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!
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.
Whole pig on BBQ
View from the upper floor
We took Plate No.1 for two
Salads and dressing to go with scrumptious meats
Australia 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.
...continue in next post
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 meats
Australia 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....continue in next post
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