Koh Samet 


Koh Samet is where you go if you're feeling cheap - the BBQ fish on the beach is unbelievable!

Koh Chang 


Now this is an island! National park - mostly rainforest full of teak trees. A couple of unemployed elephants hanging around that you can ride. Near the border with Cambodia. Wasn't developed at all a few years ago, but the new airport at nearby Trat had changed all that - there are banks and even a 7-11 now. Right down on the south-east corner of the island is a little isolated beach with a funky bunch of restaurants and cheap cheap bungalows built on a long pier over the water.

Lamai Beach on Koh Samui 


here's the beach at Lamai one early morning in April...
the sand is soft but slightly grainy. Cool in the mornings - baking all day.
The beach is a perfect swimming beach - no rocks in the middle section - gently sloping . Few waves - no good for surfin or body surfin.
At night, there is sometimes phospherescence (spell??) and there are also these cool little crabs that I call "raver crabs" - when you disturb them at night, they glow with a fluorescent blue light...
Pretty sweet...

Bangkok

Hmmm... so i live in Bangkok.
It's big and smelly and always hot.
The dogs on the street are mangy and nasty at night - though they sleep all day.
i live in a penthouse in the sky -
i like islands...i go often. Latest was Koh Samui - stayed on Chaweng - which is nice at night when the beach is covered with beach bars set out on the sand with grass mats and triangular cushions and funky music. Favourite is "Dragon Bay" at the north end of the beach. The beach is full of wanna-be colonial europeans all day - better go somewhere else to enjoy the daytime.
Also been to Koh Chang (really nice - just starting to be developed) and Koh Samet (hang out with the locals and don't feel like a colonial - dirt cheap - 200km bus + ferry there is cheaper than the saikyo-sen from Saitama to Tokyo, if you know where that is)