Koh Phangan

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Koh Phangnan is famous for hosting the Full Moon party, which takes place three days after we leave unfortunately. Despite the place being known for being a party island, we managed to find what has easily become the highlight of my time here so far! Thong Nai Pan Yai beach is to the east of the island if my geographical skills are correct (which they might not be so just google it) and it is amazing. A small beach in comparison to some we've seen, it has creamy soft sand and crystal clear water surrounded by green trees and mountains.

If I go back a few steps our journey to the hotel from the ferry was a pain. In what we've found to be typical Thai fashion, we waited in our cab until the driver had filled every last crevice with a person and bag, they really don't like going on long journeys unless they're getting their petrols worth! About five minutes into the journey the driver pulls over and fills the remaining space in the car with fish! Fresh fish from the market that we later found out he was delivering to a hotel en route to dropping us to ours! It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so it was scorching hot... hands up who can guess how good that cab smelt after driving 10 minutes down the road! We dropped off the guests before us and we're sitting in the car for about 10 minutes, the driver has gone missing he then emerges laughing, with food in his hand and in his mouth, the bastards been eating his lunch whilst we wait in the car for him! As per my latest post I can confirm he did NOT get a tip!

All was soon forgotten when we arrived at our hotel, I was dubious but it was amazing. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, with ponds and water features dotted around. We had a great pool, and best of all it was right on the beach front, so breakfast, lunch and dinner all had a perfect sea view while sitting on the sand!

On our first night here we decided to walk the length of the beach and have a look at what was around, it was dark and on our way back we see this tiny little thing come running towards us, I said "careful I think it's a pig" (that's what it looked like but not sure why logic let me think a pig would be on the beach). Turns out it was a little puppy who wanted to play, we walk a bit further up and another puppy appears, this time a blonde one. We look up and see another one, then another one and by the time we got to the top we'd found nine puppies! They were adorable, very young maybe five/six weeks old and so friendly. We spent every night going to visit the pups, we saw the mum who had a big swollen belly and droopy nips, again showing how young these pups are, she was very young herself, we took her some chicken and in return she let us cuddle her pups and didn't bite us!

We went to say goodbye to them on our final night, sadly they weren't there, I think the Buddhists on the island rescued them and took them to the temple so they can be looked after, they were getting cold on the beach at night so it's for the best, I hope they have a happy life and get well looked after, meeting them has made us very dog broody though!

Aside from puppies, sunbathing and eating we visited a waterfall which was cool and went to The Challenge Phangnan, google it, but big inflatables in a lake like Ninja Warrior. I wasn't very good, Mikey was (obvs) he had a go at being launched off a big inflatable pillow, it looked painful so I gave it a miss.

I am already sad to be leaving Koh Phangnan, I would defo return! Off to Koh Samui today!

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