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Published: March 6th 2011
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Absolutely stunning
The sandbar on Lipe - the best beach in Thailand we reckon The last time we were in Thailand we met a couple on Koh Samet who had been to Koh Lipe and reckoned that it was the best Thai Island that they’d ever been to, so on this recommendation we decided to give it a go.
Koh Lipe (pronounced Leepay),is a tiny speck in the Andaman sea, it lies 70KM off the South West of Thailand and has no airport, the only way to get in or out is via ferry. The Ferry from the Thai mainland takes 2 hours and Langkawi in Malaysia can also be reached by ferry in just over an hour. The islands inhabitants are the Chao Lei people, a band of Malaysian Sea Gypsies who have settled on Lipe and make their living mostly by fishing and transporting the tourists around the island by Longtail.
There’s really not a lot to do on the island apart from sunbathe, swim, snorkel or dive……..sounds just perfect to us for a short time while we recharge the batteries and chill after the cold miserable winter months!!!
We booked ourselves into Greenview Resort on Pattaya Beach that is run by an Italian guy called Angelo, the beach hut is typical of
those found all over Thailand with the added bonus of having an exceptionally nice bathroom for this type of accommodation, the bed was very comfy and we even got a wardrobe with a few plastic hangers thrown in, mind you it is the most expensive beach hut that we’ve ever stayed in; at 1800 Baht per night (£37) some people probably think we’re a bit mad but it was actually worth it and the location on Pattaya Beach couldn’t have been better.
As we didn’t actually do a lot on Lipe there isn’t really much to blog about, days were mostly spent snoozing under the shade of the tropical trees on the beach while evenings were spent eating either at the beachside restaurants or at the restaurants on “Walking St”. For the size of the island we were surprised at the amount of restaurants and bars available, and as in all Thai resorts they had a resident pancake lady who provided us with dessert most nights on our way back to Greenview. Our favourite bar on Walking Street was “Mojito Bar” run by Nok and Meow, a lovely Thai couple who always made us feel welcome. We bumped into Rianne
and Robert the Dutch couple that we met on the ferry one night in Mojito Bar, it was their last night on Lipe before heading off to Malaysia, we spent a nice couple of hours chatting and laughing and tasting Nok’s excellent cocktails before saying our goodbyes and swapping blog addresses.
We had a bit of a mooch around the island on a couple of days and managed to get ourselves slightly lost and walked right into the Chao Lei village where we told “no walking”!!!, they soon had us back on the right track and we eventually found the most beautiful beach on the island (plenty of pics attached). The beach is on the far northern end of sunrise beach and is overlooked by Mountain Resort which has the most amazing view of the beach and sandbar below, the waters are really clear and warm here so we spent hours bobbing around in the sea and relaxing; until one of the local kids decided that Barry looked like a climbing frame and promptly clambered over him and started dragging him around by the ankles in the shallows!!
Koh lipe has the nickname of “Maldives of Thailand” and it’s not
View from our Longtail
On the way to the Sandbar hard to see why, when I spent my 37th Birthday in the Maldives I woke up feeling ill and my 40th Birthday spent in the Thai Maldives turned out to be exactly the same!!! We’d booked to do a snorkelling trip but I woke up feeling a bit dodgy so decided to cancel the trip and have a quiet day on the beach, not a bad thing really I suppose. The sickness feeling lasted for about 36 hours and thankfully the pharmacist on the island had a good stock of anti- sickness pills that I took alongside an herbal liquid which had antiseptic properties, not sure what was in it but it definitely worked a treat.
If you read up on Lipe it tends to get some bad press but we absolutely loved it and can confirm that it’s the nicest island that we’ve ever been to in Thailand and we doubt we’ll find another to beat it.
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John Redmond
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Cool Mojito
Lovely pictures Bev! (I mean Barry!) I could lay there all day as long as the pints of Mojito kept coming-hold the ice though-I have a loose filling!!! JohnX