Sea Rounding

We’d visited Koh Phra Thong once before. It’s a mostly undeveloped island off Thailand’s west coast, with long white beaches and mangrove forests. “Eco resort” here usually means no mains electricity, so there are no mini-fridges, kettles, air conditioning or hairdryers in the rooms. Sea Rounding Resort sits along the beach, about 200 metres from Moken Eco Village, where we stayed last time. The setting is excellent, but the room and service fell short for us. There aren’t proper roads, just sandy tracks through the bush from the main pier on the island’s east side. A long-tail boat arranged through Sea Rounding drops you at the resort, where you wade ashore. We rented an ATV so we could explore on our own. Without transport, you’re mostly stuck at the resort because the island is too big to get around on foot. We’d told the resort we were coming independently, but they gave us no directions. Google Maps wasn’t much help without proper roads, and even though we knew roughly where to go, we couldn’t find the track. We called four times and got no answer. Locals eventually told us the only way in was along the beach at low tide. That would have been useful to know before booking. At check-in we had to pay a 300-baht key deposit, then listen to a long list of rules about noise, smoking, parties and other restrictions. They also said we couldn’t take the ATV onto the property because it was noisy, so each time we went to our room we had to leave it on the beach and walk nearly 200 metres. No island information or tours were offered. The basic room was as expected for an eco resort, and the fan above the bed worked well. But the mosquito net kept falling down because it wasn’t secured properly, and it had several small holes. There were two outlets, but both were tucked under a ledge that wouldn’t fit our double adapter, so we could only use one small plug. Moken Eco Village kindly lent us a cable for charging. The bathroom had hot water, though it took 30 seconds or more to respond when we adjusted the tap, making the temperature hard to control. The toilet wasn’t fixed down and just sat on the concrete floor above the outlet. The grounds staff were friendly, but when we asked about breakfast times, nobody in the restaurant spoke English. We ate all our meals at nearby Moken Eco Village instead. It had a good range of Thai and Western dishes and an excellent buffet breakfast. Sea Rounding’s location is great, but the accommodation and service didn’t meet our expectations, and we wouldn’t stay there again.