4D3N Trip to Samui - Day 3 & Final

The day started with a quick jump into the pool (again)…That was the first thing I did the minute I opened my eyes (of course after a quick shower). I just could not resist the clear water viewed through the glass windows from bed. What I loved most is the warm temperature of the pool water. Not sure if there is any temperature control to maintain level of heat, but the water is perfect be it during day or night time swim.

The room were provided with free breakfast served at the hotel’s restaurant, 4K which is pronounced as Fork…a very creative name indeed! The breakfast came with three selection of main dishes: (1) Asian – with choice of seafood/chicken porridge and 5 other side dishes like salted egg with pickled vegetables, fried egg, Thai sausage, stir fried vegetable and stir fried assorted mushrooms; (2) European – omelet, sausages, kidney beans, fruits; (3) Thai – several choices of fried noodle/rice Thai style. On top of that, there were buffet lines with assorted breads, cereals + nuts, salads, yogurts, cold cut fruits, juices, tea and coffee. Of course we had a very satisfying meal to start our day…at the pool!

4K Restaurant

Morning view from the restaurant

It was till 5pm that we finally drag ourselves out from the pool to get ready for dinner. Since free ride from X2 to Chaweng is part of the services given to all X2’s customers, we decided to head back to Chaweng to hunt for nice restaurant for a romantic dinner together. By 6pm, our ride left for Chaweng and dropped us at the Central of the busy street. Our chauffeur would come to pick us back to X2 by 10pm, so we got ourselves sufficient time for dinner and foot massage. We took a little stroll along the many shops and restaurant before finally decided on Monkey Bay Beach restaurant with tables on candle light right on the beach.

Candle light dinner

Neon lights coconut tree

Thai Spring Rolls

Local Thai delights

It is absolutely nice to feel the sand on your feet while enjoying dinner with your loved ones. When the dinner is done, we went for an hour long foot massage at only 250 Baht each.

By the time we were done with the relaxing massage, it is almost time for us to catch the ride back to hotel. Our last night spent at Villa No. 03 ended with more dip in the private pool and bubble bath!

Morning came and we had to take early ride from Koh Samui back to Penang. The journey home got us stuck middle of nowhere when the bus that carried us broke down. It was till nearly two hours later that a replacement bus came to bring us all the way to Hatyai. Unfortunately we were half an hour too late to catch the last ride, hence were forced to stay overnight at Hatyai for the next day ride to Penang.

Verdict: Excellent hotel room and great foods! But I do have to stress on one thing though...X2 rooms is only for 'licensed' couple, not suitable for friends. Reason? The whole villa is all glass and therefore see-through when one in shower or even when answering the 'nature-calls'. Enjoy!

4D3N Trip to Samui - Day 2

Our second day started with us leaving AKWA Guesthouse to head down south of Koh Samui to X2 Resorts by Hua Thanon beach. Before we got ourselves a taxi, we went for a little grocery shopping to stock up our inventories of drinks and tidbits from the famous 7-Eleven chain. Our breakfast or rather brunch (breakfast + lunch) was just simple Thai food of crab meat fried rice, deep fried seafood glass noodle, fried meat + prawn paste and the famous mango glutinous rice as dessert.

Crab meat fried rice

Deep fried glass noodle

With our tummy filled, we started our journey to X2 Resorts. The arrival at X2 Resort after a 30-minutes ride, greeted us with spacious and modern designed lobby. We were welcomed with nice cold fragrant towel and cups of refreshing cold green tea.

Main Entrance

Within minutes, the registration were all done and we were brought to our room, Villa No. 03. The hotel staff took the courtesy to show us around the hotel surrounding and what will be our room for the next two days. She then left us to enjoy the facilities by ourselves.

Villa No. 03

The first thing I did was to get hold of the small iPOD remote to search for a nice relaxing song. And then, the shooting session begins!

