Плохонький отель, неустойчивая погода… не Баунти Poor hotel, erratic weather… no Bounty

Were in Thailand from 16.01 to 26.01. 2014. Tour operator News Travel, meeting party - Sayama Travel.
Flight
Travel time: Kyiv - Boryspil (flight time 8 hours 50 minutes) - Airport in Bangkok - Ferry - Hotel Koh Chang Resort & Spa was 21 hours, because there was a non-stop flight on the Airbus A330.
At the same time, the travel time from Bangkok airport to the ferry (including a 35-minute stop at a gas station) was 5 hours and 20 minutes. I focus on this, since many people prefer to get from Bangkok airport to the ferry crossing by plane through the airport of Trat. It seems to me that from the point of view of saving time, this is not very advisable.
Travel time back: from the Koh Chang Resort & Spa hotel - the Ambasador Marine Wing hotel in Pattaya (Bangkok was replaced for us) - 5.5 hours.
Travel time: Ambasador Marine Wing Hotel - Airport in Bangkok (flying 12 hours 20 minutes with refueling in Lahore on the Airbus A321) - Boryspil - Kyiv was much more - 24.5 hours.

That is, it took 30.5 hours to get from Koh Chang Resort & Spa to Kyiv.
This is due to the replacement of the A330 aircraft by the Wind Rose airline with the A321 and a 9-hour wait at the airport.
The worst thing is that we spent almost 9 hours at the Bangkok airport, and at first it was not known when we would fly away and whether we would fly at all, because the Sayama travel representative did not give any information about this for more than 4 hours. True, after 4.5 hours of waiting, we were given coupons for free meals at 250 baht / person. however, they were served only in an expensive Chinese restaurant and for 500 baht they managed to take: a cup of tea, a 0.5 liter bottle of water, french fries, noodles with chicken meat.
As a result, we flew out of Bangkok not at 5-30, but at 23-20. And 30 min. sat on the plane and waited for food to be loaded into it. About 50 more minutes. refueling of the plane in Lahore continued (we were not let out of the plane).
On board the plane, we were told that the A321 plane had landed in Bangkok in the morning, and the delay in departure was due to the fact that the crew had to rest for 12 hours before flying to Kyiv.
However, about 310 people flew from Kyiv to Thailand on board the A330 aircraft, and about 170 people flew back to Kyiv. It seems that the plane was replaced for us so as not to drive the A330 half empty.
Formalities at the airport
Upon arrival at Bangkok airport, you must fill out an arrival form for obtaining a visa, paste a photo into it and pay 1000 baht for a visa. That is, you need to exchange at least $ 100 for two. There are a lot of exchangers at the airport, the exchange rate is the same and low. The problem arose with gluing the photo to the questionnaire - there was no glue anywhere. Some of the tourists came to the rescue by prudently bringing a small bottle of PVA in hand luggage.

If you go to passport control after filling out the questionnaire, then in the booth on the left it is supposedly faster, but the cost of a visa is 1200 baht, if on the right (there is a longer queue and the inscription "1 person is served in 1 minute") - then 1000 baht. After the queue, you will check the availability of all documents and money and will be given a passport control number.
By number you will be photographed and a piece of paper will be attached to the passport with a stapler. She must not be lost - otherwise they will not be released from the country. All this took over an hour.
Number
We stayed at the Koh Chang Resort & Spa hotel on Klong Prao beach in the superior room of the main building (reception in it) on 16-24.01. fourteen.
There are 4 floors in the main building, we lived on the third floor in room 354 - this is the southern wing of the building, which is stretched along the road, which, by the way, is very busy. From the outer wall of the hotel to the "sidewalk" of the road - 10 m.
On the 1st floor 16 rooms (101-116)
On the 2nd - 22 (217-238)
On the 3rd - 21 (338-358)
On the 4th - 21 (459-480).
The extreme southern rooms on the 3rd and 4th floors are technical. Room 338 has a very small balcony and there is a fire escape near it - that is, it is very easy to get into it from the side. The balconies of the rooms on the 1st and 2nd floors overlook a rather noisy road, and the 3rd and 4th floors overlook the garden. The doors to the 3rd and 4th floor balcony are narrow and the rooms are very dark. In addition, the light bulbs in the room have a power of 3-5 W and in the evening you can only move around the room by touch.
I had to buy two 100 W bulbs (2x35 baht) at V-mart. Because of the trees and the roof of the 2-storey Superior Building, the beloved by many “sea view” is not in this building.
We had to change our room immediately after check-in because of the strong smell in it. The bed linen was shabby and stained. We left Thais 20 baht, and they gave us animal figurines from towels.
Daily 2 free bottles of 0.6 l. Next to them was a bottle of Sang Som rum - this is a fee. The content of the mini-bar is also paid - there is no price list, and the inscription "Prices = prices 7/11" is unconvincing.

