Koh Phangang and Koh Tao - Fri 2/04 to Mon 12/04

Koh Phangang and Koh Tao…I have decided to write about these two islands together due to the fact that other than day to day things like eating, swimming and reading there is not always a lot else of note to write about really. That said, the two islands themselves are everything that you imagine when you think of paradyllic islands in the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Thailand. They are both relatively quiet islands with roughly one main centre of commerce that usually consists of some dusty roads, a pier or two and lots of restaurants, guesthouses, and travel shops. The rest of the islands are made up of pristine beaches and coves with the majority only being accessible by ’long-tail’ boat.

Our plan on arriving in Koh Phangang after a short trip by ferry from Koh Samui was to take a taxi-ute to Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi on Phangang‘s north eastern coast. This is a classic Phangang beach, isolated, quiet and beautiful. On arrival we found that most of the places to stay were fancy pants resorty type places that were well out of our price range. Fortunately after a rather tiring and very hot stroll asking at places along the beach if they had any cheap rooms (we refer to this walk as ‘the walk of shame‘) we found a place right at the end of the beach in our price range.

Now the place had a beautiful restaurant and was in a prime position so it was a surprise when we trekked up the hill to our bungalow to find that we were to be staying in what looked like a two story surfie/hippy shack. This has to be the weirdest bungalow we have stayed in on our trip so far. It had a balcony with French doors leading into a big down stairs room that had absolutely nothing in it! No chairs, couch or anything. There was a stair case that led up to a loft where the bed was and this had floor to ceiling windows along one wall that we were pretty excited about as we thought this would make the room cooler at night. The bungalow must’ve been one of the oldest the place had as it was full of spiders and other assorted insects, but there were no rats and it was cheap so we didn’t mind. The rest of our time at this beach was spent doing the usual beach type things and after four days it was time to head off to another secluded beach on the north coast of the island for more of the same. Haad Khuom is a quiet bay with lots of coral and pretty good snorkelling.

Now I should say at this point that I have been to Koh Phangang and Koh Tao before and actually stayed at these places on that trip. I wanted to go back to Haad Khoum and stay again at the Coconut beach bungalows as I had had such a great time there last time. So we did. The difference is when I went to these two islands five years ago, I was on my way home after fifteen months in Korea and I really needed a place to chill out and get away from it all for a while. Both islands were perfect for doing exactly that and I had a great time relaxing, swimming, having a few quiets and sitting in a hammock all day. However this time we have been in Thailand for over a month and we have been island hopping the whole way. Therefore by about the time we arrived in Haad Khoum we were both feeling a little ’beached out’. I know, I know. None of you reading this who have been at work whilst we have been on holiday and possibly suffering through some cold weather somewhere will be feeling much sympathy for our plight. We are not complaining but after so much relaxing we are both keen to get off the islands and back to somewhere we can move around, check a few things out and do a bit more than just sitting on our bums on another perfect beach. What’s that you say?? Harden up? Come back here and do some real work and we’ll see who’s sick of the beach?? Oh you poor baby, my heart bleeds all over the cold stone floor for you?? Yes well, be that as it may we are still here and still waiting to leave the islands behind and get into some serious travelling again. As I write this we are due to leave Koh Tao tomorrow by ferry back to the mainland from where we will catch an overnight sleeper train up to Bangkok. I have learned by the online Bangkok newspaper today that 19 people were killed yesterday in Bangkok as a result of clashes between the police and ’red-shirts’ protesters who are trying to overthrow the government.

Rest assured this should not affect us as it is between the protesters and the government and confined to an area of the city where we will not be residing. As a treat to ourselves we have booked the three night duration of our stay in Bangkok in a 5 star hotel as a break from all the cheap places we’ve stayed in up until now. I have ensured that this is in a part of the city unaffected by the troubles and we will undoubtedly be fine. The good news is this weekend is Songkran which is the Thai New Year. This festival involves people heading out into the city armed with water pistols and super soakers and having a giant water fight! This tradition stems from the practise of sprinkling statues of Buddha with water for good luck and has now evolved into a nation wide water fight where no one is safe-mean! I like the idea of Bangkok being filled with people shooting each other with water guns a lot more than the real thing so it will be interesting to see if the festival still goes ahead and what the mood of the city will be.

Now I have just realised that I was supposed to be writing about Haad Khoum, silly me! Now where was I….oh yes. Haad Khoum is a great place and very relaxing and if you ever get there you should stay at the Coconut bungalows too because it is a great, and cheap place to stay. As our days were spent relaxing I will spare you the day to day details.

One thing of note that did happen while we were there involved one very young and very drunk fisherman. Now I had spotted this bloke drinking with a few of the boys from our bungalows one afternoon and they seemed to be having a good time. The fun came later that arvo when I had just finished having a snorkel off the point and the pissed bloke and his mate came stumbling by me as I walked back along the rocks. The older of the two seemed fine and they were both walking along carrying two empty oil containers tied together. Funny thing to be carrying I thought but hey what do I know right? It must be for something. As I walked along the rocks the pissed bloke headed into the shallow water and started yelling something about ….’I speak Engrish…I unnastan…’. Is he talking to me I thought? Couldn’t be surely, so I just smiled and carried on walking back towards the beach. This is where it got interesting. As I sat in the shallows watching the sun head towards the horizon the older bloke hit the water and started swimming towards a fishing boat that looked to be about five hundred or more metres off the point. That’s what the empty oil containers were for! They were floatation devices so that the guy could swim back to the ship without drowning.

