Day 23 - Exploring Koh Phangnan

This morning we decided to hire a scooter for the day and explore the island a little more. We headed  first to Mae Haad beach which is renowned for it's snorkeling. It was high tide and still early morning so our expectations were very high! The beach was absolutely beautiful and aside from a few bungalows it is largely undeveloped and uncrowded. There were only a few other young families and a small group of  scuba divers. We took off into the 'great big blue' and soon found ourselves floating over an incredible coral reef teeming with schools of fish and other marine life. We were out in the water for so long that we got all wrinkly and when we finally surfaced we discovered we were so far from shore! I was exhausted! I had a little sleep on the beach and Phil tried to walk across to another island - unsuccessfully though as it was still high tide.

Hopping back on the scooter we decided to head into the main town to book our ferry tickets to Koh Tao. The ride took about 40 minutes but was absolutely beautiful. The road hugs the coastline the whole way and we were compelled to stop several times just to take in the breath-taking views from of the hills! We drove a little in-land too and most of the houses are traditional wooden stilted Thai huts with bamboo walls.  There doesn't seem to be much agricultural activity on the island except for a couple palms that the yummy coconuts are harvested from.

In town we found a Tesco and bought a big box of cornflakes and some long-life milk (sorry to disappoint you, Bruce and Bird) - we thought this should help with our daily struggle to find breakfast! We drove back to our beach, Haad Salad, and slept through the afternoon heat waking up only to do some more snorkeling. It was quite challenging though because the tide had gone out quite a bit. We mostly saw sea cucumbers!

For dinner, we decided to head into town again. The sun was setting and the view I had from the back of the scooter was unbelievable! We found the night food market and gorged ourselves.

An awesome and relaxing day before the madness of the full moon party tomorrow...

Until next time,
Luisa