First Impressions

The island of Koh Chang has been on my "to-do" list for a long time. Thailand’s second largest island is east of Bangkok, near the Cambodian border, and is being developed rapidly - some say too rapidly. So, when I read that Thailand’s Dusit hotel group had opened a new property on the island, and was offering some fantastic deals, I decided it was time to take a look. A discount fare on Bangkok Airways sealed the deal.

My Friday afternoon flight was about two-thirds full, confirming that the low season has definitely arrived. It seemed we were about to set down in a pineapple plantation when the runway finally came into view. Trat airport is another one of the ’boutique’ airline Bangkok Airways’ boutique airports. From the airport, you catch a van which will take you to the ferry, and then on to the hotel.

The Dusit Princess Resort, which just officially opened on 17 March 2008, is near the south end of the west coast, and the end of a long string of beaches with names like “White Sand” and “Lonely”. The resort occupies most of the small stretch of beach at “Bai Lan”. The resort is laid out with an open air lobby surrounded by buildings housing many different kinds of guest rooms. I went for the “pool villa” which featured its own small pool and outdoor jacuzzi. The room was large and airy, with high ceilings, a king size bed, and flat screen television with DVD player. The bathroom has a large walk-in shower and two sinks, as well as a door to the outdoor bathing area.

I really liked the room, even though there were a few build quality issues, most of which are natural in a new hotel. The things that are likely to cause a problem for some guests are the air conditioning, which struggled to cool the room in the heat of the afternoon, and the lighting, which is soft and subtle. The bed lamps are inadequate for reading, and there is no room light at all.

Outside the room are two pools, a coffee shop and bar. The beach-side pool is free-form and the wooden deck surrounding it has several small jacuzzi built into it. The beach here is far from Koh Chang’s best. The sand becomes rough stone just at the low tide level. The water is quite calm, as there is almost no surf.

There is almost no commercial development along the beach road around the hotel, although that will probably change soon. To see more of the island, I took a songtaew up to White Sand beach. As the name implies, White Sand beach is indeed a long, wide stretch of white sand, lined with hotels, resorts and bungalows. The main road along the coast is lined with the usual mix of cheap clothing shops and restaurants that is all too common to the haphazard development of Thai beaches. There are obvious signs of more building everywhere, even though much of what has been built is only half utilized. The town seems very sleepy, Koh Chang is one of the few places where some places close in the low season.

The Princess is a good place to stay if you want to be well away from the crowds in the high season. Even without the special promotion, the pool villa is still a good value at the regular rate you can get on most of the discount sites. You can view its price and availability here.

More photos of the resort can be seen in our photo gallery.

I wake up to a glorious day in Phnom Penh this morning. The sky is clear blue and there’s a stiff breeze snapping the flags of the nations along the quayside to full attention. I walk down to the FCC for a light breakfast. It’s the perfect spot for a meal on a day like today. Sitting in the open third floor dining room, looking out at the river, where some long boats are practicing for races later today, I almost wish I was spending the weekend here instead of heading down south.

But by the time the car comes to pick me up, the breeze has died down and it’s beginning to get hot, so I’m glad to be escaping to the seaside. The drive down to Kep takes about two and a half hours. The two lane road is relatively good, although there are several one-lane bridges to slow things down. There are not really any sights to see along the way, although the landscape of rice fields and country houses is rather pretty.

 
We arrive in Kep in the early afternoon. In French colonial times, Kep was the premier seaside resort, but was abandoned in the 1970s when the Khmer Rouge began their bloody rule. My home for my stay here is the Champey Inn, a collection of 16 bungalows scattered around a swimming pool facing the sea. The rooms feature a rather spartan design, with painted concrete floors, simple wood furniture and stark white walls. The Champey Inn sits on the slopes of a point within sight of a collection of ramshackle restaurants sells the area’s famous crab. The rest of the point is lined with the shells of abandoned villas.

While Kep is coming back to life as a tourist destination, it’s still well enough off the map. While there are a few hotels and guest houses in the area such as the Champey Inn, there’s little else to divert the tourists – no nightclubs, no mini-marts, and even very few restaurants aside from those at the hotels. That is starting to change, so if you’re interested in seeing an ‘unspoiled’ place, you better go now.

See the Kep photo gallery for a lot more pictures from around the area.

Today I’m off to a previously unexplored (by me) area of Cambodia. To get there, I first have to fly to Phnom Penh. I chose Bangkok Air because it was cheaper than Thai, which is usually the case where they’re competing on the same route. Although Bangkok Air has its detractors, mainly about their pricing on the routes where they don’t have to compete with another airline, you can’t really fault their service.

