Siam Bay Resort is in a secluded location at the far southern end of Kai Bae Beach. It’s a very peaceful spot with no loud bars, annoying beach vendors or guests from other resorts wandering past your bungalow. A great location, but the resort is a mixed bag.
It was one of the first resorts on Koh Chang but underwent a dramatic facelift with new beachfront bungalows, sea view villas, pool villas and reception, restaurant and pool area all constructed a few years ago. Some of the older bungalows remain, the ‘Seaside bungalows’ and these provide inexpensive, but a bit shabby, accommodation.
The new sea view and pool villas provide some good value accommodation. The sea view villas are 60sqm in size and pool villas are approximately 100sqm and cost less than a standard room at many of the larger 3 star beachfront resorts on the island. However, you shouldn’t expect the same levels of service, cleanliness and maintenance at Siam Bay as you can as more expensive resorts or even those which are smaller and better run.
The pick of the rooms are the Beachfront bungalows which are right by the beach. The layout of the resort is a bit weird and these bungalows are built in front of one of the neighbouring Sea View Resort’s hotel blocks. Figure on around 3,500 Baht / night during high season.
Of course the downside is that due to the peaceful location, it is a bit of a walk to get to the bright lights of Kai Bae village. About 15 minutes walk along the beach to the north. There’s also an excellent, inexpensive beachfront restaurant at Porn’s bungalows – just 5 minutes walk away. So this isn’t a resort for anyone who loves their nightlife nearby. But for families on a budget or anyone looking for some good value, quiet bungalows then it can be recommended.
You can’t escape the fact that this is a hotel trying to escape its backpacker roots and move upscale – It has something of an ‘unfinished look’ – exposed plastic tubing here and there and a restaurant that has yet to upgrade its offering – That said, we have really enjoyed our stay here. We had one of the new seaview villas – not super luxurious, but good air-conditioning, free water, and a hot shower. The water around here is very shallow, so perfect for kids and weak swimmers like myself! At low tide you can walk over to the other resorts on Kai Bae beach like Sea View resort and Porn Bungalows for dinner – the food is better there.
The resort also has two infinity pools – the one up the hill is almost always deserted – lovely to have the place to yourself.
The resort is somewhat isolated, being right at the end of Kaie Bae beach so you do end up calling a lot of taxis to get to the roadside villages so factor that into your budget!
We were very happy here but we did notice one couple left after only just one day — It was clear they were expecting a luxury resort – THIS IS NOT THE CASE – I would call it more budget luxury — with that in mind, you will have a great time here.
my dearest kohchang… :)
this is going to be first time for me in Thailand and the second one for my wife. After she came back from a business trip there a couple of months ago you can imagine there were no other holiday options for us starting that breaking point except Thailand and… Koh Chang. To save the money for all kinds of fun stuff we decided to go independently without the full packages and tours and your site was one of the best resources that we were able to find online, mate. I will definitely tell all my folks thinking of going to Thai about Koh Chang, you and your web port… no promises as to a bottle of Cab Souv but if i find you on the isle (flying out of Almaty Friday this week) there will be a fine bottle of Kazakhstan cognac in my backpack for you… :)))
thanx a lot, anna & sergey