At first, there were 2 Russian channels in the room: "RTR planets" and the 1st. A couple of days later, the RTR Planet channel disappeared and did not reappear.
The building has 2 elevators and one staircase with very narrow steps. I was surprised that the hotel does not provide soap (there are sticks with cotton wool, a shower cap, shampoo), and the water from the shower is weak. Since the tap water was often yellow-dirty, they bought water in 5 liter bottles - 32 baht at Tesco.
When we arrived, more than 50% of the guests at the hotel were Russian speakers, after 4 days they became noticeably smaller, and Germans, Chinese, Balts and English speakers arrived.
Food
Breakfast is very monotonous and described in detail in previous reviews - he quickly got tired and it was not easy to eat like this for 9 days. Sometimes there are heavily peppered dishes. Plastic plates in the dining room, glass cups for tea and coffee with a volume of 100 grams are almost all broken or cracked.
Beach
The length of the hotel's beach is 80 m, the width is about 20 m. There are 60 sun loungers under umbrellas on the beach, as well as about 20 sun loungers and 40 plastic chairs. After 9-00 you can not find a place on the sunbeds.
The pool is very small - it has only 5 sunbeds. At high tide (we had it in the morning), in order to go waist-deep, you need to walk 5-10 m in water, at low tide (in the evening) - 50 m. At low tide, water leaves the beach by 10 m and, approximately, by 1 m in height . To get water up to your neck, you need to swim about 150 m. The beach is quite clean with white sand.
There are few fish and crustaceans in the sea. There are no hedgehogs, rays or sharks. Constantly sting small jellyfish (they are not visible).
mosquitoes

Many are found on the public beach towards the Klong Prao Resort. Upon arrival, we immediately bought Citronella Repellent spray (120 ml - 165 baht) at V-mart. There were no mosquitoes in the room. However, fumigators were constantly turned on on the 4th floor of the main hotel building, and mosquitoes had to be killed 2 times in the elevator. There were no mosquito nets in the building, but they were in the beach bungalow.
Nice, but the mosquitoes did not bite us.
Entertainment
There are none on site. Once, music was played in the restaurant for a visiting group of Chinese in the evening. For entertainment, you need to go to White Sand beach, but even there everything closes at 22-00.
Hotel area
Very green and carefully decorated, but small. In the evening there is nowhere to go for a walk except the beach. A significant part of the hotel is located across the road from the sea.
The standard (cheapest) hotel rooms are in a 5-storey building, which is by no means located on a hill, as someone wrote in a review, well, maybe 3-4 m above the road level. There are also several ponds and a pool about twice the size of the sea. Nobody bathed in it.
Weather
16-18.01. 2014 sea in the morning - 25-26°С, in the evening - 28-29°С. The air during the day is -31-32°С.
On January 19 it got colder - in the morning 18-20°С, in the afternoon - 26°С. A strong wind started. The guide said that it looks like the windy season has begun, which can last up to 3 weeks. In general, January 20 is considered the coldest day of the year on Koh Chang. However, already on January 23, the wind died down, and the air and the sea warmed up to their previous temperatures.
Neighborhood
There are 3 restaurants along the beach to the south of the hotel, and behind them is a public unequipped beach about 250 m long to the Klong Prao Beach hotel.
If you walk 4 minutes on the road north from the hotel past the police post, there are three shops near the Coconaut hotel: 7/11, V-mart (quite large) and Tesco-lotus. The prices are different: beer 0.66 l Archa - 45 baht and Chang - 49 baht, rum Sang Som 0.
3 l - 135 baht, a pack of tomatoes - 13 baht, juice 1 l - from 54 to 79 baht, sliced ​ ​ gray bread half a loaf - 20 baht, 0.2 kg of cheese - 110 baht
There is a bank between the shops. Exchange rate for 50 and 100 dollar bills:
Airport - 31.07 baht / USD
Klong Prao beach opposite the Coconaut Beach Resort - 32.38;