Not many people know this, but Bangkok Airways has a lounge in almost every airport that is free for all passengers to use. I know that not many people know about the lounge because the Bangkok one was practically empty while I was waiting for my flight to Phnom Penh. That’s probably because not only does the airline not advertise the service, but the location at Bangkok is rather out of the way and there are no signs pointing you to it until you’re almost there. I think I’ll keep their secret so I can continue enjoying the free cookies, snacks, drinks, internet and magazines in peace.

The lounge isn’t the only thing that impresses about Bangkok Air. They had to use a remote parking space for my plane, so we all had to board buses to get there. Now, all the other airlines that use buses just load everyone on the transports and lets them sort themselves out at the plane. Not Bangkok Air. They used two buses and put those seated in the front of the plane on one bus and those at the back in another. Boldly printed on everyone’s boarding pass was a notice to be at the gate at least 15 minutes before the departure time, and sure enough, at no later than 13 minutes before our scheduled departure, both buses left the terminal. This is all frightfully organized for a Thai airline.

But enough about Bangkok Air. I arrived in Phnom Penh in the evening for a one night stay. I decided to check out the Bougainvillier Hotel based on many positive recommendations. As it is only one night, I’ve taken one of the cheaper rooms, which are smaller and at the back, facing another building. The room is small but not cramped, and very artfully decorated with silks. There’s a new flat screen television on the wall facing the bed, but no telephone. That may just be a temporary oversight, as the room appears to have been newly redecorated. I managed to poke into the larger front rooms, facing the river, for a look. They are substantially bigger, almost palatial for a hotel, and with the river view they would be great for a stay of several days. The hotel was remodeling their lobby, expanding it into the next two buildings by all appearances, so more changes are in the works.

Tomorrow, it’s off to Kep!

I woke up this morning to a rather beautiful blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. It didn’t last, but neither did it actually rain at all today.

I arrived in Railay last night. Although it had obviously rained earlier in the evening, it had cleared enough for a fat crescent moon to silhouette the cliffs of the coast as my boat approached.

 
Railay (which would be better spelled Rai-Leh) is a bit of a geological curiosity. It’s a peninsula on the mainland of Krabi province, east of Phuket island, but sheer cliffs cut it off from the rest of the coast, making it only reachable by boat. The peninsula itself is really just a build-up of sand collected between the cliffs on the shore and two large rock outcrops. The sand forms three beaches, the east-facing and thus aptly named Railay East, it’s opposite number Railay West and another west-facing beach called Phranang. Railay East is coarse and rocky, but the other two beaches have a fine sand. A bit north of Railay West, but cut off from it, is Tonsai Bay. Boats connect Railay East to Nammao and Railay West to Ao Nang.

 
There are half a dozen or so resorts on Railay, as well as a hand-full of cheap guest houses for the backpacker set. The top end of the hotel offerings is the large Rayavadee, which faces all three beaches and is the only hotel on Phranang. My own base is the Sunrise Tropical resort on Railay East.

The Sunrise Tropical has proved to be excellent value for money. My “Tropical Villa” room is a small cottage with queen size bed, a sitting area, dressing room and large bathroom. There’s also a private outdoor shower. While the beach at Railay East is not very good, it’s just a short walk to Railay West.

With Monday the 20th declared a special holiday so Thais could vote on the new constitution, I decided to escape to Chiang Mai for a long weekend to check on some things for an up-coming addition to AsiaForVisitors.com. More on that later, but for the purposes of this trip, the Buri Gallery House seemed like a good location to base myself.

The Buri Gallery House is a small (21 room) hotel built into a large old (50 years) wooden house. Carving even a large house into 21 rooms has resulted in something of a rabbit warren that may be confusing to guests without a good sense of direction, and even my deluxe room was not that big. The room had ‘wood’ floors and walls, and a woven bamboo ceiling. All very authentic looking, but I put ‘wood’ in quotes because I think the floor was actually a plastic laminate. The thin floors and walls means that you can also hear a lot more of what goes on in the hallway or the next room than you would expect in a hotel.

All the wood doesn’t help light up the room either, especially since the only windows are two small frosted panes set in the door to the balcony. The small balcony faces directly into the wall of an apartment building, so even if it were cooler outside, opening the doors was not a very appealing thought.

On the plus side, the room did have a large television with a DVD player, and an internet connected PC free to use. The downside on the TV was that only a couple of the 30-plus channels were in English.

The bathroom was roomy enough, although the ceiling was low enough for me to have to watch my head. There was only a shower provided, with no tub. In addition, the shower had a manually operated water heater, the kind common enough in Thai homes but westerners may not know how to work it.

I suspect that the Buri Gallery House might appeal to ‘flashpackers’ - those people who used to backpack in their younger days but are now older and established enough to want a bit more from their accommodations. The location, just outside Wat Phra Singh in the old city, is not bad, although well away from the center of things - except on Sundays, when the walking street market is right outside the front door.