Day 59: North to Ko Pha Ngan

Time to move places again! We had a quick breakfast of takeaway croissants in our room before the bus pickup at 10:30. Fairly short drive to the pier where we waited an hour or so for the boat to arrive. This boat wasn't a ferry, instead a large catamaran type boat (similar to what they use for whale watching in Sydney) with three large decks and a capacity of several hundred people.

We boarded with no problem and set off at about 12:50, around 20 minutes late. It's only about 20 minutes on the boat over to Koh Pha Ngan so the boat ride was over very quickly. We started off on the open-air upper deck, but it started raining about halfway across the strait so we beat a retreat downstairs and stood the rest of the way. Met someone from the hotel at the dock who drove us to the hotel (sitting in the back of a ute, Thai style) which of course cost us 300 baht or $12 AUD for a 15 minute ride.

Ko Pha Ngan is known as a party island, and is home to the infamous Full Moon Party each month. Thankfully the full moon is a few days after we leave! It's a smaller and far less developed island than Samui, and once we left the dock behind it was only a minute or two before we were out in the countryside. Our resort is right up on the north-western coast in a very quiet area, situated between two nice beaches and with a few shops scattered around. It's very hilly though, as we were soon to discover.

The accommodation itself is very rustic - we don't have air conditioning or a TV, no housekeeping either. It's basically just a clifftop shack with a bed, a hammock on the balcony and a wet bathroom. Comfortable enough I guess, though we weren't planning on spending much time there. We had a quick lunch at the hotel restaurant which was reasonable enough, and then headed out for a quick walk. We didn't get far over the hills before deciding that we'd probably prefer the beach, so we headed instead down to the hotel's private beach.

Down a very steep set of stairs that brought to mind a Hardy Boys mystery or something, the beach itself was fairly small and with quite choppy surf. It was approaching low tide too so there wasn't much water that didn't have rocks, coral or seaweed underneath it. We persevered for a little while before retreating back up the enormous hill to the hotel and walking over to the beach in the next cove south.

This beach is much much larger, and with far more water for swimming in. We relaxed, swam and chilled out here for a few hours until late in the afternoon. Briefly hit the hotel pool for a test run on the way back before a shower and freshening up, then we walked to the hotel next door to sample their restaurant. It was one of those "international" restaurants that had basically every country's cuisine on the menu - I went with a plate of nachos that turned out surprisingly well!

Back to the hotel before crashing in bed around 9:30pm.Read more