Little note from the management & iPOD remote

Comfy bed

Apple TV loaded with musics and movies, free wi-fi connections, DVD player (which we never had the opportunity to watch any DVDs)

Outdoor sun lounges Bathtub with garden view Outdoor shower
Bathroom
Open space toilet Daily fresh fruits

The next thing we did was took off our clothes and off into the 30 sqm private pool. Though the villa was all glass and window, but do not worry about being seen by anyone peeking through. One of the hotel motto is “Privacy without Isolation’ and indeed is it true. The whole villa is fully covered from outsiders except for the two of us to enjoy the 162 sqm villa.

30 sqm private pool

Sun Lounges by the Pool

We went out to explore the hotel surrounding after the short dip. There were very few guest during our stay, probably it was due to the low season during this time of the year.

Public swimming pool
2.40 meter deep pool Public sun lounges 4K (pronounced as Fork) Restaurant Beach benches to relax

The day was rather hot and humid. Seems that our private pool is the best place to be. It was till almost dinner time that we finally drag ourselves out from the pool to have dinner at 4K Restaurant. The restaurant provides a ‘mix match’ of eastern and western dishes and the best of fusion but not really to our liking, so the dinner was quick and easy. Probably we are still craving for the scrumptious BBQ meats we had the night before. After the dinner, we went for a little walk around the hotel pool area for some night shots and relax by the public sun launges to watch the stars before headed back to our private pool again!

Night view of X2 Pool

Night view of hotel public pool 4K Restaurant all lit-up

There were little candles prepared earlier by the hotel management. Obviously, we lit all them and surrounded the pool to create a cozy and romantic mood. Then finally to add on to the ecstasy, Lays potato chips and cold Bacardi Breezer. Ahhh….this is simply heaven!

All glassed room

Cozy lighting

Bathroom by night Pool at night

Candles everywhere

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4D3N Trip to Samui - Day 1

Coming November will be our first wedding anniversary, so we wanted to make it a special occasion for just the two of us. Knowing that there will be no extended holiday weekend during the November month (unless we took annual leave) we decided to pull in, since the Raya holidays coincidentally falls on one September weekend - giving us four days off to plan for a short getaway to nearby countries. We scope down to island getaway and obviously nowhere else has better and cost affordable island holiday other than Thailand…hence the searching begun.

It took us several weeks of internet browsing to look for a perfect island and more importantly an ideal accommodation to spend some relaxing moment together before we finally decided on one privately owned five star boutique hotel chain, called X2 (pronounced as Cross To) Resorts located at the Gulf of Thailand, Koh Samui. I send in some enquiries to find out more on the room rates and availability. To our surprise, the room is available during our travel period and we got ourselves a Pool Villa at an offered price for our special occasion. Now, we just have to worry about getting there. Flight tickets were too expensive due to the holiday season, so it had to be by land to minimize the total expenditure. Of course it’s going to be a very long journey, but we had to save come cost in transportation to compensate the slightly over budget accommodation expenses. So we finally got the transport tickets booked, hotel reservation confirmed for a 4 days and 3 nights trip, my passport renewed…hmmm, what else?! Weekend please come faster!

Map of Samui

Weekend finally came and we were both excited to start our long journey to Koh Samui. I could not wait any longer to see our *aherm* luxury villa with private pool and the Apple TV...all that other tourists have been commenting on how marvelous the place is. Our journey started at 5am on Saturday morning, traveled by van from Penang then stopped at Changloon for a short while before headed north to the border for immigration clearance. We then continued the journey to Hatyai to change to another van that brings us all the way to Suratthani and again changed van to bring us to the harbor for a 1.5-hours speed boat ride to the island. By the time we reach Koh Samui pier, it is already 5pm local time…approximately 13 hours journey all the way from Penang to Koh Samui including stops! Gosh…right at that moment, I do hope the villa better be a real good hotel to compensate for that long journey on the road!

