We had arranged for transfer to Koh Mook through Pawapi via email. The boat never showed up and our resort on Koh Ngai was unable to get anyone to answer the phone The Koh Ngai resort arranged a transfer for us at the last minute. We arrived at Pawapi and were shown to a room and given a couple of bottles of water and then left alone. The place seemed deserted except for the other equally baffled guests. The bar was obviously not in service and there was no one around to answer questions. The bungalows are basic. The porch is wonderful, with a breeze and a view to the ocean. The roofs are thatch but most are in need of new thatch. There is an in room safe, but it was locked when we got there so we couldn't use it. The tap water is quite brown and the towels were dingy. The sheets had blood stains on them (most likely from smashed mosquitoes). I was afraid to lower the mosquito netting for fear it would dump dirt all over the bed. There was instant coffee in the room but nothing to heat water with. The beach is not very pretty but was much nicer for swimming than the beach on the north side of the peninsula which is full of drifting seaweed and garbage. On our first morning, someone came to our room to tell us they were...We had arranged for transfer to Koh Mook through Pawapi via email. The boat never showed up and our resort on Koh Ngai was unable to get anyone to answer the phone The Koh Ngai resort arranged a transfer for us at the last minute. We arrived at Pawapi and were shown to a room and given a couple of bottles of water and then left alone. The place seemed deserted except for the other equally baffled guests. The bar was obviously not in service and there was no one around to answer questions.
The bungalows are basic. The porch is wonderful, with a breeze and a view to the ocean. The roofs are thatch but most are in need of new thatch. There is an in room safe, but it was locked when we got there so we couldn't use it. The tap water is quite brown and the towels were dingy. The sheets had blood stains on them (most likely from smashed mosquitoes). I was afraid to lower the mosquito netting for fear it would dump dirt all over the bed. There was instant coffee in the room but nothing to heat water with.
The beach is not very pretty but was much nicer for swimming than the beach on the north side of the peninsula which is full of drifting seaweed and garbage.
On our first morning, someone came to our room to tell us they were serving breakfast--we weren't even sure they were offering it up until then. They brought us a fried egg with two pieces of white toast, a plain omelet (shared between the two of us) and a fruit plate. They offered tea (but not coffee) and gave us more bottled water. Breakfast was the same each day. although there was coffee on the third morning.
Another couple at breakfast asked about the WiFi and they said their internet provider had folded but they would try to get it fixed. I checked a couple more times while we were there but it was never up.
A pack of about 6 dogs live at the resort and are not shy about coming up to enjoy your porch with you. They were mostly very sweet and there's a gate on the porch so you can shut them out if you want to.
We were in and out of the room that first morning so when it hadn't been cleaned by afternoon we figured they just hadn't caught us at a time when we were out of the room. They did leave us an electric kettle on our porch. We were gone all morning the second morning and came back to find that they still hadn't serviced the room. Since it rained hard several times while we were there, we had tracked in a lot of sand no matter how hard we tried not to. My husband tried to get someone to clean the room, but was met with blank stares by the staff (no English). I tried again by taking our dirty towels over to them and I at least got them to exchange the towels.
On our third morning, we finally found someone willing to check us out. He had no idea how long we had stayed. He had to call someone to find out what to charge. We handed him cash and I insisted on a receipt because I'm still not convinced that the resort was even in operation while we were there! Finally, that last morning, someone came by to clean the room but by then we told him just to wait until we were gone. We were able to enjoy the porch until our boat (arranged elsewhere on the island) picked us up at 1:30. We were actually glad that the transfers didn't work out from this resort because they gave us a price that was 300 baht higher than the going rate for a private transfer. If you're willing to take a taxi over to the pier on the other side of the island and go with the scheduled service you can get it even cheaper. If I were to do this again, I wouldn't bother trying to arrange transfers ahead of time--I think you can get a better deal once you're in Thailand.
I suspect that the problems we encountered were due to their problems with the internet and to the fact that it is not yet high season. Our best guess is that the owners were absent and the caretakers are just not trained in the level of service necessary for a property of this type.More