Why start a post on the islands of Thailand with a Bob Marley song? Because that’s the only music they play there… over and over, and over again. I guess they subscribe to the belief that white people love Bob Marley, oh, and cheese. The place pictured below is one of the many reggae bars.
After the hot, dense jungle of Bangkok we were excited to sample the island life on Koh Samui and Koh Phangan. Koh Samui is a small, but heavily trafficked island located in the Gulf of Thailand, 1 hour south of Bangkok by plane (the opposite coast from where the Tsunami hit in 2005). We stayed at low key resort on Cheweng Beach and worked on our tans poolside- the beach was overrun with hawkers,- ate tons of delicious fresh coconut and leisurely strolled the main street taking in the local "wildlife" in their natural habitat.
Unfortunately, the "wildlife" was young unkempt backpackers, aging smelly hippies, obnoxious sun burnt Russians and the very pushy local's trying to get you to buy their crap or eat in their restaurants. Overall, the food was tolerable, but overpriced and the entire island reminded us of a Thai knock-off of Daytona Beach during Spring Break. There were a few good parts like walking the beach at sunset, great happy hours set up on the beach and visiting an idyllic waterfall on the interior, complete with elephants.
After being held hostage for three days because we pre-paid hotel, we moved on to next island located 45 minutes north via ferry, Koh Phangan . If you have ever been to the US Virgin Islands, imagine Koh Samui as Charlotte Amalie in St.Thomas and Koh Phangan as low key, laid back St John - definitely more our style.
Koh Phangan's claim to fame is the once monthly Full Moon. An all-night drug and sex fueled psychedelic trance dance party complete with buckets of cheap, local whiskey - yes buckets, not individual drinks, buckets, little red toy buckets from your childhood full of booze, genius right - and fire shows at the local beach. Of course success breeds imitators and now Koh Phangan hosts half moon, quarter moon, new moon and black moon parties. Pretty much every-other- type- of –moon-imaginable- party. Unfortunately (or fortunately), during our stay the only party going on was a dress like a Pirate Party, but we were too tired from diving to attend... Arghh!
Unlike Koh Samui we wanted to stay outside of town and found a great private beach front bungalow, about 30 mins from the ferry dock. The location was perfect. There were about 10 bungalows, and the resort was half empty, so we had a private beach all to ourselves with spectacular red and orange sunsets, which made the perfect backdrop for kayaking and watching local fisherman cast their lines before nightfall.
In addition to diving, Koh Phangan is famous for it's squid fishing. At night squid boats, stalk into the dark waters and turn on very bright lights, which attracts the squid to the surface to feed. While we don't have a picture, all the boats strung together at sea with their lights looks beautiful at night and resembles a a large pearl necklace hanging around the island.
As many of you may know, AB is a Divemaster and loves the life aquatic. The image on his desktop at work for the past four years has been one of the Thai islands, and served as inspiration for our visit to Thailand. Koh Phangan and it's sister island Koh Tao are famous for their diving. From Koh Phangan , we visited the fabled Sail Rock and Ang Thong National Marine Park. The clarity was not ideal unlike the West coast that we never got to experience, but we saw tons of fish. In our experience, when you dive the Caribbean, you beautiful coral and a few fish, but Thailand had schools and schools of the most spectacular fish- big schooling barracuda, angel fish, giant grouper, snapper … We also learned for the first time about the pesky trigger fish that likes to attack divers to protect their eggs. Overall, the diving was fantastic and was well worth the trip. Plus, unlike Caribbean diving, the actual trip is an all day excursion filled with catered lunch and afternoon napping.
On the days we were not diving or laying out, we rented a scooter to find unspoiled beaches and fishing boat photo ops, which we found on the white sand beach of Haad Salad. Similar to other scooter rental experiences in SE Asia, gas was not included so we filled the tank with gas sold by the bottle from road side stands. Although slightly annoying, the scooter gas situation was much better than riding in the back of pick-up truck taxis driven by people who are more than likely still on drugs from the previous evenings Full Moon party. Thai drivers are known to be crazy drivers and when you are riding in the back of an un-padded, flat bed truck, at speed down a one lane road you feel it.
