Vanessa and I decided to take a quick trip over to the island on Ko Phangnan, which is on the eastern side of the country. I first visited Ko Phangnan for a few days for New Years Eve in 2002-2003 and really enjoyed it and was happy to go back and try another part of the island.
Getting to Ko Samui – Half the Battle
As we had some difficulty flying to Ko Samui, I ended up writing about this the day as it happened (and am only now catching up on my blog). So I’m including a link to that post of the airplane issues.
To Land in Ko Samui or Not…that was the Question (or flight scare) today!
Beachfront Resort
Once we finally arrived at our beach resort at Buri Rasi Resort at Thong Nai Pan Noi Beach (in the upper north east corner of the island), we were thrilled we made the journey as the beach was amazing and the resort was really nice.
White sand beach in front of our resort
Buri Rasa Resort as seen from my scuba diving boat coming in
Our time in Ko Phangnan was filled with relaxation, reading, watching a little fun TV (when it started to rain). We also explored the local village and tried all the local restaurants for lunches as a break from the resort (and a little exercise), but there wasn’t much sightseeing around here.
Here was one of the local fishing boats that went out each morning to catch all the fish for the restaurants
Local fisherman
Beach BBQ Dinner
Our resort also had a nice beachside BBQ each night so we had to try it. So Vanessa and I went over to the fish spread and selected our red snapper and they grilled it up for us on the beach with was a treat.
The fish BBQ on our beach each night
Our Red Snapper for Dinner
Live Entertainment – So Painful!
Another “treat” if I was to use that word…was the nightly entertainment. This was almost more of a joke as they resort hired live musicians to play music and sing. The music was fine, but the singing was really awful. To the point that we almost didn’t want to eat there at night or tried to eat before they started to sing. One night, I tried to record it so you could get a sense of how bad it was. Even though you can’t see the singers faces (as I didn’t want to get up in front of them recording them), you can listen and hear how awful it was). So hopefully there is a little laughter from this video.
Click on this link Ko Phangnan Live singers ( or copy and paste into a new browser: http://youtu.be/FdUeEl4xg1k)
Happy Hour almost all the time
Our resort had Happy Hour Specials 3 times a day and I loved it! There was a happy hour from 1-3, then 5-7 and again from 9-11pm. So they really did everything possible to keep you at the resort drinking and encouraged you to not venture to the other hotels or restaurants. We had such a nice beachfront resort….there really wasn’t a reason to go elsewhere and the happy hour was the extra reason to stay.
Spa Treatment During Rainstorm
Vanessa had planned to get a two and a half hour spa treatment the day I was going to go scuba diving to help her spend the time while I was away. When I found out that my scuba diving trip was cancelled (for poor weather conditions for the boat to sail), I decided to join her for the spa treatment. So once again, Vanessa and I were out to investigate another spa. This treatment was a combination of a full body scrub, body wrap, massage and facial. While it was a very nice treatment, I think the long spa treatment we had in Luang Prabang Laos was by far better…but it was still a nice way to spend some time and during the middle of the treatment, there was a massive rain storm, so we were glad we were in the spa.
Coconut Drinks
Vanessa really liked the fresh coconuts and told me all the health benefits of the electrolytes in the coconut water (or is it coconut milk)? It was clear like water…but regardless I would drink it down so quickly and it was tasty. I really enjoyed the next part of using the spoons and pulling out the coconut flesh for a snack. It was a little bit of a challenge, but when you are sitting on a beach with not much to do, it was a good task.
During one of our walks, we walked past a huge graveyard of old coconut husks and I teased Vanessa that she may have eaten that many coconuts during my visit. She didn’t think she had that many yet…
Pile of empty coconut that I think Vanessa may have consumed a good amount of
Close up of the husks
Scuba Trip to Sail Rock
I had heard one of the best diving spots in Thailand was actually closer to Ko Phangnan but most people don’t dive from here as they all dive from the furthest island in Thailand (Ko Tao) and then have to make a longer boat journey to get to this great dive site. So I figured why not take a dive trip when I was staying much closer. Unfortunately, the weather was very poor when we were there so the boats had to cancel 4 days in a row, but my last full day on the island, I was able to go. So I left Vanessa to read and relax on the beach and was off for an afternoon diving.
We left on this old fashioned fishing boat and it took us just about an hour to reach sail rock. This is an isolated rock in the middle of the ocean, and it’s known to have large schools of fish, a large chimney swim through up and is also known to have frequent whale shark in the area so I was hopeful to see one, but sadly…we did not on our trip.
This was a pretty sweet dive site and we saw lots of large fish and schools of fish and some I found Nemo again! Here are some of the photos I took underwater.
Sail Rock – what you can see above the water
School of Bat Fish
Trigger Fish at Sail Rock
Looking up at the swim through chimney
Swim through chimney at sail rock
and here is Nemo’s cousin
I found Nemo
Full Moon and Full Moon Party in Ko Phangnan
We happened to arrive at Ko Phangnan right before the famous Full Moon Party. This has been happening for almost a decade and every month, there is a massive party on the night of the full moon and almost 30,000 people come to the island for a crazy night of partying on a tiny beach. People stay up until the sun comes up and basically are drunken fools. Vanessa and I had no desire to even see this and were trying to avoid this. This was also part of the reason we choose a beach resort far away as we knew most people coming to the island would not venture all the way to where we were (as it was a 40 minute ride from that Full Moon Beach).
We did enjoy the full moons over the water each night as they were really bright. Here is one of the full moons two nights before it was really the official full moon party.
Full Moon over Thong Nai Pan Noi Beach
Saying Goodbye to Vanessa
Sadly – I had to say goodbye to Vanessa as it was time for her to return home to Phuket, and I was going to continue on to the third island of Ko Tao to do some serious scuba diving on my own.
So we parted ways after traveling for over a week in Loas, chilling in Phuket for 6 days and relaxing in Ko Phangnan for 4 days. It’s been so wonderful to spend so much time together and hopefully I’ll see Vanessa in the USA next (or maybe I’ll come visit her and Chris somewhere else in the world)
Logistics:
Hotel Resort: Buri Rasa Koh Phangan
http://www.burirasa.com/phangan/default-en.html
Room at Buri Rasa Resort in Ko Phangnan
Pool view from balcony at Buri Rasa Resort in Ko Phangnan
Scuba Diving Company: H2O Original