Ko Phangan Off The Beaten Path

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During the day this is a good plce to chill out and chat, play games and listen to music.
They do have a small food menu and serve an amazing baguette for lunch 150-180B. Sorry no photo for some reason.....
By night time this is one of the popular places to go and the music is turned up significantly. Open area does turn into a dance floor complete with gliter ball, depending on the evening.
Run by a expat at night and his thai wife by day.

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On the west coast of Koh Phangan is this beach resort of Mae Haad which is perfect for those happy with just a quiet bungalo by the beach.
There is an island just off the coast of Mae Haad named Koh Ma and in low tide you can walk there.
There are boating trips you can do from here but basically you are in a quiet little world of your own if you stay out here.
The resorts here have some excellent resturants by the beach too.

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It was interesting to see so much dried squid being stretched and placed in trays by the Thai ladies on the beach.
It's was amazing also to see how much squid they had, and how much of it was placed along the Chaloaklam jetty to dry in the sun.
Lot's of fishing boats here and lots of hard workers both men and women.

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This is only one of two beaches on Koh Phangan that faces north, but the beaches here and the resorts are as beautiful as any on the island.
It is about an hour, to slowly ride out here from Thongsala, and the journey out to Chaloaklam is just as scenic as the location.
There are a few resorts here as well as shops and if you just want to get somewhere out of the way and relax, then this is a great place to do that.
The beach here is not very wide and you do have to beware of falling coconuts if you lay down and rest on it.
I was here about 12pm one day and I saw no-one for 30 minutes except a couple of Thai's fixing thier fishing boats and a couple of tourists off in the distance.
All I could hear were the waves lapping at the shore.
The huts at Chaloklum bay resort are all amongst the coconut trees and are in the most tranquil setting possible.
At the harbour itself you may see lots of fishing boats coming and going and ladies preparing dried squid.

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We had a rented motorbike and we took the very rough dirt track over the mountains from Ban Tai.
The dirt road is really bad and several times my friend on the back said "I not go" and walked down a few of the hills. I couldn't blame her really because we only had road tyres on and some of the downhills can be a little slippery and dangerous.
I really enjoyed it though, even if my friend hated it! ;-P
I believe the easier way to get there now is by taking a boat from either Haad Rin or Chaloaklum.
But as you can see in these photo's the beaches are beautiful and I would say Thong Pan Yai and Thong Pan Noi as twin coves are definitly worth the trip.
There is a little town here as well as bars and resturants and shops and it has the feel of a real rural retreat.

The perfect place to go for a few days of relaxing! Its a small fairly secluded beach that you can only really access by long-tail boat. Its about 300m long, in a little bay of the island. There are a few choices for accommodation, and lots of good food served by each of them.

There are hammocks, a great beach, Thai massages, hiring of kayaks, a lovely look-out point which you can climb up to (ask the locals and take 10 baht to pay the landowner), stunning sunsets, and otherwise just a lot of relaxing, beaching, eating, and drinking that goes on! And they also organise (from Smile Bungalows) a car to take people to the half moon party up in the jungle.

From here you can kayak in an easterly direction and go and visit Twin Beaches (I think that's what its called) - a smarter and much larger version of Bottle Beach! There is a very smart resort there where you can have a drink and a swim in the pool - but note that it is quite a bit more expensive! Nice for a visit though.

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Walking along the main road - about 200 yards from the beach - youll come across shops, a couple coffee houses, one or two massage places and Game Bar....look around and youll see it for sure...shoes off outside and real chill on the inside...hammock and sitting areas..both on the floor and on big couches....huge sandwiches are the specialty including tuna melts and ham/cheese...the bread made the sandwich for sure...not cheap though $140 baht ea. Beers, reg price..$60-80 baht and they had some other interesting items off the menu...including special chocolate chip cookies...special as in happy.....all that sort of stuff there.
At night the music is turned up and so is the social...the one night we went there it was pretty packed....pretty quiet during the day, worth going for lunch and a smoke.

One of the simple pleasure of Koh Phangan is to drive along the picturesque coastline.
The are many quaint villages, coconut plantation and miles of empty beaches.

This is the view of the coastline from my rented jeep.