gay bar, you'll find Gay Point, a bar that sells drinks for about 20% less than Pride, and offers oil massages, including naked ones with a happy ending. Its trashier, it's more crowded, and you get peanuts with your beer.
Really close to the k-club.

The place looks a lot less fancy, and feels a little more like youth hostel -- which sounds weird but feels nice and friendly. Come in for a few drings, maybe meet some cool guys.

The second gay bar on Samui

Pride, the second gay bar on the island, is never packed. Come in for a drink before going on to the next bar. Playful videos and a few guys inside. Techno music. That's pretty much it. ;)

If you like the more modern design, the TVs playing various party and music videos (usually showing good looking guys with minimal clothing) and club music, this is your place.

Gaeng Phet Restaurant

On the north of Chaweng main road, not far south of the best massage spa on the island, there's a cheerful restaurant that offers Thai food and seafood, plus some western dishes. 

Beer is served in a chilled glass, which I didn't expect to find in a humble place like this. I guess that means it's tourist oriented. The red wine was a little disappointing, but that is to be expected: Thailand in general is not a wine country. We had Pad Thai with shrimp -- excellent, and pad siew with tofu -- very good. The starters -- shrimp and veggie spring rolls -- were also fun and delicious. 

Papaya Salad Issian and Thai Food (restaurant on Koh Phangan)

We picked a random place on the side of the road from the pier to the west beach of Phangan. It looked like a good place because the locals ate there as well.

Just a small hut to the left of the main road, 100 meters south to the Big C.

Prices are 80 baht or under for anything on the menu. We ordered fried cashew and pork, and fried broccoli with tofu. Both dishes were extremely fresh and delicious -- probably more than anywhere else we ate on the trip.

It felt like a family place, and the staff was super friendly and cheerful. Really made us smile.

If you get lucky you will also have a little friend for lunch, we had a cute little puppy to play with until the food arrived.

Koh Phangan

Much less developed than Koh Samui, Phangan feels more like a village.

Boat to Koh Phangan

We used the seaflower Had Rin Queen to go from Samui to Phangan because the departure times were better for us and the ride is only 45 minutes.

There are other, better boats and the staff is not very friendly but if you come for the day you want to come back late as possible.

We took the boat at 10:30 and returned at 17:30. Since we booked through one of the local tour agencies we paid 100 baht extra per ticket and they had a car take us to the pier at Samui and pick us up on the return trip.

If you book by yourself the ticket will cost you 200 baht. You can do that online.

Food Market near the lake

Parallel to the main street in Chaweng is a cheerful little food market, very colorful and filled with delicious food stands. Prices vary from cheap to expensive: 10 baht per sushi piece (ok), cut pineapple 100 (super expensive), plate of fried chicken 50 (good), Belgian waffle 20 (ok). 

Everything we ate was fresh and yummy, and the experience was much intensified by the colorful appearance of this street market. In the evening it becomes a little clubbier with lights and music coming from one of the stands that serves as a bar.

The only thing missing is tables where you can sit and eat your food, but that is easily remedied by crossing the street to the other side of the road where you'll find a beautiful, calm park looking at the lake, where stone and wood benches are available if you don't feel like sitting on the grass.

The breakfast table

I managed to get thoroughly confused at breakfast. It seems that meat is a breakfast food here. Noodles too. The sign said "noodles with vegetables" but what they really meant was noodles with some vegetables, eggs and chicken. If you're a vegetarian like me, always ask because anything can have chicken or something in it.

What I found most surprising was that the saltshaker with three holes had no salt in it; instead, it had white pepper.

While eating a pepper coated egg I pondered on what I'll find when I try the one holed shaker. I was expecting black pepper; it was salt.

I guess that means they use less salt than us (and far more white pepper).

So there you have it: one hole -- salt, more holes -- pepper.

Getting around Koh Samui

They drive on the left side of the road here!

Walking is fun the first night, maybe. But you're on vacation.

The island's road system is well developed so you can get everywhere with a scooter. There are many scooter accidents in Samui, mainly because the drivers are tourists who lack motorbike experience (no one will check you even have a driver's license), are not used to driving on the left side of the road, don't feel like putting on a helmet, and provably all of the above. So please, if you get a scooter, be careful.

Expect to pay 150-200 a day (your rate will be lower if you rent for a whole week).
If your hotel rents out scooters, prefer renting from it. Other rental shops will want to hold on to your passport; don't ever do that. Your hotel doesn't need that from you.

If you sleep in Chaweng beach you'll be a walking distance from the many restaurants and nightclubs on the long Chaweng main street. That way you can party and not drive home drunk.

All taxis on Samui island go for a fixed price (300 baht is the standard rate inside Chaweng).

From the airport, there's a private taxi service which is quite expensive (you can find a partner and split the fare) or there's a minibus service that goes along the island's beaches and drops you off at your hotel for a reduced fee. The drive is short and there really isn't much reason in taking a private taxi unless you are in a rush or have too much money for your own good. If the case is the latter, I don't mind taking some of that dangerous money off your hands.

Massage

A massage shouldn't cost over 200 baht off the beach. On the beach it may cost 300 for an hour or 200 for 40 minutes -- expect everything to cost more on the beach.

From our experience, a massage on the beach -- while pleasant due to the location and the sound of the waves -- is not as good as a massage in a parlor.

The best massage we had was at a parlor on a street off the city center not far from our hotel at 11 o'clock at night from a group of cheerful girls who did their work with great care. It cost 200 baht for an hour of expertly executed massage.

The beach massage was more expensive and done with less passion but your mileage may well vary. The masseurs were distracted and not very attentive to us.

Galanga

We made a local friend today, and he recommended we try this place for dinner for its reasonable prices and good food.

Happy hour is practically all day long, which looks like a cheap marketing trick but it works -- we both had two drinks. We had a banana margarita and a mojito - both were generous and delicious.

The crispy asparagus appetizer was great.

I had a tofu salad which was good and very spicy (if you don't have a taste for spicy foods ask first!) and the mister had pork noodles which he liked very much.

We found the prices to be a bit on the expensive side.

Galanga
168/55 Moo2 Tambol Bophut, Koh Samui, Suratthani 84320, Chaweng Beach