Tell you what. Let’s go speedboating!
The Ang Thong archipelago is made up of forty or so tiny islands to the north-west of Koh Samui. Thailand has actually designated it a National Marine Park to preserve the environment around these beautiful limestone-heavy outcrops. That doesn’t stop us lot coming over in our droves; it’s probably Samui’s real must-see attraction.
They’re about 30 miles from the northern jetties of the main island so the day tours go in speedboats and take about an hour to get there. Unfortunately today was rather windy and cloudy so I spent most of the bumpy ride sitting down and sneaking out a photo here and there.
After a short snorkel at our first stop, where even I saw some fish, we sailed on to
That’s a nice piece of longtail boat there, but it’s not what Mae Koh is known for. Mae Koh has a blue lagoon.
There are stairways up to the viewing point but they’re vertiginous and busy, still the views on the way sort of make up for it
If you were a stretch of coral in these parts around 30 million years ago, you were in for a nasty geological shock. The sea floor was uplifted and you and your coral mates were about to be turned into limestone rock over the next countless millennia. Limestone is porous and erodes easily, and the Ang Thong islands were formed as rock walls broke up or collapsed altogether. And in one case we got a lagoon, similar to the lagoons and underground cenotes of the Yucatan in Mexico.
And here it is.
Now all I had to do was get down. Not easy on steep, narrow stairwells where some tourists saw nothing wrong in having their group photos taken in the stairwell itself and had a go at you in Chinese if you dared steadied yourself on the rail close to them.
Ah yes, the crowds. Mae Koh is really a small beach and a couple of steep trails, but masses of tour boats converge on it and there’s nowhere else for everyone to go. The result is organised chaos on the beach which gets quite scary on the stairs. It’s impossible to get the sense of the remoteness and stillness of the place with all the hubbub going on. But I suppose l, tourist, am as much to blame as anyone else, in fact there’s probably another travel blogger having a go at me right now. In Chinese.
I got down and we speeded off to our lunch stop.
Ko Wua Talap and Ko Paluay are the only two inhabited islands in the group. One of them has a population of 500 and their energy is supplied by a windmill. That’s where the group had lunch. Whichever it was, it provided great views across the sea.
On the far horizon, the Thai mainland.
This is not a seaview.
This is.
The sun started to break through as we headed to our final stop, R+R and kayaking Songpeenong beach on Ko Paluay, a microscopic secluded inlet with a real desert island feel.
I fancied the kayaking, but this was open-water kayaking and the sea was by now quite rough. I asked to turn back before we passed the small headland; my skills just weren’t up to it.
So R+R it was then. If you take a look at the photo above, you’re seeing a third of the stalls on the beach. One of them is basically a fridge with no beer.
The view from the toilet.
A nice place to sit down, I thought.
Then I went down to the beach, turned right and waded along for a couple of minutes…
So when you call the travel agent later today, remember it’s Song-pee-nong beach, Ko Paluay, Ang Thong, Koh Samui.
There was no topping that, so it was back on the boat for Samui. The water was by now quite tricky and there were a couple of heavy showers on the way back, but I’d had such a good day I didn’t really mind at all!
Thanks to Insea tours, from whom I receive no commission.
orwellianTwo 