After putting lots of effort and time into evaluating our travel guides and travel reviews on sites like Tripadvisor out of many many options on Koh Samui and Perhentian islands Ellen and I finally found our personal paradise beaches and booked two wonderful resorts. We decided to go for more luxury on Koh Samui and are staying in a Beachfront Bungalow for 4 nights at RajapruekSamuiResort at the western not so touristic "virgin" coast, where you can experience fantastic sunsets and a great view on the five islands. Although it is pretty lonely there, there are some Thai villages around and great nature sights such as waterfalls, not to speak of possible daily boat trips and activities on the beach. Perfect for a relaxing, romantic getaway.
On Perhentian in Malaysia we decided to go for a traveller experience and are staying at a Robinson Crusoe place called Keranji Beach with huts at a beach you only reach by boat with jungle all around it. Because they don't have a formalized online reservation form we emailed back and forth with Adenan whose email adress we learned from my tourist guide and his nice basic homepage. He really helped us with all our questions and requests very nicely and with great service. Some big professionally organized hotels could learn from this great personal customer service. A really cute and exciting detail we found out by doing intensive research is, that the beach has its personal otter pet Amran, take a look here.
I already talk like I've been to the places I'm describing after all that research and reading. The internet and the great travel guides are really giving you realistic impressions, but I'm looking forward to reporting live. Two weeks from today I will be boarding the plane to Bangkok...
