Koh Phangan - Exploring the south - Ueli & Alisha

Koh Phangan

Koh Phangan – an island I know as the back of my hand. However, there is always something new to explore. If it is to look after at the Dolphin bungalow resort where I stayed 3 times within the last 10 years or see what changed within all these past years or just visiting the famous amsterdam bar for their sunset view to see how the crowd on the island changed. One thing is for sure, the Thong Nai Pan Yai beach is still my favorite on that island.

Arrival

We arrived at Friday evening with the Lomprayah ferry from Suratthani. Our bungalow resort is just few hundred meters away. We decided this time to stay a bit more central and my friend from Phangan called “Boss” recommended the Lime n Soda resort. The reviews on Tripadvisor were not great though but the price value ratio was unbeatable and the mentioned bugs or moths in the reviews were never seen. Anyway, we enjoyed our stay where we were able to play table tennis, chill at the bar or just using a canopy in front at the beach.

Koh Phangan without having a scooter is not Koh Phangan. Therefore, the first action was to rent a scooter straight at the resort. We started to explore Thongsala and its Restaurants where the Italian Pizzeria “Pizza Chiara” with an original pizzaiolo got our attention. It was a welcome change to the day by day Thai food.

Exploring starts

At the next day, we did what this island is here for, driving along the sea routes. We packed our stuff for a day and drove through the middle of the island with the target to chill at the Thong Nai Pan Yai & Ao Thong Nai Pan beach. With a nice cold breeze in our face during driving on the curvy roads, we passed a couple of hidden spots, elephant camps, view points and finally the beach. This is still the part and charm of the island that originally made it the favorite island of Thailand for me.
After chilling at the beach, listen to relaxing music and the outboards of the Thai boats (actually old car engines), we drove back to Thongsala to end our day at the beach of our resort.

New day of exploring

New day new road trip. After our morning ritual of having breakfast, cappucino and packing our bag equipped with enough water, we started our trip up north west with the final target Chalok Lam beach. On the way up, we stopped at all the beaches like Secret- & Salad beach for a quick break. It was as usual a relaxing ride with a lot to explore.

On our last day, we drove down to Had Rin as the last area on our map where we hadn’t been yet. The home of one of the biggest parties in south east asia, the original fullmoon party of Koh Phangan. On the way there were thousands of advertisments of upcoming parties. Fullmoon-, blackmoon-, halfmoon-, jungle- and waterfall party. 10 years ago, they just had halfmoon and fullmoon party as far as I remember. So you can imagine through that upcoming interest and famousness of Phangan especially on the south east part of the island the crowd got bigger and younger. After a quick visit at the “famous” fullmoon beach we driven back.

Fullmoon Party

Okay okay, for all asking why we didn’t go to the “famous” fullmoon party the answer is as easy we were just indifferent towards it. Having seen it once in previous years was enough 🙂
In addition, I have honestly to say that the charm I found here 10 years ago got lost a bit during all these years. You still find it in some secret more hidden areas up north but that’s it. Anyway, it was great to be here again.

Today on our last day in Phangan we just relaxe and looking forward to our trip to Koh Tao where we will go for our open water dive course.

Bis bald!!

Ueli

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