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Mandarin Oriental - Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
by koshkha
With all my suggestions seemingly stuck in an approval black hole, I've been casting my memory back to great hotels I've stayed in that are actually listed in the database. As a result of this I got to thinking about one of the finest places I've stayed anywhere in the world - the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur ... is a city of fantastic hotels with exceptional service at great value prices. I've been there on business trips three times and have never had a bad hotel experience (if you can discount nearly losing my laundry when some colleagues 'borrowed' my room and left the do not disturb sign on the door). I always come away completely amazed by how good the service ethic is in the hotel sector and how you get a lot for your money in KL. However, even my high expectations were exceeded on my most recent visit when I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental.
I was in the city for a trade fair back in 2005 and was very glad that the colleague who'd organised the trip had decided that in order to perform well at the fair we really couldn't be expected to stay in a nasty cheap hotel. So she had booked us all into executive club rooms way up on the higher floors of one of the best hotel's in town. I'm not sure how much of the service we had was due to the status of the rooms and how much was standard so keep in mind that not everything might be on offer if you book a more basic room.
We'd flown in overnight and were picked up by a driver and a limo at the airport. It's quite a long trek into town these days since they built the new airport so by the time we arrived we were glad to see the hotel and shocked at just how close it was to the famous Petronas Towers. It really is literally next door. We were greeted at the car by a hostess who took our details and then we were taken through the marble lobby, directly to the lifts and straight up to our rooms. Check in was carried out in the rooms without any need to queue or wait and everything was ridiculousy courteous and pleasant.
My room was gorgeous though sadly I didn't have a view of the Petronas Towers but I could look out over the lake, the KLCC conference centre and the KL aquarium through the floor to ceiling windows. The bed was large and very comfortable with luxurious linens. There was a seating area with table and chairs and a bowl of fruit which was topped up daily with the sort of fruit that needs a bit of judicious googling to identify. I could make coffee if I wanted to, there was a fridge, a good sized work desk and chair and free wi-fi (always a bonus). The bathroom was glorious lots of marble and twinkly lighting with a separate shower and bath and some very nice toiletries.
One of the benefits of our executive room plan was a dry cleaning or laundry allowance. This is not unusual in KL hotels and since it's such a hot and sweaty city, you do tend to get through a lot more clothes than normal. I took full advantage of my allowance each day, even hunting out things in the bottom of my suitcase just to get them pressed or freshened. I've never come home from a trip with less laundry or more clean clothing.
We kicked off the stay with a briefing for all the colleagues working on the trade fair stand and this was held in one of the hotel's meeting rooms and was followed by a Chinese banquet in a nearby room. As a non-meat eater I had plenty of choice but found some of the food a bit over the top. It's hard to say no when you're given soup and don't realise that it's shark's fin and you'd really rather the shark had kept his fin for himself.
One of the best things about our stay was having access to the Executive Club which was beautiful and had fantastic views of the towers. The club was large, filled with comfy armchairs and sofas and offered plenty of free snacks and drinks in the late afternoon and evening as well as breakfast in the mornings. The colleague I was there with doesn't drink so I more or less had to keep up standards by drinking enough for both of us.
We tried out several of the hotel's many restaurants and considering the five-star status of the hotel, I didn't think that the food prices were outrageous. One of my rather traditional 'meat and two veg' colleagues struggled a bit with the sophistication of the menu and was baffled to find there wasn't a single dish she understood on the entire menu. I really enjoyed the international options on offer. We didn't always get the restaurant we wanted because the place was so busy that even as a resident you couldn't guarantee a table and one evening all our food came in the wrong order but everything was dealt with and the free puddings soon calmed any offence caused by getting your starter after your main course.
The hotel has a gym, spa and pool but I'm ashamed to say that sipping cold white wine in the club lounge was all I was fit for most evenings after a day at the trade fair. We had a bit of free time and took advantage of the spectacular shopping centre that's just next to the hotel as well as dropping into the Aquarium which has some beautiful displays including some stunning sea horses. I also dragged my colleague off to the Orchid Gardens which are my favourite place in the city.
I've stayed at the Pan Pacific by the conference centre which no longer exists, the sublime Hilton which is fabulous but not so central but I think that the Mandarin Oriental just pips the Hilton by the thinnest of whiskers.
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Gecko Samui Resort (Koh Samui, Thailand)
by aylawarner
My aunt and uncle recommended the Gecko Resort for our stay in Ko Samui as they had previously stayed there on a trip to Thailand a few years ago and they knew the owners and said that the place was nice. The resort is in Bo Phut which is the nicest area of Ko Samui island. Due to the fact that it is the nicest town, accommodation ... isn't cheap here and mostly consists of 5* resorts. Gecko was one of the cheapest at 800 Baht a night for a double standard room (approximately £15). The resort itself isn't primarily for accommodation. It was originally opened as the Gecko Bar and was well-known as the place to be for parties, especially around the time of the famous Full Moon Parties. The owner is a DJ from England and, with his Thai wife, he created a great party venue and the exclusive 9 bungalows were simply made to act as a resting place for the wicked after a long night out. Now that the owners are older, the place isn't so much a party venue and they only hold these on special occasions such as Full Moon Parties and New Years Eve.
