[Dodger]

Svensken, I stayed at Central Karon Village first time in LOS, really nice quality and very romantic, set on a steep hill in jungle down to sea, make sure you get the reception staff to drive you to & from your room. You can walk along beach to get to Karon 5- 10 mins, which is fairly quite has some bars etc and will cetainly do for first couple of nights. Tuk Tuk into Patong takes 10 min at about 150 - 200bt, food, pools etc very nice just a little bit out of town. It is not guest friendly and they will charge up to 1000bt per night, I told them my girlfiend was coming to stay from BKK and she would be there several nights and whilst I didn't expect no charge would only pay 250 a night. They took this scam and only paid 250 each time brought different girl back ,they recorded it at reception. You cannot sneek by reception cos you need the guy to drive you down to your room, its not that you cannot walk it if fit but after two days walking up and down and as we had been attacked by a preying mantis, seen a spider as big as your hand, a monitor lizard thing as big as a dog and clocked a snake as big as a snake, who cares how big it was, it was a snake!!!.
Have a few days sussing out the area and scene then definately call in MTB etc to discuss with other BM's, I think although new and open to certain bg scams it is all the fun of finding out for yourself, if you meet others too soon a lot of what they will tell you will not make sense cos you havn't experienced any of it yourself and you will ask questions that within one day you will realise were naive. You will have a great time, meet loads of people, experience a great culture and .........well the rest you can find out.