East or West Coast for 10 days in Jan 2010?

Hello

My friend are planning to spend 9 days at the start of January 2010 staying at the beaches in Thailand. We have never been there before so not sure where is best to go.

We would like a relaxing holiday and just want to see beautiful beaches with clear water and do not want to be anywhere too busy.

We are considering 2 options:

a) 3 days in Phuket and then 6 days in Krabi with days trip to Phi Phi

Or

b) 5 days in Koh Samui at Lamai Beach with a few days at Ko Tao and Phang-nan and a visit to the National Park.

We understand that the weather is not so good on the East side up to December but should be fine by January.

Any advice would be very gratefully received.

Thank you.

East or West Coast for 10 days in Jan 2010?

phuket is the busiest most expensive area in thailand ,phi phi is also densly populated and super busy especially at that time .most places will be busy first week of jan. you might want to look at krabi and khao lak...

on samui ,lamai beach is the second busiest and doesnt have clear water though quiet beaches can be found on samui ,mae nam for example.

quieter beaches can be found on koh phangan ,haad rin is the busiest .koh tao has really clear water but get away from sairee beach ..

East or West Coast for 10 days in Jan 2010?

Hi,

have stayec in both areas and both times in January.

Phuket, very busy near Patong but much better now after the Tsunami, hotels and eateries all upgraded. loads of place around the Island Karon, very nice and Kata. All depends on the buget really. Ferry to Phi Phi is fun the place is truly beautiful, we stayed at the Holiday Inn stunning beach. Krabi is graet too with amazing scenery, boat to Hong Island a must. We spent 5 weeks touring the region this year. Ko Samui is fantastic if this is your first vist to Thailkand it has something of everything and the wether is slighty less humis than the east coast. Chaweng is a grat place as well as Lamai, food beaches bars , you name it it has the lot. This is our choiuce this year we are returning to Ko Samui for the 3rd time.

Might see you there.