Khao Lak Riverside Resort & Spa

We stayed in this hotel 5 times. The owners Bruno and Markus, both Swiss, were fully committed to the hotel and guests. After Markus could no longer work due to illness, Bruno was supposed to manage it alone. That didn't work out. After that, Markus' wife tried to keep the hotel. It wasn't meant to be. I've never seen such a paradise run down so catastrophically in such a short time. It was demolished 3 years ago and the site belongs to the neighboring hotel. There are still videos on YouTube of how beautiful it was.

This resort is now closed and undergoing a refurb after being taken over by la vela.i am led to believe that it will be incorporated into the la vela complex on completion,two very contrasting styles here so it will be interesting to see what they do.

Our last trip to the southern part of Thailand we stayed at Riverside Resort & Spa, nice enough hotel. The room was clean & spacious with a unique bathroom with a view. The wifi was good but it only had limited tv channels. Staff was helpful & friendly, and the breakfast was delicious. Seems like all was ok, except we were the only guests there! The lobby/reception area was locked after 8pm I think, so we had to take the stairs to go to our room in the 3rd floor. Most time the elevator was switched off & not working (maybe to save the electricity). The staff had double roles: receptionist by day & cook by morning (we only met/interacted with 1 staff during our 3 nites there) Maybe it's quiet becoz there's construction going on right next door, we missed the entrance when we first arrived. We mistakenly took it as the entrance to the builders' barrack. Ah well .... nothing wrong with the hotel unless you let your imagination going wild then it would feel like being in the film Vacancy .... 😅😅😅