Royal Orchid Resort

I think I was there for three or four nights. You might get a bungalow for about 400 baht a night if you bargain for long enough. The owners never smiled or said hello, and they didn't help my friend with a broken leg. The restaurant was expensive and the food wasn't even good. One night was fine, but I didn't want to stay longer or keep giving money to people who seemed unhappy and disrespectful, so I found another place on the island. I'm the guy with the Pad Thai problem ;)

The only good thing about this place is how close it is to the beach. I'd only suggest it for one quick night if you can't find anywhere else. It's expensive for somewhere so cheap-looking, run-down and dirty, and badly in need of repairs. There were blood stains on the pillowcases, mothballs all over the bathroom that smelled nasty, and so many ants in the washroom that it looked like a whole colony. The floor was lifting up and got jammed under the main door, making it unusable. The bathroom door hit the ceiling. The shower hardly worked, only ran cold and was right above the toilet. Ceilings were about six feet high, a problem if you're that tall or taller. There was only one high power plug, with nowhere to put anything plugged in unless the cord reached down to the floor. Staff were inattentive and hard to get help from. Everything else they offered was extremely overpriced, for example, 80 baht for a smoothie and 15 baht to use the public toilet. There was just one chair in our two-person room.

As I was leaving, she tried to charge me 500 baht to wash a towel, saying there was a mark on it. I'd been staying there and had rented a motorcycle, so she thought she still had my passport. I'd already got it back from another staff member. It felt like an attempt to scam me for 500 baht.

The staff were rude, and the food was awful. The soup was instant, and the Pad Thai was probably the worst I've had in Thailand. We ordered potato salad but got tomato salad instead. Never again.