Family Favorites of Koh Phangan

We spent a month on a laid back tropical island that I do not think any of us will be forgetting anytime soon. Now that we have left we have trully grew to understand the old saying Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder. We all wanted to acknowledge what a great month we had, so we compiled a few of our highlights...

Diving-  We loved this so much we wrote 2 full posts on it! Justin and I planned to go again, but tropical storm Pabluk cancled our plans. Fingers crossed SCUBA adverntures Down Under are in our future!

Michele, Nick and Justin watch kite boarders from the resort 

Chill-  Ahhhh, after 4 months on the road the ability to take a nap whenever you want is very apealing. During our time renting a house we actually acomplished very little. However, when I asked Justin, who loves to get things done, what his favorite part of our vacation from our vacation was this was the first thing our of his mouth. We spent a lot of our time sunning by the pool, watching local kite boarders out in our bay. The hammok wasn't a bad investment either...

View of Bottle Beach from the Hiking Trail

Bottle Beach-  This involved a short motorbike ride from the center of our village to a trail head and then a 2 hour hike. We could have done it quicker if it weren't for one thing, the terrain. The whole island is basically a giant crystal rising above the waves, a crumbly crystal at that. It was mentally strenuous to calculate every step so that we didn't end up like many fellow hikers with bloody knees. The hike too and from the isolated beach [only acessable by boat, hike or dirt road only locals used] offered some nice views of the surrounding jungle. The beach itself was nice and long, but we weren't able to enjoy the water because of northern wind coming off Pabuk.

Koh Ma at low tide, you can see the sandbar linking the
small island to Koh Phangnan 

Snorkeling Koh Ma-  Amazing snorkeling was just a 15 minute walk from our bungalow. Koh Ma is an island connected to Koh Phangan by a sandbar, wether or not the sandbar is above the water is dependent on the tides. We only went a few times, not enough, but when visability vibrant coral is close to the surface. This was the best snorkeling we could find and it was a great way to send the afternoons. If we ever go back, we'll make sure to watch out for poisinous stonefish as Justin had a very close encounter with one!

Sunset Beach Adventures- Even though we were limited to traveling distance 2 at a time by our motorbike, everyone had a chance to go to some new beaches for sunset. Chaloklum Bay is in the north of the island and sheltered by hills so we miss out on night time pastels, but trips for drinks and horsdevours down to elegent beaches were really nice.

Visiting The Local Wat- Wats, Thai temples are common, but we had not actually visited one yet. I think it was the daunting idea of pulling on those long pants in the dark corners of the closet. One day we finally took a walk down to our local temple to see it was in good condition and shiny silver decorations on the outside twinkled in the evening sun. We were the only ones visiting which was nice too.