Thailand Destination Guide 2020

KOH SAMUI & KOH PHANGAN
A popular backpacking destination and a vacation spot for those
looking for a little luxury and pampering
Koh Samui is the third largest island of
Thailand, after Koh Chang. It is located off
the country’s east coast, off the Kra Isthmus.
It is in the Chumphon Archipelago and is
part of the province known as Surat Thani.
The island is an extremely popular tourist
destination, which is visited by many different
people with a range of different interests and
backgrounds each year. This is at one and the
same time a popular backpacking destination
and a vacation spot for those looking for a
little luxury and pampering.
Koh Samui is chic, sophisticated and sanitised.
It is a shiny place whose wrinkles all seem
to have been airbrushed over. Yet this is
also an island of endless charm, in spite of
its heavily tourist-orientated side. This is a
place that retains little authenticity, but is
none the less perhaps what people conjure
to their minds when they think of the perfect
beach-bliss vacation, complete with clear
seas, white-sand beaches and coconut palm
fringed coastlines. The beaches of the island
itself and the access from this island to more
remote and more unspoiled islands make this
one of Thailand’s premier destinations.
Koh Samui has an area of 228.7km sq. It
measures around 25km at its widest point.
It is surrounded by over sixty other islands,
many of which are popular tourist destinations
in their own right. These are included within
the Angthong Marine National Park. The
centre of the island is an almost uninhabitable
tropical jungle, the highest point of which is
635m above sea level. While it is more difficult
to penetrate the lush centre of the island, it
is easy to travel around the coast, where the
settlements are joined by a 51km road which
encircles the bulk of the island.
The centre of life on Samui was long
considered to be Nathon. But though Nathon
is still the seat of the regional government and
the centre of the fishing industry and goods
transportation, the tourism industry has grown
and the commercial centre is shifting towards
Chaweng, due to the north-eastern location
of the airport and a range of other factors.
For most tourists, Chaweng is an appealing
place to stay as it offers the widest range of
facilities and nightlife. Lamai and Maenam are
somewhat less crowded and offer a more laidback
vibe, popular with young backpackers.
Bophut is a more sophisticated choice of
resort, with a distinctly Mediterranean feel to
its sophisticated beach-front village.
Samui has changed dramatically in the last fifty
or so years. When you visit the island today
it is hard to believe that until late in the 20th
Century, Koh Samui was an isolated and largely
self-sufficient community which has little
connection with mainland Thailand, let alone
with the rest of the world. There were no
roads here until the 1970s and the 15km trek
from one side of the island to the other took
a long and arduous day as one would have to
pass through the central mountainous jungle.
The climate in Samui is one of tropical
monsoons. There is technically only one ‘dry
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