Ko Samui (Thailand) > Reviews > Why backpackers love Thailand

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Value for Money
Shopping
Nightlife
Ease of getting around
Family Friendly

Advantages:	Cheapish, convenient for backpackers, decent roads, great massages, solid nightlife
Disadvantages:	Poor diving, littered with tourists

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

My apologies to those who have read this before. Certain aspects of it were I now admit, rather crude making it unsuitable to have been posted on Ciao. Here’s the PG version.

Having taken several holidays in Asia I’ve steadily become fascinated with the ‘backpacker vibe.’ Quite what the attraction is of strapping an unfashionably heavy bag on your back and a smaller but more important one onto your front and then spending the majority of your tiny budget on accommodation, travel and left luggage lockers, I’ve never quite managed to grasp.

I managed to realise one thing completely when I went to Koh Samui and that was why so many backpackers seem to just pass though Malaysia and Singapore in a couple of days only to spend a seemingly endless amount of time in Thailand. The cost of living was always the obvious one but cost should never be an issue when value for money can be considered and for that a whole load of more personal factors need to be taken into account. The biggest realisation I gained from my visit to Koh Samui was how the whole lot (sun, sea, that other ‘s’ thing) was laid on a plate to its visitors. Travellers can rent a bungalow for around 1 British Pound equivalent a night and have everything they require (the above along with food, laundry and bars) on their doorstep. It’s a convenience thing.

Apart from my great enlightening along the way to finally finding the backpacker vibe I also managed to gather a fair bit of more useful information about the place. If your a Scuba Diver then Koh Samui is not really the destination you should be headed, the snorkelling leaves even more to be desired. The very fact that one has to take a two hour boat ride form the island to any dive site is an immediate turn off but when you get there the visibility and diversity of life on the reef makes it even less worthwhile. This is reflected in the fact that most of the instructors are highly inexperienced, many are still building their quota of dives so as to get their instructors qualification.

Nights out were an experience and certainly not dull. The kickboxing at Chaweng Stadium seemed to be in abundance in other places around the Island as well and although hideously overpriced proved to be a good night out. As far as bar hopping and then clubbing went I noticed two things: One, there seemed to be more white people than in England and two, there was also an abundance of plain Thai girls lurking at the entrance of most of the bars. The deal is they beckon everyone who goes past with a number of English words such as: ‘hi,’ ‘welcome’ and ‘handsome.’ If you want you can go in where they will have a couple of drinks with you and as the night progresses other things. Without, I hope, breaching the realms of offensive I’ll say the majority are not after good luvin’. Numerous stories implying this seem to have crept in to maybe give the backpackers yarns a bit of credibility.

And then of course there’s the traditional Thai massage. Koh Samui is littered with massage parlours, which, contrary to popular belief, offer quite normal massages at, in western terms seems a ridiculously cheap price. Conveniently there was one right opposite our hotel which was where I met the lovely Lita. As a local who spoke reasonable English she gave me a crash course on how things worked in Thailand and assured me what the bar girls wanted and that stories along the lines of the above were most likely fabrications. More to the point for 150 Thai Baht she would spend an hour rubbing, kneading and cracking my back into shape. I would recommend going twice a day, its that good. I would have liked to comment on my experience of further services available but certain aspects were deemed off limits by Ciao. If you’d like to know anymore just drop me a comment or email.