While on Koh Phangan, the local village we stayed near was having it's annual festival to raise money for their temple. We had fun walking around and taking in the different sites and sounds, just imagine any small town VFD carnival with an Asia twist. Our favorite was the spinning monks you could lay bets on and the young, scantily clad "pop" singers, who were so bad they made William Hung sound good.
It was also in Koh Phangan where we experienced a photographic meltdown. After spending countless hours planning and snapping the perfect shots, the data card was corrupted by a Chinese modem at the local internet cafe and threatened to ruin all our photos. This prompted a blogging hiatus till we were able to get the photos issue resolved.
After the hot, dense jungle of Bangkok we were excited to sample the island life on Koh Samui and Koh Phangan. Koh Samui is a small, but heavily trafficked island located in the Gulf of Thailand, 1 hour south of Bangkok by plane (the opposite coast from where the Tsunami hit in 2005). We stayed at low key resort on Cheweng Beach and worked on our tans poolside- the beach was overrun with hawkers,- ate tons of delicious fresh coconut and leisurely strolled the main street taking in the local "wildlife" in their natural habitat.
After being held hostage for three days because we pre-paid hotel, we moved on to next island located 45 minutes north via ferry, Koh Phangan . If you have ever been to the US Virgin Islands, imagine Koh Samui as Charlotte Amalie in St.Thomas and Koh Phangan as low key, laid back St John - definitely more our style.
Koh Phangan's claim to fame is the once monthly Full Moon. An all-night drug and sex fueled psychedelic trance dance party complete with buckets of cheap, local whiskey - yes buckets, not individual drinks, buckets, little red toy buckets from your childhood full of booze, genius right - and fire shows at the local beach. Of course success breeds imitators and now Koh Phangan hosts half moon, quarter moon, new moon and black moon parties. Pretty much every-other- type- of –moon-imaginable- party. Unfortunately (or fortunately), during our stay the only party going on was a dress like a Pirate Party, but we were too tired from diving to attend... Arghh!
Unlike Koh Samui we wanted to stay outside of town and found a great private beach front bungalow, about 30 mins from the ferry dock. The location was perfect. There were about 10 bungalows, and the resort was half empty, so we had a private beach all to ourselves with spectacular red and orange sunsets, which made the perfect backdrop for kayaking and watching local fisherman cast their lines before nightfall.
In addition to diving, Koh Phangan is famous for it's squid fishing. At night squid boats, stalk into the dark waters and turn on very bright lights, which attracts the squid to the surface to feed. While we don't have a picture, all the boats strung together at sea with their lights looks beautiful at night and resembles a a large pearl necklace hanging around the island.
As many of you may know, AB is a Divemaster and loves the life aquatic. The image on his desktop at work for the past four years has been one of the Thai islands, and served as inspiration for our visit to Thailand. Koh Phangan and it's sister island Koh Tao are famous for their diving. From Koh Phangan , we visited the fabled Sail Rock and Ang Thong National Marine Park. The clarity was not ideal unlike the West coast that we never got to experience, but we saw tons of fish. In our experience, when you dive the Caribbean, you beautiful coral and a few fish, but Thailand had schools and schools of the most spectacular fish- big schooling barracuda, angel fish, giant grouper, snapper … We also learned for the first time about the pesky trigger fish that likes to attack divers to protect their eggs. Overall, the diving was fantastic and was well worth the trip. Plus, unlike Caribbean diving, the actual trip is an all day excursion filled with catered lunch and afternoon napping.
On the days we were not diving or laying out, we rented a scooter to find unspoiled beaches and fishing boat photo ops, which we found on the white sand beach of Haad Salad. Similar to other scooter rental experiences in SE Asia, gas was not included so we filled the tank with gas sold by the bottle from road side stands. Although slightly annoying, the scooter gas situation was much better than riding in the back of pick-up truck taxis driven by people who are more than likely still on drugs from the previous evenings Full Moon party. Thai drivers are known to be crazy drivers and when you are riding in the back of an un-padded, flat bed truck, at speed down a one lane road you feel it.
It was also in Koh Phangan where we experienced a photographic meltdown. After spending countless hours planning and snapping the perfect shots, the data card was corrupted by a Chinese modem at the local internet cafe and threatened to ruin all our photos. This prompted a blogging hiatus till we were able to get the photos issue resolved.
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