The boyfriend and I went to Samui last May for a few days. We flew Bangkok Air from BKK and then continued on to Krabi. I'm not sure about travel from Pattaya. The Samui Airport is a beautiful, open-air structure with comfortable seating and complimentary food and beverages while you are waiting for outbound flights. I believe it is privately owned. Samui is not the place to go if you are looking for lots of gay nightlife and gogo bars.

We stayed at Chaweng Guesthouse at the recommendation of my bf. It is located in the South Chaweng area. The room was clean and super cheap, but nothing special. I think I paid about 800 baht a night for a double bed with small fridge, TV, and AC. The bathroom was decent and the shower was big (no bathtub). They have cheaper rooms but the bathrooms are not in-room. They have internet (for fee) but no breakfast. There are plenty of places to eat nearby. I would not recommend the Chaweng Guesthouse unless you are on a tight budget. This is not the place to stay if you want a quiet, resort hotel with services, restaurant, swimming pool, or beach views.

The Chaweng Guesthouse is a short walk to the beach. It's also in the same location as the few gay venues. In fact, they are right outside your door...convenient but it can be noisy until 2 am. The Boy Zone is a nice bar with a few dance shows every night. The working boys there were very friendly and sweet. I didn't see a system for offing the boys (no mamasan or numbers on the boys) but the bf said he thought most of them were available to play for pay after the show. Directly across from Boy Zone is the Male Box bar and dance club. They also have shows but since I was there during low season the place was usually void of customers. We had more fun dancing at a very popular, mostly straight, after-hours club nearby (sorry I forget the name).

The beach in Chaweng was nice but be prepared to have the usual parade of vendors hawking food and souvenirs. If you want a more quiet and secluded beach, you may want to stay in a different area of Samui or rent a motorbike and explore. We motorbiked to the Namuang Waterfall in the Lamai Beach area (south of Chaweng). It's was a nice place to swim and cool off. If you are in Samui at the right time of the month you may want to experience the full moon party on nearby Pha Ngan Island. It's mostly the straight backpacker crowd but I went with my bf and some of his friends and we had a great time.

Cheers...Kip