Although on the website the bungalows look very exotic and like a little slice of paradise, they really are not. From the outside they do look gorgeous - a little hut with a straw roof, a terrace with a hammock and all sitting directly on the beach. But don't be fooled! Once you get inside they are very very basic - a cement building with two twin beds pushed together (not at all comfortable), a desk and a wardrobe. The bathroom had a toilet, big sink and just a drainpipe as the shower which had no hot water, but this is usual in Thailand. Because of the drainpipe as a shower, certain insects were able to creep though and we had a couple of cockroaches in the bathroom (even though the place wasn't at all dirty) and we also found a gecko lizard asleep in my left over Archers and lemonade! The bungalow was very big and you had lots of space to move around.
The resort is all open air, nothing is inside. There is the main bar, which is also reception, a living area where there are a few sofas, a TV and a pool table. This is all undercover and when it rains there are plastic covers which come down around the area. There are lots of sun beds, some undercover some on the beach, and this is a lovely and relaxing place to enjoy the sun. The staff were the most wonderful thing about this resort. They were so lovely and friendly and we chatted and played pool with them and they gave us advice on what to do in Ko Samui. There were also 9 dogs and a cat living in the resort. We were a bit shocked at this at first but the animals were such fun - they'd play in the sea with you and run up and down the beach and even fall asleep next to you while you were sunbathing. They were all small dogs and all very well behaved so they didn't get on your nerves and weren't too loud.
Although I said that the staff were great, I was not including the owners in this category. The DJ was hardly ever around as he often still DJs away at other venues but his wife was usually there and the only word I can think of to describe her is the queen. She would lay around on the sun beds all day with her favourite little dog always by her side and would order the other staff to do stuff without even raising a finger to do a single thing herself. She literally acted like the queen of the castle and she wasn't at all friendly. When the DJ was at the resort you knew about it because the music was continuously playing. The first time we saw him he was shouting at an old German couple telling them to get off his property because the guy was wearing Speedos. There was a sign declaring 'No Speedos' but we had presumed this to be a joke! He then called us over and offered us some champagne at 9 am in the morning. We asked what the occasion was and he said it was Wednesday morning! Oh well of course, we had forgotten about that special occasion! Every time we saw him after that he was either completely drunk or high on something else and they didn't hide the fact that they took drugs and would just start sniffing away in front of you! A couple of nights we hardly slept as the music was so loud and continued through the entire night. Definitely not a place for kids!
The resort has a restaurant, which I think is now its main source of income. The menu was great and they had some wonderful choices for cheap prices and all the food was delicious especially the sweet and sour chicken with rice, pad thai and the pancakes for desert which are the thickest and yummiest I've ever had and we ate here almost every night. You can either sit on the resort's deck or you can sit down on the sandy beach with candles which makes for a romantic meal.
The resort is a 5 minute walk from Fisherman's Village, the main road where all the shops and restaurants are and you have to actually walk across the beach to get to it. You can organise trips through the resort and can book a speed boat to take you to the Full Moon Party which leaves from the resort next door.
We had a bit of trouble booking a room here - no one got back to us when I sent them an email and when we called up they told us they had no rooms available. I eventually asked a local Thai man to call up and ask for us and he managed to book us the room we wanted. I simply think that the staff weren't too brilliant at English and hadn't understood me and I don't think they really check their emails so don't try and get in contact with them this way.
We stayed here for 8 nights and, although not everything was great about the place, I did miss it a lot when we left. We made some great friends who were also staying here and this, along with the staff and the animals, made our stay.
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Hotels in Thailand in general
by Traveller101
This review is about my time at the Rikka Inn on Khao San Road in Bangkok.
At the end of my last trip to Thailand, before we flew back form Bangkok to Manchester, we planned on staying on the Khao San Road somewhere comfortable, ideal for picking up some last minute gifts and souveniers and a good nights sleep before a long ... flight home.
We got to Khao San Road at around 5 AM, we tried the D & D Inn, Buddy lodge, Budget Guesthouse, Sawasdee, Khaosan Palace, and others - no rooms in any of these, wandering around my friend noticed this nice indoor tiled alley down the side of one of the 7-11 shops, which led us to Rikka Inn, so we found it by pure chance.
When we asked the see the rooms, we were very suprised for the price, for 600 THB per night, we got brand new very clean rooms, TV and nice bathrooms with hot showers, there was even a pool on the roof.
Just down the road is the Buddy Lodge, which I have stayed in before, it's basically the same features, but buddy lodge is 2000 THB per night.
A great find, and a great, comfortable place to stay amidst the melee of Khao San Road.
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