Le Meridian Koh Samui

Joe was too cheap to get a 4^th night at the Conrad so we moved to the Le Meridian Koh Samui for our final night in Thailand.  We had Mr. Samui pick us up at 3pm and drive us about 30 minutes back towards the airport to the final hotel on our trip.  Unlike the Conrad, the Le Meridian was located in a busy part of town right off the main road.  We knew just about anything was going to be a bit of a letdown after the Conrad, but it was only for a night so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  We checked in before 4 and were greeted by a number of very friendly employees who really liked the girls and walked us to our room.  Annie let one of them carry her for some of the way which was a bit surprising.

We booked a standard room and used an upgrade certificate to move to a pool suite, which shared a pretty large pool with 5 other units.  The room itself was very small, probably the smallest room we had during the trip, and by the time we got two cribs in there it was jam packed.  But, it worked for us since we had a nice private patio overlooking the shared pool area.   Three of the other five units were occupied during our time there, and while it was a bit odd initially having an another couple 20 feet across the pool sitting on their patio or seeing them lounge in bed, it was not a problem at all.  It would have been really, really fun to have had friends and family rent out all the units around the pool area and have a private pool to hang around in.  And it would have been really, really weird to come here on your honeymoon. :)

Eating some M&Ms and enjoying some welcome drinks upon arrival at the Le Meridian

Entrance to Le Meridian located on this street... reminded me of the North Shore a bit

View from our villa. If you look closely, you can see our across the pool neighbors hanging out in bed

Annie and Joe enjoying the pool

Looking into our room - gives you an idea of how tiny it was! There was a bathroom to the right with a semi outdoor shower

Like all the other places in Thailand and Malaysia, the room service menu was very reasonable and pretty good. I have to say, Thai food comes in way ahead of Japanese food for me any day.  We went swimming a couple of times, had dinner on our patio and walked around the resort.  

The resort was very small compared to the Conrad and had a small beach that went away at high tide.  There was a long pier, maybe 100m, that had a bar in the middle that let you get a good view back to the hotel, but the water was a bit rough and it was tough get the girls on it.  There was a pool overlooking the beach with a restaurant and a bar and some grass areas further towards the street that had various activities throughout the day like Thai Boxing and Yoga.

Beach front pool and dining

Pier with bar in the middle

Standing at the end of the pier looking back at the resort

We came back to the room and got the girls ready for bed.  As was typically the case, the girls fell asleep quickly and we followed suit shortly after.  We had the breakfast buffet in the morning that was good but nothing remarkable - probably at the bottom of the list for me on this trip.  We decided to venture out by foot and see what was in the area around the hotel.  To immerse ourselves in the local culture, we stopped at a convenience store and got the girls an ice cream.  

Best Friends

A face only a father could love

Big sister stayed nice and clean

She swung by a Thai tattoo parlor on the way to ice cream

We headed further down the somewhat chaotic road and found a small strip mall-like shopping area that happened to have a small kids play place.  It was 30 or 40 bhat (around $1 USD) per child for a half hour and the girls stayed for close to an hour and it was probably one of their most fun moments of the entire trip.  Not that it was a surprise, but it again reminded us that they don’t really care where they are as long as they get to do exactly what they want to do. 

Authentic Thai play place

Looks like Eden

Big girl

While out walking, we noticed there were tons of tourists riding around on mopeds, most of them without helmets and some with kids on their bikes with them.  Joe and I kept commenting to one another that it seemed SO dangerous. When we later mentioned it to our driver on the way to the airport and he told us that tourists frequently have accidents, get injured and total the bikes.  Within minutes of this conversation we drove by a man that had wiped out on his moped and was waiting for help.  Hard to imagine taking risks like that on a vacation, especially now that we have kids!  In yet another odd coincidence, we saw a flatbed truck drive by with a bunch of tourists sitting on makeshift benches in the back.  Joe asked me, "Can you IMAGINE anything more dangerous??" Before I could even answer, we came up behind a beat up SUV with people riding ON THE ROOF. 

We headed back to the hotel, did the typical swim and food at the room and finished packing up for the trip home while the girls took a nap. I headed back out to the main road to get a quick (and insanely cheap) manicure at the spa next door.  We checked out and Mr. Samui met us for our final transfer and we were to the airport in less than 30 minutes.  As mentioned before, the Koh Samui airport is really interesting and entirely outdoors.  It has a really neat shopping street between the drop off and the terminal.  We were flying coach, got settled into our seats and had a short flight to Bangkok where we had a 5 or 6 hour layover before our red eye flight back to Tokyo.

Massage "beds" at the spa next to Le Meridian

Exhausted at the end of a looong vacation. Love these sweet girls and this pic!!