First, let me just say, "I hate Koh Samui." In fact, I hate it so much that if Chaweng Beach broke off the island and fell into the ocean it would only be an improvement. (OK...maybe I shouldn't put that bad kind of energy into the universe, but seriously, Koh Samui sucks.) Like the leper colonies of old, this island has a similar colony though made up entirely of leches. It was disgusting. Old smarmy men licking their damn lips when they are talking to you....BLECH! I needed a shower after I returned from walking down the street.
And the beach...was lame. Out of the 5 days I was there, I only managed to go to the beach once and it didn't appear that I was missing much. There were people lounging at beach side bars from one end of the beach to the other. The music was excessively loud, the drinks were excessively expensive and it was crowded. Totally not my scene. (I know, I'm getting old!)
Seriously, unless you really, really, really like drinking from sun up to sun down, paying US prices for watered down or nasty tasting drinks, and being completely surrounded by other loud, obnoxious tourists who have no sense of personal space, then by all means, go to Koh Samui.
But be warned, they are loud and drunk...all the freaking time. My god, they serve drinks out of a plastic garbage pail, similar to what we used to build sand castles with when we were kids. And there are "Happy Hour all day" signs...WTF???
I'm all for a good time, but need it be all the time. Really??? Furthermore, it truly didn't help that my travel partner picked the one hotel that had to shoot off fireworks every night above the hotel. I think I was suffering from shell shock....I swear it seemed like we were under fire every night!
On the bright side, we did find a wonderful spa called Sivara that offered a lovely 4 hour spa package for around 5500 baht. It was in an awesome private room with an enormous jacuzzi tub, a separate shower/steam room. It almost mitigated the whole bombing experience and smarmy men....almost.