For our first night at Koh Samui, we wanted to explore a little of the famous hot tourist spot, Chaweng Beach. During my internet browsing back at home, I found a cozy little place at the south of Chaweng called AKWA Guesthouse. The place looked amazing from the internet pictures with all the comics characters and colorful backdrop to cheer up the room. So it got to be AKWA Guesthouse then! From the pier, we hooked up with a taxi to drop us right at the front door of AKWA Guesthouse. We asked for a standard room which supposed to cost us 700 Baht but we managed to get at 600 Baht with a little bargain *grin*. To our luck, we got upgrade to a better room for free courtesy from AKWA! What a great deal we got for just 600 Baht!

We were showed to our room and happily greeted by a huge Mickey Mouse (butt) poster on the wall and a little green furry friend. There were many Mr. P everywhere in the room…clothes hanger, table lamp, door stopper etc. I simply loved the colorful settings of the room. Ohh…the room even came with wi-fi, stories books and plenty of DVDs…all for free! For the cost of 600 Baht…the room is marvelous!

Mickey's poster

Colorful assorted pillows

TV and bright colored sofa
Mr. P's table lamp
Bathroom

After a quick shower, we then hit the busy street of Chaweng to hunt for foods. For dinner, we settled down at Andaman Ocean Steak House-Seafood. I will let the pictures do the talking.

Big signage

Whole pig on BBQ

View from the upper floor

We took Plate No.1 for two
Salads and dressing to go with scrumptious meatsAustralia Fillet Steak (2), Spare Ribs (2), Tiger Prawns (4), Chicken Wings (3), Pork Chops (2)

Our tummy was filled with all the scrumptious meats. We needed a little walk to ease the digestion, so we took a stroll along the busy street. We were busy looking at shops and people without realized that we had reached the upper part of Chaweng. Our legs are too tired for the long walk, so we had to catch a Tut Tut for 50 Baht each to drop us back to our room. That was the end of day one where we bought nothing except for one pebbles bracelet, full tummy and tired legs.

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A Walk in the Garden

I have lost count of the many times that we kept wanting to visit one of Penang’s famous tourist spot, Penang Hill but never actually happened. It was only last weekend that we finally step our foot there again, after so many years since our last visit.

We reach the base of Penang Hill around noon and there isn’t much visitors except for some foreign tourist. I overheard from one of the workers conversation with a tourist that the lack of visitors are due to Ramadhan month. On normal weekends, even the queue to buy the train tickets would be so long and you can imagine how packed the train going to be with everyone trying to cramped in just like sardine in tin. But lucky us on that day, there isn’t any queue at all and we managed to get on the next train without any delay. The journey up took us roughly about 15 minutes to reach the middle station and another 15 minutes to reach to the top of the hill. The weather was gloomy with little drizzle but we certainly enjoyed the colder and fresher air up there.

Railway from the top

Penang Hill has not change much over the years. So basically there is nothing much to do either. We just took some walk around, enjoying the garden view and sceneries overlooking to the heart of Penang, Georgetown and across the island, Butterworth. We stopped for ice kacang (a local favorite dessert with shaved ice, colorful sugar syrups and assorted fruits, jelly and nuts) to avoid the rain from wetting us. When the rain stops, we continue our explorations again *smile*

View from the top

The heart of Penang - Georgetown view

Bunga Raya

There is one place that I feel in love with, though. David Brown’s Restaurant and Tea Terrace – “A British-styled restaurant with authentic heritage ambience serving fine British cooking and local favorites”, as quoted by the owner. The restaurant that is sitting on top of Strawberry hill has a stunning view of Penang Island's city and port view. The surrounding is full of plants and beautiful flowers. Right in front of the building, there is a large lily pond full of blooming lilies. As the weather was pretty pleasant during our visit, we took the outdoor table and ordered a set of tuna sandwiches to go with the fruit tea. It is definitely a nice get-away place from the city to sit back and relax while enjoying the afternoon tea with my loved ones.

David Brown's Restaurant & Tea Terrace

Garden

Interior

We stayed for quite a while to enjoy the beautiful garden before we head back home!