KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND (Part 2)

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Haad Salad Beach

Well it’s my birthday so the budget gets thrown out for a few days and we stay at Buri Salad resort with our own pool, loungers, swing and suite for 3 nights. It was just fantastic we spend most of our days relaxing in our room surroundings and dining on the beach eating banana pancake with chocolate sauce, ice cream and whipped cream – hey it’s my birthday! We stayed at Salad Hut last time we visited and I never forgot their fantastic pancakes. There are a few mini marts out the back so we spent 20 minutes comparing prices to save NZ$1 on a large bottle of beer. Well, I mean, what else is there to do? The beach sat at low tide all day, it’s a nice beach but nothing to rave about, but there are some perfectly positioned bungalows a few feet from water edge.

Its fly season, so we share our buffet breakfast with the flies.

Well after staying in such luxury there is some mood management to be done, so rather than scale right back down to the basic bungalow, Carl does this gradually and books 3 nights at a new hotel at Haad Maedhaad beach.

Accommodation: Salad Buri- Agoda NZ$170 – wonderful room, 5 star room for 4 star prices. The pool was a great size and temperature, deck had loungers and a swing with a view over the bay. Spent all day around our room - loved it! http://saladburi.com/.

Haad Maehaad

New resort with very large shiny new rooms with the most impressively large swimming pool I have ever seen. Breakfast was just delicious - I mean: donuts, croissants, muffins, freshly cooked waffles – must be owned by an American!! We picked this beach for the snorkelling which due to low tide during the day we venture out late afternoon and WOW so many varieties of beautiful coloured tropical fish. The reef was brown except for a rare patch of bright green coral, the water was a bit murky to see long distances, e.g. like other snorkelers, and you could stand in the water if you had to, but the fish were fantastic.

The beach is nice, white sand, but the water is covered in reef and rocks, with patches of white sand so you can walk out to the reef to snorkel. There are bungalows along the beach front, nestled into the sand. There are a few minimarts on the one road, one good restaurant on the beach, and a few bungalow resorts, with some inhabited by locals, others empty. The beach is covered with tourists by day, but they are day visitors only or part of a snorkelling tour. The restaurants have no ambiance on the windy nights, but the hotel is fabulous, the snorkelling is the best and our swimming pool is glorious!

The full Moon party is on and although I beg, I plead, I sulk – still Carl will not go.

Accommodation: Maehaad Bay Resort – Agoda NZ$100- brand new, lovely big room and bathroom, LCD TV with some English TV! Deck with view of pool. Nice breakfast. Dinner time there is no ambience, cocktails and drink expensive and food average. http://www.mbrresort.com/

Did you know that 24 charter flights come into Phuket every week from China, so this is over and above the commercial flights.

Bottle Beach

We reluctantly left Thong Nai Pan Noi after 6 nights (in part 1 blog), everyday agreeing “we’ll just stay one more night”. We just loved this beach and the ambiance at night on the beach and all the good food and drink, but we had spent 2 weeks out of our 6 on this one beach – time to move on. So we moved to the next beach – Bottle Beach.

I am writing this on the deck of our beach front bungalow on Bottle Beach, I close my eyes; waves are lapping at the water’s edge, its warm, there is a slight breeze, palm trees rustling, long tailed boat motors splutter into life bursting the silence. I open my eyes; a beautiful beach laced with white silky sand, palm trees and bungalows. The sand is bright from the sunshine, splattered with palm tree shadows, blue crystal clear water with shades of rocks visible on the sea floor, blue sky, squid boats on the horizon, white clouds, long tailed boats anchored to the sand - BLISS! This is beauty to the eyes.

So we sit on our deck over the sand, palm trees in front, and 15 meters away we are in the warm water swimming. It’s at the top of Koh Phangan slightly on the east side, so like Noi, it’s deep so the low tide only takes the water’s edge out a few feet so you can swim all day. They say Bottle Beach is the best beach on the island; it’s smaller than Noi and has clearer water, plus it has an unspoilt feel; only cheap bungalows available, no 5 star resorts! There are only 4 places to stay, 3 owned by the same family. Its peaceful, there is nowhere to go, no shops, no village – just the beach. We get to watch some great lightning flashes over the ocean lighting up the night sky.

Dinner last night, very funny – the waiters. Many of the bar/restaurant staff on this island come from Burma, they say they can earn 4000B-8000B here per month, but only 2000B in Burma. 1000B is NZ$42. They are young and have a lovely innocence about them. One waiter (when I say waiter don’t visualise black trousers, white shirt and a hand behind their backs when pouring my house wine. Normally its jeans, jandals, t-shirt or no shirt). Well he had just spent nearly 600B on a plastic boat that when you plugged in your ipod it lit up in various colours in time to the music. He was just overjoyed, smiling, giggling and just so excited that he was the owner of this toy. Another was excited about his first attempt at making a flax fishing line with a ring fish hanging on the end. He was giggling and laughing about how funny it would be to present this to a girl; what a surprise she would get when he flicked it out of the water and she could wear the fish as a ring. So he took one of the young girls staying here and did just that at the water’s edge.

