Koh Samui
The island Koh Samui
Koh Samui is, with 247 km˛, the third biggest island of Thailand. It’s located, protected from tsunamis, in the South Chinese Sea, 700km from Bangkok and 35km in front of the Sura Thanis coast line. Its 35 000 inhabitants are mostly religious Buddists.
There is no written history of the island but tradition has it that it was settled by Malaysian fishermen and seagoing traders from China 1500 years ago. Apart from coconut farming and constantly growing tourism, fishery is the commercial mainstay of the island. The annual temperature ranges between 25° and 35° Celsius, with the rainy season in November. The beaches with developed infrastructure are situated at Chaweng, Mae Nam, Bo Phut and Lamai, with the rest of the island retaining its natural and wild romantic charm.
This amazing beautiful tropical paradise is 25 kilometres long and 21 kilometres wide. The interiorr of Koh Samui is made up of granite and limestone hills, which divides the palm tree covered coastal line harmoniously into white sandy beaches.
Beside the infrastructure centres you can find charming little restaurants with excellent Thai cuisine, very good hotels, resorts and condominiums all over the island.
The leisure activities on offer are many. They range from one of the most beautiful golf course in South East Asia to an aquarium or the tiger zoo in Laem Set. Sight seeing can be had at the waterfalls of Namuang with an elephant ride, or at the grandma-grandfathers-rock formation at the end of Lamai. There is a gigantic Buddha statue on the Fan island and many other picturesque Buddhist temples. Last but not least, Chaweng the capital town, is where shops, restaurants and tour-agencies are concentrated and the night life is especially seductive.
Traditional motorboats or sailing yachts offer daytrips on the west side of the island to the marine national park of Mu Koh Angthong. It is an archipelago of 40 little Islands, truly a diving paradise with limestone formations, caves and untouched beaches inhabited just by iguanas
The most attractive islands are Koh Wua Talap (the cow isle), Koh Mae Koh (Mothers Island), Koh Prayat (the economy island), Koh Sam Sao (tripod isle), Koh Nai Put (the island of Mr. Put) and Koh Wua Te (the kicked cow island)..
With the modern extension of air traffic, Samui is connected every hour with Bangkok. Other destinations like Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Krabi, Singapur, Hong Kong and Siem Raep can be reached easily and quickly. Immediately after arrival you will see and feel the tropical charisma of this island, as the new airport blends in a traditional bamboo-wood construction with a sea of flowers and is in line to be one of the most hospitable airports of the world.
Koh Samui was discovered 35 years ago by hippies as a dropout paradise. After being only known by insiders, 15 years ago the island became famous as an international holiday destination with a continual development of the tourism. About 5 years ago there was a downright building boom, which became mostly apparent at Chaweng, Lamai and Mae Nam. This resulted in the development of the local public infrastructure of the southern part of the island, which has been so far almost totally untouched.
Perhaps favoured by the location totally protected from tsunamis, the development of tourism still continues.
The Infrastructure of Koh Samui
The whole island is developed, and the main locations along the coast are connected by a circular, four track asphalt road.
Restaurants and bars are everywhere. Most of them offer excellent Thai cuisine but there are some that offer various European food.
The supermarket chain „seven-eleven“ keeps open 24 hours and can be found even in the smallest village.
The water and electricity supply works very well on the island, apart from the monsoon period in November. Then it is possible that some parts of the island can be without current for some hours.
The international airport can be reached from every part of the island within a maximum of 40 minutes. It links Koh Samui every hour with Bangkok. Further connections exist with Krabi, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Pataya inside of Thailand and to Singapur, Hong Kong and Phnom Penh international. There are plans to connect Koh Samui directly to Europe.
Car ferries and high-speed catamarans connect the island daily with the main land (two hours) and with the surrounding islands.
The medical care in Thailand is at a high international level and is comparable to European standards.
On Koh Samui you can find seven hospitals and some of them work closely with travel insurances and some European health insurances.