I don't know of any other place that has good wi-fi, and the last time I was in Samui (August) I spent a day going to about 20 places and testing their connections. Aumpai was the only place with a western-standard connection in Lamai.

The rooms there are quite nice though, I would book there anyway if you haven't found anywhere else suitable (which I doubt you will).

The other option is to get the CAT CDMA aircard from Nathon, and then you will have a decent connection no matter where you go.

EDIT:

If you go to the Eden Bar in Lamai and ask for Baz, I had him looking for more places for me with good internet while I am away. He might have found somewhere by now so it's worth a shot if all else fails. New hotels and apartments open up every other day in Samui, there's every chance there are places there now with better connections that I don't know about. He wouldn't know my 2+2 handle though so just tell him Sam sent you :P

If you do find a place I'd be very interested to hear about it because I'm heading back to Samui soon and don't want to waste another week looking again.

Speaking of wireless internet, has anyone tried to research a hardware fix to our very common hotel selection problem? It never occurred to me to blame anything but Thai ISPs and bad hotel tech guys for the issue, until I randomly switched to a MacBook recently. Since then I suddenly haven't had any problems with wifi connectivity, not even a single disconnect during grinding, on a couple different wireless networks, while my friend's PC laptop (equally far or closer to the router) is struggling.

I'm not saying everyone should buy a Mac, but there must be wireless network cards you can buy for the PC laptop that work way better than the integrated crap it came with. This might be preferable over the annoyance of having to search for a hotel with poker friendly internet every time you go somewhere.

Alternatively, if everyone shared their experiences we could probably build a long list of hotels with good internet all over Thailand, and put it in the sticky. That could be a very useful resource for all poker players.

I recommend asking questions like this in the "ask us about china/hong kong/macau thread, but for hotels there are two I recommend.

First is emperors hotel, it is around half the price of the same quality hotels all around the city and is in a good location. The second hotel I recommend is hotel lan-kwai-fong. It is a little bit more expensive, but it is by far the nicest 3 star hotel I have ever been in. Great staff, good location, nice rooms, not too expensive, good food, everything.

Oh, I guess a third recomendation, if you can afford it, the Grand Lisboa is the most baller hotel I have stayed in, and its not *too* expensive, like $350 USD/night. Make sure its the GRAND lisboa, not the lisboa. The lisboa is meh, a little bit worse than the emperors hotel but more expensive.

Check out the cash games are the venetian, softest you will ever see.

check agoda.com for good deals on hotels

Gondolin, you make a very good point.

A large percentage of the time the poor wifi connection is simply due to the crappy inbuilt antennae that come inside laptops.

Getting an external directional antenna will increase your wifi signal immensely. The problem is that they are difficult to carry around, and hard to find since a lot of computer shops don't even sell them.

A lot of wifi enthusiasts choose to make their own.

This is probably a ******ed question, but I have to ask. Can you get good pho all over thailand?

im looking to rent an apartment in phuket outside of patong on a weekly basis. Anyone know of any good websites?

Thanks mak mak!!

this thread is insanely long -- I am thinking of moving there in a couple of years, can anyone link back to some pictures of houses, etc?

My Tourist Visa expired 17 days ago, and i have a few questions about the process of leaving. From what i've found, it seems i can go to the Immigration office in Phuket city, pay a fine of 500THBx17, and then leave the country without any problems? But it also seemed as though i need a 1way plane ticket out of the country for there not to be a problem? is this correct? if so, what kind of complication could there be if i go down there without a plane ticket?

There also seemed to be another way to deal with it. Simply going down to the airport, buying a ticket out of the country, and then when you try to leave, they will get some sort of message saying i've stayed longer than allowed, take me aside and make me pay up? this seems sort of risky tho imo, as the requirement for there not to be a problem is that you voluntarily "report" yourself, and here it seems that they could reach the conclusion that you try to sneak away and they caught you in the act.

Anyone have any experience/knowledge about this? Any advice is highly appreciated.

it's not risky to just go to airport and pay the overstay. many tourists unknowingly overstay all the time.

just go to airport with the purpose of leaving the country at that moment and you won't have any problems.

check-in to your flight, walk to immigration, the officer will notice your overstay and show you to the desk where to pay it.

you will get an overstay stamp to your passport but it won't blacklist you or anything from future visits

Okay, thanks!

This still applies even when i don't have a plane ticket when I arrive right? When i go to the cashier to buy a ticket (getting on the first available plane to Norway, or any other Western European country if they don't have anything to Norway for x hours) , i hand them my passport as identification, they see my Visa expired 2+ weeks ago, they won't get me into trouble?

just book online? =\

Yea just book online

you can even check-in online with most airlines if you are worried about that.

and even if you have to buy your ticket from airport the airlines(and especially the thais working for them) won't care about your overstay.

only thing not to do is to go meet up with cranky immigration official/police showing your expired permission of stay stamp before you get to the airport

I overstayed 17 days last april. Only problem with it was that i almost missed the flight because it took an extra ~15-20minutes to sort the payment out at a fully packed airport(because of songkran). So reserve some time for it and you'll be fine.

good point. it's high season now so airports will be more packed than in a few months so reserve extra hour or something for the immigration

How much did you have to pay for overstaying that long?

it's 500 baht per day capped at 20k

atm I have a one way ticket into thailand, whats the cheapest flight I can book for like $50 or w/e so I don't have to book my flight home now?

You don't need a ticket out.

just get a flight to a bordering country, Malaysia or Indonesian flights are usually cheap.

Airasia is usually cheapest too

this conflicts with what I have been reading

I thought I needed proof of a flight leaving thailand when I entered?

mostly depends on where you're coming from/their leniency etc....i've been asked from aus every time, but don't recall being asked from SE asian countries coming in

ive been to the thai embassy in germany today, and they told me that there is no way to stay longer than 90 days, including visa runs (or if im older than 50 and can prove an income of 1200 euro or marry a thai girl, both wont happen soon). so what do you guys do to stay there long term? is it possible to get a non-immigrant/multiple entry visa in a thai embassy in another country, pretty sure ive read about something like japan etc. ive checked out the fines for overwstaying but they are way too expensive and the risk of getting caught before getting to the airport. i hope theres a way to stay there longer, i was pretty excited about learning thai fluent, but its not worth it for 3 months.

We just leave every 90 days. You can leave the country and be back same day and get another 90 days.