Motorbikes & Scooters, Ko Samui

There are plenty of places around the island that hire out bikes and scooters and I hired a little automatic scooter from a place called Bum (I kid you not!) near where I was staying in central Chaweng for 250 baht. It's the best way to get around the island and I spent a day visiting the major sights such as Lamai beach, Hin Ta Hin Yai, the mummified monk, a couple of waterfalls, a couple of the northern beaches and the Big Buddha. Be safe and legal by wearing a crash helmet and take care as the roads are cracked and potholed.

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Watching from the sidewalk one may think they are all suicidal but, it's actually quite safe riding around on a scooter. Rental fee was approx €4.00 per day which means this is much cheaper than a taxi, and faster than walking.

My hubbie and I hired a bike for the day and it was good fun. I admit I was a bit worried, having been told by a VT member that it's quite dangerous. The locals living on this island are so polite and courteous on the roads, and they also drive allot slower than back home! Nobody got road rage at all!! As long as your sensible it's a great way to get about the island. We hired a bike for 300 baht for the day, but that was from our hotel, over the road we found out later it was 200

Hiring a motorcycle or scooter is alot cheaper then catching a truck or cab anywhere.

My advise for hiring a motorbike is practice to drive one on a quite street or parking lot first...it may save you some pain later on. and get a helmet!

We rented scooters from our hotel - but I think you can find rental companies everywhere. This way afforded us some of our best adventures...once getting off the main road and winding up in the middle of a village, with monkey's jumping on us and children running along wanting to play. The gas was fairly cheap and you could really get far for the money. We found our way around the island with no problem. I think the best advice though is to be careful and cautious and pay attention to what is going on around you.

Although we were at first reluctant to rent a scooter because of all the warnings and dangers we read online, we eventually grew tired of going through the whole negotiation process every time we needed transport. We also saw so many other farangs zooming around that we decided to get our own scooter. We rented one from our hotel for 250 Baht per day excluding fuel, which as I understand is a bit more expensive than the street shops, but we didn't have to hand in our passports as collateral and we had safe parking at night at the hotel.

It takes an hour or so to get a feel for what the traffic is going to do and if you are expecting impending doom around every corner and can live with it, you should be doing OK. Easy does it and common sense will get you through the rough spots.

Watch out for loose sand, water filled potholes and reckless construction lorries and your eyes locking on to the girl's butt on the scooter in front of you. You don't need that kind of distraction right now.

If you are not used to scooters, be careful not to burn your leg on the exhaust pipe when you get off or park the scooter. It happens so often that there is a name for it - a Samui tattoo

Fuel is available all around the island from private vendors who will pump a liter or two out of a big drum with old style pumps with glass reservoirs. Prices are around 100 Baht per liter if you don’t care to haggle about it.

Try it as an alternative to taxis and songtheaws. If you do come unstuck and spend half your leave in hospital nursing some major roasties, rest assured you will not be the first or the last to do so.

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I went to Samui earlier this year, and it seems that most people there get around on scooters, costing 150-200 baht each per day, but you can barter the price a bit if you're going to have them for a few days, you have to barter the price on EVERYTHING in Thailand. I wanted something a bit more powerful than a scooter though, so I went looking for bigger bikes. I hired a Honda XR 250 Dirt bike for 500 baht a day, and it was a good bike, especially for exploring the mountain paths, but it was very expensive, so I ended up taking it back and getting a Honda NSR 150 for the rest of my stay at a more reasonable 350 Baht a day. Not a massively powerful bike, but I managed to get 75 mph out of it! I saw some people on CBR400s, and even a couple of ZX7Rs and bigger CBRs about. Theres a big bike hire shop near the entrance to Chaweng beach where you can hire just about anything, but I wouldnt reccomend it unless you really know what you're doing with a big bike, because Samui's roads are awful... potholes, cracks, waterlogged roads, dust, and terrible drivers all make it rather dangerous, and you have to keep your wits about you all the time! That said, there really is no other way to explore the island properly except by motorbike, just dont get sunburnt like I did! Have fun and be careful =)

The best way to discover the island is to rent a scooter. It's cheap, easy and, as the traffic is not as big as eg. in Phuket, relatively safe.
The island is not too big (cca. 70 km's around) and the main road follows the coastline, it's not too tyring to drive around. You have the possibility to explore popular and less visited spots for yourself. For example I really enjoyed to drive trough a traditional fishing village which was not touched by tourism at all.