- Location: Thailand
- Date: between the 17th and the 22nd of November - low season but weather was ok and less crowd
- Transportation: Singapore-Hat Yai by night bus (15h, 35 s$) and back by plane (1h30, Tiger, 90 s$)
- Housing: guesthouses, usually around 350 baht for double room (15 s$)
- Price: overall less than 500 s$ (including 100$ diving)
Location - Overview
Koh Phangan is a well-know island in the Thailand Gulf. It belongs to the Koh Samui archipelago. The three main islands are tropical paradise destinations. While Samui is the biggest island of the Gulf, Tao is famous for its diving spots and Phangan for its fullmoon party. This monthly held party gather up to 10,000 people on the southern-shore beach of Haad Rin. But the rest of the time, people can enjoy a nice island atmosphere and perfect sand beaches. Almost what we've done ...
Friday, November the 17th : night bus
We left NUS at 5pm and took bus 200, MRT, bus 160 to Johor Bahru, Malaysia and its famous Larkin bus terminal. This is a good way to save a few dollars instead of taking the bus directly in Singapore. As it was the beginning of the holidays for Singaporian schools, we weren't much confident in our chance to find a bus to Hat Yai (Thailand) direct. We arrived at Larkin around 6.40pm and we managed to find a bus departing at 7pm for Hat Yai. The bus was quite full and I believe we've been lucky. This seemed to be the only bus for Hat Yai departing. You can find it at the counter 36. Price is 73 MYR.
The trip was quite nice but so long ... We arrived around 8.30am (local time) in Hat Yai after queing for a long time at the Thai border around 7am. There weren't that many people but the officiers weren't very efficient! We changed money (no more ringgit needed ...) before the border but the rate was better in the travel agency in Hat Yai.
Saturday the 18th : van and ferry
Hat Yai is only a stop in a long journey ... The bus brought us directly to Davis Travel where we bought a minibus ticket to Surat Thani (240 bahts), the harbour for the islands. The agency was selling joint tickets (for 500 bahts) with the ferry, but this was for a slow ferry at 4.30pm arriving at 10pm in Koh Phangan. Leaving Hat Yai around 9.30am, we arrived in Surat Thani around 2.30pm. Once again, the bus brought us directly to a travel agency who tried to sell us ferry ticket for 650 bahts. We finally bought it 350 bahts. It was a fast ferry, leaving at 4pm from Donsak, one hour away from Surat Thani. We met an odd Singaporian guy on the way: Although he had finished his school for 6 years, he wasn't working for real yet, enjoying travelling and freedom. That is really unusual for Singapore and he explained social pressure was quite high toward him!
When we arrived in Thong Sala (the main city of Koh PhaNgan) at 7pm, the taxis literally rushed at us. And since sleeping in the city is not nice, we had no choice but to bargain with them. We were only a few farangs (foreigners) on the ferry as it is low season and nobody was heading to the same beach. This was good for taxis but not that much cost-effective for us. With Adrien, we wanted to go to a Thong Nai Pan, a remote place in the north-east, but being only two it was obviously overpriced (800 bahts for the taxi). So we managed to reach an agreement with the other people (a French girl, a Canadian and the Singaporian) to go to the nearest nice (according to french Guide du Routard) guesthouse, Cookies, for 50 bahts of taxi each.
This place was nice, populated with people you just expected on such an island, smoking not only tobacco ... We were tired, we just had dinner and went to bed.
Sunday the 19th: Taxi through the island
On the morning, I walked along the coast around cookies, it was so still. Thong Sala seems to be within walking distance (30 to 40 mins). Since we wanted to go to Thong Nai Pan (TNP), we decided to leave after breakfast. In Thong Sala, we managed to find two german people who were going to TNP too and we shared the pick-up taxi for 150 bahts each. The trip is around 1hr on bad dust roads. I think it's quite impossible to go there when it really rains ...
TNP is very remote. Since the trip there is quite long, there is a real feeling of being far from the crowd and the stress of the city. The beach is really beautiful and just lively enough. At least during the low season: there were closed resorts and very few people on the beach (we saw maybe 25 different people (foreigners) there!). We slept at the Baan Panburi Village in a quite simple hut for 350 bahts. There is a nice bar just in the middle of the beach with a free pool you can play all night long against local people. Name is the Flip-flop Pharmacy. The restaurant next to it is nice too.
The weather was not perfect since it was the north-east monsoon and this beach was thus directly hit. This means nice waves on the beach and some 15-minutes rain three or four times a day. Nothing really bad, you just have to take your towel back from the beach to the hut 15 meters away :).
Monday, the 20th: on the road again
While we thought we would have a few days lying on the beach reading our books for the coming exams, our trip was finally more about moving all the time. This was ok too, reading can wait after all :). We had to leave TNP only one day after coming since we wanted to dive and there weren't that much possibility to do this there. It was possible, but just meant taking a taxi to the other side of the island, dive and come back, and it was pretty expensive. Since we had to leave TNP the day after anyway, we prefered trying to go directly on the other side of the island. The taxi to Thong Sala was organised by the guest house for 100 bahts at 4pm and once there, we took another taxi to Chaloklum, a small fishermen village in the north of the island for 150 bahts each. We arrived there at night, we just made our way through the village, asking for diving and then we took a guest house on the beach a little bit further, something like a 15 mins walk. It was the Chaloklum Bay Resort. We just had a room in the main building for 300 bahts, but it was ok. We were the only customers there, it was strange. So many bungallows and nobody in ... Beach was beautiful but probably not nice for swimming, not deep enough for at least 500 meters.
Tuesday, the 21st: diving boat, taxi, night ferry
Waking up early in the morning, we walked back to town and found a diving club ready to go (the Chaloklum Divers, held by german nice people, on the main street of the village). They were going to Sail Rock with a few people, it was looking nice, we went too. For 2400 bahts each, we had two dives and everything around. The way to the spot was something like 1 hour of boat. the sun was shining so much ... The day was wonderful, visibility and currents excellent for this time of the year they said, with more than 20m. and almost no currents while it can sometimes be 2m. and strong currents. We'd been lucky :).
After diving, we were drove by the club to Haad Salaad, a very beautiful beach on the west side of the island to spend the afternoon. Once again, beautiful sand and perfectly clear water on this monsoon protected side. We had a wonderful sunset there too. After that, we decided to take the night ferry to save one night, anyway we would have had to sleep in the main town and take the 7am ferry to be on time for the flight back. We went back to Thong sala, 150 bahts each again ...
The night ferry at 10pm is 300 bahts and was actually ok. There are matress on board you can sleep pretty well. You arrive quite early (4.30am) in Surat Thani, that's the only point. Once there, we were led to a travel agency who sold us tickets for Hat Yai (250 bahts).
Wednesday, the 22nd: van, Hat Yai, plane
The other reason we took the night boat was that we wanted to visit a little bit Hat Yai instead of spending the day in transportation. We left Surat Thani at 6am and arrived around 11am in Hat Yai. Following the Guide du Routard's advice, we went to Thong Nga Chang waterfalls. It is 45 minutes away from town with these shared taxi, a mix between bus and pickup taxi. The way there is only 30 bahts, but the entrance is 200 bahts for foreigners! Anyway, it was worth, the waterfalls were really beautiful, we swam there, water was quite cold but ok.
We just had a little problem to go back. The taxi told us to be there at 4pm. We were there, but there weren't taxi anymore ... We waited for a while and were finally brought directly to the airport by a Thai guy. It wasn't so easy to communicate, they were speaking very very few english. But anyway, we arrived at the airport five hours early, enough time to read for the exams. A little bit at the end of the trip ... was reading trip after all :).