Accommodation: Bottle Beach I – booked direct NZ$37 – bungalow right on the beach, with chairs and deck to look at the beautiful beach all day. Room basic but big and had 2 double beds! http://www.bottlebeach1resort.com/

Than Sadet

This was the first stop of our first 6 month trip and we fell in love with Mai Pen Rai Bungalows immediately. It’s a tranquil, lush, picturesque beach made up of a small bay with turquoise waters, golden sand, with a backdrop of green hills. Huge boulders form the points of the bay and continue around the cliffs. On one side of the beach is the restaurant which sits next to a small brown river and Mai Pen Rai has bungalows over the river, on the beach front and on poles perched on top of the boulders around the point. The only accessway around the point to the bungalows is a gap between fallen boulders and our bungalow is perched on top built into the boulders; literally, half a boulder is one of our bathroom walls and edge our deck. They are very basic, 5mm cracks between the floor boards, wooden shutters open glassless windows displaying 220 degree views across beach and the ocean. Power only on from 6pm to midnight – so this means no fans at night!

We swing the hours away on the hammock, sunning ourselves on the rocks, reading and watching all the boats putter in with day trippers visiting the waterfall - trickle fall more like it. They would come around the corner and immediately grab their cameras and aim up at our bungalow and we would become etched forever into their holiday photos. Evenings are spent dining on delicious food at the restaurant and sitting on our deck looking out at the lights of the squid boats, and if you are lucky lightning strikes in the distance over the ocean.

We dine on Thai style cashew nuts (yummy – pan fry and add chopped chilli and shallots, sprinkle with salt – serve warm). We watched the staff pull in the fishing net on the beach – looked like a one-sided game of tug of war – 30 minutes later one of those fish were on my plate; deep fried whole fish with curry sauce – delicious.

They advertise Mai Pen Rai as a place for “nature lovers and artists” - we are neither and never understood this until....

It was our last night and although its normal for our roommates to be geckos and small lizards, when we spotted a large lizard 2 feet long sunning himself on the bottom of our concrete support – we are enthralled. Our next visitor was a snake, about 4 feet long slithering around the floor, a few pokes with the broom and it falls through the floor cracks onto the ground. Then we spot a pig walking up the steps in front of us to the bungalows further along, I mean have you ever seen a pig walk up steps? Then later in the day swinging myself on the hammock I hear crunch, crunch, crunch and look down under our bungalow – OMG! There is a giant lizard 5 feet long, 1 foot high crunching on a crab! We feel like we are in the middle of Jurassic park, this miniature dinosaur sitting on top of huge boulders – this type of animal should be in the zoo! Later to our amazement, a 10 year old Ozzie boy appears on our deck. He has scurried up excited about this new land to explore only arriving 30 minutes previously. It rains, so I let him go out through our bungalow door, and end up swapping him for a big spider that leaps through the door at the sight of me. This thing is like 2 inches in diameter and flits around the room followed by Carl banging a glass against the wall 2 seconds after it leaps away. It’s like give us a break – no more animals please! So I spend the last night, eyes wide, riveted to bed listening to the rustle of an animal in our plastic bags that hold our clothes. When we wake in the morning, after rain all night, the river has burst and the beautiful water is now coloured brown – okay I get the nature lover thing - now let’s get out of here before I see “big foot”.

Did you know that 150 deaths by falling coconut were reported around the world last year. Imagine how others were not reported. Did you also know that coconut water is the closest thing to human blood plasma. It can be used for intravenous rehydration and emergency coconut IVs were reportedly used by the British and Japanese during World War II.

Accommodation - Mai Pen Rai Bungalows – walk in - NZ$37 – we booked the large room as when the power goes off at midnight, so does the fan, and it can be unbearably hot. Our bungalow was on the rocks with wooden shutters, deck and amazing view of the beach and ocean. The food is fabulous here as well. http://maipenraibungalows.webs.com/

Well our 6 weeks on this island are up and we are leaving for 3 days in BoPhut Fishing Village in Koh Samui, flying by Firefly to Kuala Lumpur onto Kota Bharu, then a boat ride to Besat in the Perhentians for 10 days. Snorkelling and swimming with the turtles they promise.

If you are interested in travelling to Koh Phangan my next blog will cover costs whilst on the island.

BoPhut, Koh Samui

After a pretty rough ride on the seas we return to Bophut Fishermans Village. We stayed here 5 years ago and it was a small village with a road overlooking the beach, it was cool but not much here; a few hotels and restaurants. We were not intending to come back but we passed through to collect some fellow passengers on the way to the pier one day and could not get over the change. This place is now really boutique with some fabulous restaurants overlooking the ocean. Worth a visit for a couple of days, notice a lot our age - probably cos quieter than Chaweng - boring lot!

Accommodation: Agoda NZ$80 Samui Ley – real quirky little rooms with fab deck overlooking the ocean. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Samui-Ley-The-Fishermans-Village-House/191870787493412

Agoda NZ$60 Smile House Resort – set in lovey grounds with 2 swimming pools these bungalows are large, in good condition and clean. Large LCD TV with English channels. http://www.samuismilehouse.com/index.php

Really chuffed got Blogger of the Week - thanks to the nominator!

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Comments

[Thomas]

I see you rent my ol bungalow Nr17 , Best bungalow if not for nr7 at the river. Love that place best place ever:)