For those that dislike Lipe all I can say is maybe you will like samui or Phuket more with the KFC and McDonnalds on every corner! This is one of the most naturally beautiful places I have ever visited and I travelled across south east Asia for 7 months. The reef was unlike anywhere else around Thailand, untouched and filled with incredible marine life. I saw more while snorkeling here for 10 minutes then I did on 8 dives elsewhere in Thailand. Take it for what it is, get a beach hut for $4 a night and eat in the tiny local resteraunts we even had a family cook for us.

We were stuck for somewhere to stay on Sunrise Beach and had to find somewhere with A/C as it was baking hot but wish we hadn't bothered with Tarutao. The A/C was cool enough and we were grateful not to have to sleep on the beach but the room was grotty & an uncomfortable bed meant little sleep. Sunrise Beach is a great location and there are better places quite close by so don't bother with Tarutao.

The "resort", if you can call it that, bills itself as "the most pleasure resort on Lipe island." Nothing could be further from the truth! I have stayed in some pretty bad and dire accomodation during my time on this Earth, and I can normally take backpacker accomodation, but this "resort" certainly takes the cake as one of the worse I have ever stayed in.

Let's start with the positives. I think there's only one... the location. Located in the centre of Sunrise Beach, this to me is arguably the best beach in Koh Lipe. Not as frenetic or crowded as Pattaya Beach or as isolated as Sunset Beach. Good snorkelling on the beach, especially towards the small rocky outcrop of an island facing the beach and also just a short walk to the beach up north where the mountain resort is, which to me is the best patch of sand on the whole island. The "resort" is also hardly a 3-minute walk to the Walking Street, where all the shops and restaurants are.

The accomodation itself was not good .... at all. We stayed in a "Deluxe Room". so I shudder to think what a standard room would be like. The room had 24-hour electricity and running water, and A/C, which was good. But it had no sink, no mirror, and no flush toilet. The sitting water closet was the type where you had to pour in water via a bucket to clear the waste. Fine..... I can live with that...but did it have to full of yellow urine when I first moved in? Doesn't housekeeping check and cleans the bathroom before the next guest moves in!!! Not too much to ask?

The next shocker were the towels. At some earlier point in their existence, they were probably white. Now they were rather yellowish; okay I'm not squeemish, i can live with yellowish towels provided they are clean. But these ones actually had brownish and reddish stains on it...... May even have been dried blood for all I know... yucks

There is actually a television set in the room. What it is there for, I am unsure. There was no reception at all. All you got was blank static. Well who cares, I'm not in Koh Lipe to watch television. But makes you wonder, why bother putting a TV in the first place.

The bed was nice and big. No visible stains on the sheets... that was at least a relief. But it must be said this was the hardest "mattress" I have ever slept on in my life, and I have slept on wooden floors before! It was hard as a rock. Coupled with the fact that the chalet was directly adjacent to a sandy back-road, you could hear motorcycles whizzing up and down the road throughout the day and into the night. Surprised we could get any sleep at all, but that was probably due more to tiredness from the day's excursions than to comfort.

Compared to the above, the rest are probably very minor complaints, water ponding on the bathroom floor, stained water marks on the walls, almost unlockable front sliding door, lights not working and the list goes on.

I won't even talk about the unmotivated staff or the lack of a restaurant or the poor breakfast. Koh Lipe is a wonderful beautiful island still not overrun by the tourist hordes like the rest of the thai islands. I will definitely be back, but it won't be to the Tarutao Cabana.

The resort advertises itself as "The most pleasure resort on Lipe island". Actually I think it's the most disgusting place I've ever been to (and I've been to a lot of cheap guesthouses). I paid relatively high price for the room (about 1600BHT/night) which I booked in advance from the Tigerline travel office in Trang. The reason for booking in advance was that I was worried that all other resorts would be fully booked because it was the Christmas holidays.

The location is OK, there's shops, Dangdee tours company (highly recommended for snorkeling / fishing trips!) and restaurants nearby.

I had a bungalow in the back row. The "garden view" that the travel agency lady mentioned was more like a junkyard view. Dead grass, dead trees, trash, broken bottles.. The lady also told me it's the second row from the beach and the beach would be like 30 meters away. Actually the beach was about 150 meters away. The bungalow was very old, moist and probably had mold due to NO VENTILATION and the bathroom was in the same space as the main room. There was all sort of insects in there and even some wood eating worms due to moisture. The bathroom was SUPER FILTHY! It had not been well cleaned for years. I made a complaint immediately and the cleaning lady visited us but she was not able to get the bathroom clean. Another complaint and there was some improvement but it still was not clean. Low water pressure in the shower, no sink, no mirror etc.

The bed was too hard (I usually like the hard thai beds better than soft ones) and the "mattress" was very old and covered in synthetic leather like non-breathable material which caused all your sweat to stay in the sheets. After a couple of nights I had some kind of rash (red spots) all over the left side of my back (I sleep on my left side).

The management seemed to be unmotivated and the staff seemed lazy.

Fot the whole 5 days that I stayed there I was just waiting to go somewhere else. Avoid at all cost!

To sum this up, the only positive thing I can say about this resort is the location but the Island is very small (you can walk everywhere) so this is not very important.