Earlier this year I spent two months traveling across Thailand and Laos in South East Asia. My adventure took 48 days as I journeyed more than 3,000 kilometers through beautiful islands and beaches, ancient wonders, hidden caves, bustling cities, sleepy towns, and rugged inland wilderness. All on a budget of (mostly) $25 USD a day.
Part 1 - Island Hopping in the Gulf of Thailand
I arrived in Bangkok with just my bags, a 30 day tourist visa and no itinerary, and decided to only make plans for the following day. The first plan I made was to head south and explore the islands in the Gulf of Thailand.
Thailand has many islands, Phuket and Phi Phi Islands being the most well known. There are also islands in the Gulf of Thailand, and the the three I explored were Koh Samui, Koh Phangang, and Koh Tao.
Koh Samui
Koh Samui ('koh' meaning 'island' in Thai) is the largest of three islands in the Gulf of Thailand, and my first destination. You can fly here direct from Bangkok with either Bangkok Air or Thai Airways, and the price is reasonably cheap (about 2000 to 3000 Thai Baht).
The island is quite large, and getting around the 'ring road' which traverses the perimeter will take a good hour of driving. The island's two main beaches, Cheweng and Lamai, have everything a beach seeking party-goer wants - bars along the beach, a wide variety of beach bungalows and hotels, jet-ski hire, internet cafes and markets. My favorite beach was Lamai, which was a bit more laid back and relaxing than Chewang.
I hired a small car (for about 800 baht per day) and explored the many other beaches on Koh Samui. Taxis are also available for hire but they all charge a firm fixed price and after a couple of taxi rides you've spent as much as hiring a car. You can venture inland to the jungles where there are some sights such as waterfalls, elephant riding, and the tree-top flying foxes.
On Koh Samui be prepared to get hassled by restaurant touts and tailors (for some reason, they think everyone want's a suit made when you're on holiday). Koh Samui is a tourist haven and as such you're a captive audience!
Koh Phangang
To the north of Koh Samui is full moon party and party-goer island Koh Phangang. You can get here from Koh Samui on a half hour 'fast ferry' ride for about 1000 baht.
The largest parties are on full-moon at 'Full Moon' beach, with half moon parties organised in the jungle clearing. I turned up a week after the full moon party and the island was literally empty, so unfortunately can't report on the full moon party. However the lack of crowds didn't stop the bars from throwing parties to entertain party-goers, featuring beach games such as a ten foot long 'flaming' jump rope which drew a huge crowd of onlookers eagerly waiting to see someone trip and set themselves on fire.
On the northen end of the beach were a few quiet bars where myself and some friends sampled the island's "mushroom" shakes, before returning back to the beach to watch more European back-packers set their hair on fire with the flaming jump rope. I then narrowly escaped being attacked by a rabbid dog on the beach, the mushroom shake kicked in, and the club started blasting Katy Perry's "I just kissed a girl" across the beach. I knew it was time to go to bed!
Koh Tao
After experiencing the bustle of Koh Samui and the chaos of Koh Phangang, it was a total relief to reach the peaceful, laid back Koh Tao.
Koh Tao is the smallest and remarkably the only island with sanity that I visited. It's further to the north of Koh Samui and Koh Phangang, and accessibly again by high speed ferry both from the islands and the mainland.
Known for it's diving, the island feature many dive schools (mainly PADI certified, SSI is less common), resorts, and bungalows. The crowd here was a little older than the party backpackers of Koh Phangang, and the one thing everyone is happy to talk about is scuba diving!
It's not surprising why Koh Tao has such an emphasis on scuba diving - with many reefs close to the island, and some of the cheapest course prices in the world, Koh Tao certifies more PADI divers than anywhere else in the world. A four day scuba course, including basic accommodation will cost around 9000 to 9500 baht, get you four dives, and earn you a PADI certificate in Open Water Scuba diving. This will let you rent scuba gear, and go on dive tours all around the world! I discovered 'Ban's' resort, which is on the pricier side, but had great accommodation, really friendly and helpful instructors, and good scuba gear.
After getting my Open Water certification, I have to admit that I got addicted to scuba diving and did another two day course to get my Advanced Open Water license. In the advanced course you learn to do underwater navigation, photography and nature identification, deep water diving (to 30 metres!), and best of all - night diving! Imagine submersing a reef at night with a high powered torch - the reef comes alive with many fish and creatures that you don't see during the day, and the colours are amazing! We then sat on the bottom of the reef in our group, turned our torches off, and waved our arms around like mad to set off glow-in-the dark phytoplankton.
South of the island is 'Shark Bay', which is easily accessible by scooter or taxi boat, which features clear blue, shallow (2 - 3 metres) water with a coral sea floor. The bay is home to schools of brown tipped reef sharks, some up to 1.5 metres long, which you can snorkel with and see up close to admire their grace and beauty.
After almost two weeks on the islands of Koh Samui, Koh Phangang, and Koh Tao, I caught a ferry to the mainland and caught a bus north to Bangkok for the next chapter of my adventure!
