DAILY TRIP THAILANDE # 2

 

Happy Monday my little cats!!!! 

It's so hard to finish this travel diary when you haven't been away all summer! I terribly miss the sublime beaches, the luxuriant nature, the real relaxation, the discovery of the hotels, the sand in the bottom of the bag, the waxed hair, the brand of swimsuit that I religiously control, the smell of the after-sun milk... I'm taking you with me for the end of this trip to a few Thai islands... I think my favorite moments in this country start from these islands! 

 

 

After a few rainy days in Phuket, it's time to head for our next stop: KO PHI PHI. I'd read all and sundry about these islands. Too touristy, polluted, concrete, noisy. But I still really wanted to go, and I told myself that it couldn't be worse than Phuket. When we arrived on the island of Phi Phi Ley, the only inhabited one of the two islands, it was still raining. But luckily our hotel reservation had worked out well, and someone was waiting for us with a small "long-tail" boat to take us back to our rooms. Yes, by boat, because there are no roads on this island. I advise you to choose a hotel away from the Tonsai village cove, a sort of street saturated with stores and restaurants/hotels. Prefer the small, secluded coves, a real paradise. 

 

 

In Ko Phi Phi, we had booked an overnight stay at the Viking Resort, but the first day was a rainy one, and at the time I was slightly discouraged by the weather... And then the next morning, joy, the sun was out! I was jumping up and down, not a cloud in sight! So we stayed two more nights on this island and in this completely atypical hotel, which blends in perfectly with nature.

 

 

 Viking Resort website so you can discover more pictures of this crazy place... Great value for money.

 

 

After three days of fine weather, we decide to leave Ko Phi Phi, as I'm really scared of leaving and not finding any sun at our next stop... Head for Krabi by boat to catch a bus to Koh Samui. For transport, it's really very simple and there are many travel agencies who can help you organize your trip. The agencies work with different transport companies, but there aren't dozens of them either, so the difference in price more often than not comes from the greater or lesser margin taken by the agencies. Don't hesitate to negotiate, saying you've seen cheaper elsewhere, if you think the advertised price is too high.

 

 

And then suddenly Koh Samui, and then the Belmond Napasai, I don't think I've ever seen a place like it in my life. My mouth was literally hanging open for 2 days, because everything was so crazy and sublime, right down to the smallest detail. I still can't believe I had the chance to go to such a place. We had a penthouse with a "small" private pool, the bedroom in one house and the living room and kitchen a few steps down in another building, and a few steps down again, the pool and then the ocean. Four levels of beauty. 

 

 

I could talk for hours about the hotel's decorative details. But one of the hotel's greatest assets is the Lai Thai restaurant and its French chef Sébastien Meunier. His Thai cuisine is revisited with touches of classic French dishes. A special mention for his boeuf Massaman, a sort of beef bourguignon, where the potatoes are replaced by sweet potatoes and the wine by Coco milk, but what a delight! I think that out of my 2000 photos of Thailand, there must have been 800 photos of dishes taken from every angle... A real madwoman.

 

 

For more info on Belmond Napasai visit their website. A wonderful gift to give or to treat yourself. Ideal for a honeymoon...

 

 

 Last stop before returning to Bangkok: Ko Pha Ngan.... One of my favorite islands, much wilder than the one we've seen so far. To get to our hotel, located far from the harbour, we'll need to drive for around 1 hour and 20 kilometers, but the roads are so bad, under construction or non-existent, that we'll need to be patient. But it's well worth the effort. The atmosphere on this island is much more rootsy and lush. I didn't feel that the race to build resorts was the island's main preoccupation, and that's good. Obviously, tourism is important on the island, but I didn't get the feeling that local life was focused solely on that, as on Koh Phi Phi, for example.

 

 

On the way to the hotel we came across elephants! I feel like a kid. We even ask the car to stop and cuddle them for a while. Completely unexpected on the side of a non-existent road, we come across elephants in the middle of the jungle - it's going to be hard to leave this country. 

 

 

I'm not even going to mention the accommodation, as I found it very mediocre, a bit too much like a big vacation club with everything on site, as if we could live in autarky without going out to discover the rest of the island like budding explorers.... The trip's coming to an end, I'm full of frustrations, I'd have liked to see Ko Tao, and then the whole North of the country: next time I hope!