Day 62: More beach

Today was our last full day on Koh Phang An, so we decided to make the most of it by, well, going to the beach. After our customary slow start, we arrived at the beach by 11:30 or so. Had a swim and a relax before heading for lunch at a Portuguese place we'd walked past a few days earlier that did promising sounding burgers. Shandos had a beef burger and I had grilled chicken burger - happy to report that they were both great.

Back to the beach we went, and spent most of the afternoon swimming around, lying on the beach reading, and snoozing. I've started reading War and Peace for the third time, and I'm determined to finish it this time. Maybe not the most appropriate book for travelling around the tropics, but at least it fits on my phone pretty comfortably and has translations for the French passages etc.

The only thing of note really at the beach was a large Husky dog coming over to visit us. First it sat nearby, then after a few minutes it plonked itself down on half of my towel and stretched out! I think it belonged to one of the nearby massage tent ladies; at least it responded to her when she called it over, but it was kind of funny. Obviously I'm fine with dogs, but this was a very large, very sandy dog and it smelt pretty wet too! Oh well.

Back to the hotel and changed as we'd decided to visit one of the beach bars to watch the sun set and have some drinks. Arrived at exactly the right time as they were just putting out mats and cushions on the sand, which we eagerly grabbed. Longnecks were about 100 baht or $4 AUD which is a little expensive but manageable, and as the sun started to set a DJ kicked off with some pretty good tunes.

There was a large group of drunken French fifty-somethings propping up the cocktail bar, dancing and making a lot of noise, but it all added to the atmosphere. And we all had a good laugh when a bunch of them went skinny-dipping just after dusk - particularly when a "friend" moved their clothes to the back of the beach! We had a bite to eat at this restaurant - a bit overpriced but still reasonable, and drank a little more than advisable before heading back to our room around 9pm.

Checking out in the morning, and we're both definitely sad to leave Koh Phang An. It's definitely much less developed than Samui, and a bit more charming as well, though that might be in part to where we were staying. We both feel like we could stay here for a month or more before getting bored, but sadly that's not really in the plan! Let's see what Koh Tao brings!Read more