Now this guy looked fine as he jumped in and no one on the beach had any doubts that he would make it. The other guy though…He was shouting and slapping his ’floatation devices’ against the water and two things were obvious; one was he wasn’t happy, and two, he was extremely pissed! He had the attention of everyone on the beach now as only a really drunk person can have. I was thinking if he goes down there’s about 300 metres of coral between him and me, that’s going to be hard on the feet! He was truly on his own as his mate was long gone and I didn’t see the boat making any move to come and pick him up either. At this stage we all just sat back and waited to see what would unfold.

He struggled valiantly and rather angrily in the water towards where he thought the boat was dodging a number of criss-crossing long tails that made no effort to come to his aid as he flailed about like a toddler that’s lost it’s water wings. In the end, and after a few heart stopping moments for those of us watching from the beach, the boat finally powered up and came round and rescued this young bloke from a certain watery grave. He had drifted a long way from the boat and looked exhausted as the boat came around. After all his huff and puff and kicking up a fuss everyone on the beach looked genuinely relieved to see the boat pick him up. His crewmates might be used to it, hence their considerable delay before grabbing him out of the wet jaws of death, but the rest of us thought it was pretty cruel to leave the guy floundering in open water like that. Must be a hard out Thai fisherman guy thing. I can only imagine how the bloke looked when they pulled him out of the water, I’d say he would’ve been sleeping for a while after that!

Anyway so ended our time on Koh Phangang and now it was off to Koh Tao for more beaches, reading etc etc. Koh Tao is a mecca for diving but not much else. As we weren’t diving we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves. We hired a bike and did battle with the roads as best we could. The roads on Koh Tao, if they can be called roads, are enough to give any city slicker conniption fits. They ain’t the Tullamarine freeway that’s for sure. The holes are huge and everywhere. The cracks, debris and potholes are unavoidable and that’s just the main road. The ’secondary’ roads are almost impassable and we even shelled out a little extra to get a bike with huge knobbly tyres like a trail bikes. No good. We still had to abandon the bike in order to get down to the beach as the roads were rutted, mangled and downright scary, especially with two people. Poor Kate had to get off and walk a few times as I battled up and down the ruddy tracks risking bike and limb. Oh well, at least it wasn’t my bike!

Now we are set to leave Koh Tao, headed for the newly blooded streets of Bangkok. I’m sure our hotel will be safe and we can enjoy this remarkable city. The good news is I have found via the internet an air conditioned indoor skate park, in a shopping mall of all places, that looks absolutely amazing. Skateboarding seems such a lovely way to spend your time as opposed to shooting guns or throwing grenades. Hopefully next instalment I’ll have lots of sick skateboarding shots to share in this most unusual of skate-settings. But more about that next time. ’Til then.

Photos of Koh Phangang

Photos from Haad Khuom -first place we stayed at in Koh Phangang.


Our taxi ride to Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi. It was very bumpy and dusty.


The beach at Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi.


Having lunch at Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi. It's a hard life on the islands!


We treated ourselves to a fish one night. It cost about 50B per 100g - I think our little red snapper was about 500g. Yummy!

Photos from Haad Khuom -second place we stayed at in Koh Phangang


Another sunset.


The score was one all. Tim didn't want another match cos he knew he was going to loose! haha


To fill up your motorbike you can either go to the petrol station or you can buy spirit bottles filled with petrol from street stalls. The price of the petrol was obviously a bit more expensive from the spirit bottle but not by much. We paid between 40B to 50B per spirit bottle.


The big boat is the one who picked up the drunken fisherman.

Photos of Koh Tao

There are heaps of dogs in Thailand. This poor fella has probably one of the worst ones I have seen - he obviously is flea ridden as the other thing he does is sleep and scratch. It's very sad. Many of the dogs slept through the day and then come alive at night time.


I did not like the roads at all! This day we thought we would visit one of the beaches but didn't know that the road was going to be this bad!! We ended up leaving our bike at the top of the hill and walking most of the way to the beach. The road doesn't look that steep here but is was very steep, dusty, and the gravel/dirt slides under tires easily. You could hire scooter with dirt bike tyres.


Having a banana smoothie before heading back up the hill to our bike.


This is where we went snorkling - it wasn't that great as there wasn't many colourful fish or coral. Gutted!!


Longtailed boats on Sairee beach.


I am in love with crispy pork and chinese sausage on rice as well as chicken on rice. I'm not that keen on the Thai food so far apart from the above dish. Either I may now have high standards since coming from Malaysia or I have only had tried tourist Thai food and not the geninue stuff yet.....