Beach Resorts in Thailand
The Coasts of Tropical
Thailand's beach resorts offer prospects for diverse and memorable vacations. Visitors can laze away their days, or they can be active, with sightseeing excursions, sports, entertainment and shopping.
Thailand's hotels are magnificent-whether modern and luxurious or simple and escapest, they provide a style for everytaste, andy budget. Food is everywhere gastronomic, in Thai, Asian or myriad western styles.
Pattaya
The best known Thai resort is Pattaya, just 2 and a half hours' drive from Bangkok. Once a small village, Pattaya is now a vibrant city boasting a huge variety of hotels, leisure activities and entertainments. Its appeal holds something for everything. Sporting prospects are almost limitless, on land or sea. Golfers can enjoy some of the best courses of Southeast Asia here, and watersports enthusiasts are sopiled for choice, with diving, sailing, windsurfing, water-skiing, yachting and fishing. In and around Pattaya are various interesting excusions, to nothworthy temples and pagodas, theme parks and orchid gardens.
Pattaya nightlife is justly famous, both for its range and tempo. Bars, discos, cabarets and shows, traditional or modern, plus countless restaurants in every style, Asian or western, are among the attractions.
Alternatively, visitors can enjoy quiet beaches, superb htel pools set in tropical gardens, or boat excursion to nearby coral islands during the day and the many facilities of their hotel in eventings. Pattaya's hotels, whether luxurious or simple, are all excellent, with frienldly perosonal service.
Hua Hin & Cha-Am
The western shore of the Gulf of Thailand is also blessed with superb beach resorts. Of these, the historic town of Hua Hin is among the most popular. Reached from Bangkok by either road or rail in about 3 hours, Hua Hin first came to prominence in the 1920s as a vacation detination for Bangkok's rich and famous. Hua Hin is for strolling, along a lengthy sand beach and through the old town with its many restaurnats specialising in fresh seafood.Several excellent traditional and modern resort hotels are located here, while, just along the coast, Cha-Am is anouther small beachside town with a full range of facilities for a relaxing vacation. And for golf entusiasts this ia a ideal area, with several championship courses from which to choose.
Phuket
In southern Thailand, the island of Phuket has become one of the regin's best-loved holiday destinations. With splendid beaches and superb httels, is popularity is not surprising, especially as the clear, blue waters and golden sands contrast so vividly with the lush green forests that cover its inland hills. Phuket's scenic beauty stimulated the development of excellent resorts, mainly on the sandy bays of Patong and Karon. Here is found memorable nightlife as well as find hotels, shopping and every type of watersport. Elsewhere, the beaches of Kata, Rawai, Nai Harn, Surin and Bangtao are less well developed, with fewer, mostly loaw-rise hotels. Resorts areas are linked by modern roads, a roller-coaster ride offering fantastic views of Phuket's bays and palem-fringed beaches. The island also offers championship standard golf courses.
The town of Phuket is well worth visiting. It has buildings reflecting early Portuguese and Chinese infulences, as well as Thai and Chinese temples, ancient and modern. The town also offer some excellent restuarants, hotels, shopping malls, open-air markets and other attractions.
Close to Phuket lies the scenic province of Phangnga, which offers great sightseeing and limited hotle accomodations. Phangnga Bay is characterised by massive limestone islets and cliffs which just out of an almost still sea like the craggy teeth of a great dragon. Overgrown by trees and vegetations, these rock fomations are full of fascinating caves and interior lakes, many of which are only reachable by inflatable sea canoes. Long-tail speed boats carry travellers between the island, usually stopping for lunch at a Muslim fisherfolk village built on stilts.
Krabi & Phi Phi
East of Phuket is the province of Krabi, now gaining international recognition for its exculsive htels and great natural beauty. The coasts here comprise secluded bays whose background cliffs make them accessible only from the sea. Offshore is the exquisite island of Koh Phi Phi, featuring idyllic beahces and an atomsphere of complete escapism. Facilities for tourists are limeited here, with hotels mostly small and informal. Koh Samui
On the eastern side of southern Thailand is Koh Samui, now rivalling Phuket's popularity as an escapist paradise. This is the third largest island in Thailand, and just one of around 60 sprinkled around these seas, some 30 kilometres offshore from the small fishing port of Surat Thani. Samui itself is covered with huge plantations of coconut palms which give the island its name. It is a relaxed and escapist environment of peaceful beauty. Beaches and watersports conditions are ideal, while the neighbouring islands form a marine nature reserve for boat excursion.Credit www.thaishanghai.com