Our Island Oasis

After much research, we booked our island getaway on Koh Samui at Promtsuk Buri Resort located on Thongtakian Beach on the southeast side of Samui. This resort provided us with just what we were looking for...a quiet oasis to relax and unwind. The resort offers individual bungalows for their guests and we were upgraded to a sea view bungalow when we arrived. Each bungalow has an open air shower which was a neat experience. In fact the whole bathroom is outside. The bungalow also came with a good sized deck and two wooden beach chairs allowed for a great place to sit and read or just relax. There was even a wooden bucket filled with water and ladle at the bottom of the stairs leading to the deck so that you could rinse off your feet before entering your bungalow. How smart is that? Every morning we were woken up by the beautiful birds chirping and the glorious early morning sunshine.

The grounds of the resort were stunning and well kept with tropical plants and flowers everywhere. There were even banana trees and I'm sure the bananas were picked for part of the fresh fruit offered at breakfast. There was a hammock tied between two palm trees providing another spot for some R&R.

Breakfast was included in the price and the selection was quite extensive. You could order a la carte if you chose to or from two set breakfast options. We chose a la carte. The food was very good and the staff super friendly. My favorite was the banana pancakes. Breakfast was served at the beachside restaurant which also served a delicious mango shake and coconut milk using the coconut as the "cup". This restaurant did not have a dinner service so we went to the resort next door a couple times for dinner and on our last night here were having dinner on the beach when some of the European guests at our resort had a fireworks show put on for them on the beach. So we had dinner on the beach amongst fireworks. Pretty neat and unexpected experience I'd say!

Now the best part of staying here, our bungalow was literally 20 steps from the beach. The beach was for the most part fine white sand and felt so lovely between the toes. Thongtakian Beach is a secluded beach for the five resorts that are situated in this cove. None of these resorts are huge and so the beach wasn't overly busy. There was never a problem finding a good spot except for perhaps the shady area. The water was crystal clear and as warm as a bath. It wasn't very deep and you could go pretty far out and still touch the bottom. For the most part it was sandy but there was a portion that was a little rocky and we found snorkeling this area quite interesting. There weren't a whole lot of fish, but definitely some we hadn't seen on our snorkeling tours.

Staying here was just what the doctor ordered, a tranquil serene beach oasis where your only care was whether to frolic in the water or sit on the beach and listen to the gentle waves crash.