Koh Phangan
Close your eyes and try to imagine the perfect tropical island: sand must be white and clean, the sea must be blue and crystal clear, plenty of palm trees, flowers and plants, hills covered by pristine forest…
Got it? Ok, welcome to Koh Phangan!
Koh Phangan used to be one of the 3 top hippy destinations in the past (together with Goa and Katmandu), with cheap accommodation, cheap grass, pristine beaches, etc.
Things have changed quite a lot from then, especially after the island got international fame overnight thanks to the movie "The Beach".
The crowd visiting Koh Phangan is passed from hippies to backpackers and it is now attracting an increasing number of upper scale tourists as well.
While you can find still bungalows for 150 baht per night, you can also now find the ones over 2,000 baht per night, and food and services have also gone "up market".
Arriving there you still have the impression to have arrived in an inexpensive place (due mostly to the availability of accommodation under 200 baht), but this first impression will change the first time you try to eat something or buy something, and you find more or less the same prices as in Koh Tao (if not yet to the crazy levels of Samui).
Once a month, the day after the full moon (the actual full moon day is a Buddhist holiday, so no drinks and no parties), the Full Moon Party is held in Haad Rin, and it attracts a lot of people every month, enough to justify a special peak season from seven days before the party and 2 days after it.
It is a 25 years old tradition still attracting thousands of people every time and, while it is not the "sex and drugs" party it used to be (as they say), it is still a lot of fun to dance on the beach with thousands of other people at the sound of music skillfully mixed by pretty good DJs, some of them of international fame.
Once the party is over the island reverts to its normal quiet self, and than it is the best time to lie down with a book on a hammock in one of the many pristine beaches, of plunge in the sea for some good snorkeling or diving.
All in all Koh Phangan is one of the best places where to spend a holiday, especially a long one. |