Kai Bae Beach -- 32.5.
There is also a small vegetable market and stalls selling baked fish, chicken and meat. We got spare ribs (80 baht) and boneless chicken breast (50 baht) and small bananas for 20 baht a bunch. After we watched the process of making pancakes with a topper, they were afraid to take pancakes - he doesn’t wash his hands at all, and rubs the table with a rag hanging on the steering wheel of a motorcycle.
There are also two "appendices" perpendicular to the road with a lot of shops, restaurants and cafes - Coconaut Plaza and V. J. Plaza.
If you walk from the hotel on the road to the south, then after about 7-10 minutes. walk to Klong Prao Beach Hotel. On the way there are various shops, guest house, cafes, massage parlors, etc.
In 25 minutes you can walk to the turn to the waterfall and the crocodile show. A little further (a pink elephant stands on the road) is an elephant farm.
For 35 min. you can walk to the local temple with a monastery - Wat Khlong Prao, which is located next to the V. J. hotel Health Spa.
We did not go further, because it is unpleasant to move around the island along the road. The point is as follows: a concrete path was laid along the asphalt road from the sea side - a “sidewalk” on the same level with the asphalt. There is no sidewalk on the other side of the road. And trucks and bikes are constantly hitting the pavement, and some are driving right on it. Given the left-hand traffic, you can still somehow go along the road from north to south (i. e. from Klong Prao beach towards Kai Bay beach), because at the same time you go towards the flow of cars and manage to bounce to the side. Going in the opposite direction is simply dangerous, especially after 18-30 when it gets dark on the island, and the road is illuminated only in places.
The fare for local transport (12-seat pickup truck with a roof, but without side walls and a rear door): from Klong Prao to White Sand beach or Kai Bae - 50 baht / person one way.

From Klong Prao to Lonely beach - 100 baht / person.
From Klong Prao to Bang Bao village - 150 baht / person.
Of course, the price must be negotiated before the trip, the drivers do not bargain, no matter how we tried.
Tours
The cost of the tour included an excursion to a crocodile farm and Bangkok (it was replaced with a tour of Pattaya).
1. The show with crocodiles is more or less interesting, there you could also take a free map of the island, unlike the best one issued by Sayama travel. Then they are taken to the latex store, and only then to the hotel.
2. In principle, it was possible to order a car with a driver for the whole day in the street tourism near the Coconaut Beach Resort hotel and travel around the entire island. But we took the Discovery Koh Chang tour from the hotel guide - 2650 baht (81.5 USD) / person with a visit to 2 waterfalls, a snake farm, lunch at a seafood restaurant and a Chinese temple, because.
I also wanted to hear the stories of the tour guide.
I liked the Klong Plu waterfall (entrance fee 200 baht) with a height of 21 m - it’s about 500 m to go to it. After this waterfall, we were taken to a tea shop opposite the Cliff beach Resort hotel on Kai Bae beach (this is important, since the second hotel with exactly the same name is located on White Sand beach, but the prices for tours are different, of course) where they serve 5-7 different cold and warm teas.
The snake farm and, if I may say so, the show is very weak.
The Tan Mayom waterfall (entrance fee 20 baht) is so-so, but it is only 300 m to go to it. The area near both waterfalls resembles the neighborhood of the Crimean Dzhur-Dzhur above the waterfall.
Lunch at Salak Phet Seafood on stilts on the southeastern tip of the island was both delicious and enjoyable. Then we were taken to a Chinese temple in the north of the island, and then they began to take us to hotels. We left at 9:20 am and arrived at the hotel at 5:00 pm.
In general, I liked the tour, but I got the impression that there was nothing special to see on the island.

3. We went to Lonely beach and Bang Bao village on our own. I was surprised by the rocky and unsuitable for swimming section of Lonely beach from the Warapura resort hotel to the Sunset Hut restaurant. It turned out that there is a sandy beach with a convenient entrance to the water only in the north of Lonely beach (about 250 m long), and in the south it is very short.
In Bang Bao, the disappointment was even greater - this is a kind of hybrid of the Kyiv Troyeshchyna market on stilts and a pier for sightseeing ships + several restaurants and hotels on stilts. I liked the surroundings of the Salak Phet Seafood restaurant (in the southeast of the island) much more. I was surprised that the temple at the school in Bang Bao, indicated on the map, turned out to be a crematorium with a tall chimney.
It was also interesting to walk along the Jungle Traking trail for free. It starts on the right side (if you face it) from the reception of the Chai Chet hotel - a large poster of Jungle Traking hangs on it at the entrance. It is advisable to walk in running shoes.
There are no insects on the trail - there are bat nests and a 300 year old tabok tree. You can not get lost - a maximum of 30 minutes. you will exit back to the Chai Chet hotel.
Results
In general, the rest, except for the return flight, were satisfied. Even at low tide on the beach of the hotel it was possible to swim without any problems. Mosquitoes bypassed us, indigestion from the local cuisine did not get. However, the hotel makes a rather weak impression and clearly does not pull on 3 *. Yes, and Klong Prao beach is clearly not drawn to the Bounty.
And in general, holidays in Klong Prao are clearly designed for the elderly or parents with children.
If you have any questions, write to: sk_lora@ukr. net - we will answer.

Alexander and Larisa 2.02. 2014