Island Hopping in Thailand

After spending two weeks in cities and mountains, I was excited to explore the beaches and islands to enjoy some much needed relaxation and get some scuba diving in. I’d heard so many wonderful things about Thailand’s beaches that I couldn’t wait to get there…so much so that I was ok with booking a 6:30am flight out of Chiang Mai to Krabi.

Krabi- Ao Nang

I didn’t really know much about Krabi before booking my ticket other than I’d heard people telling me it was better than going to Phuket, which apparently is now overrun with tourism and hard partying. Thankfully four girls from my hostel were also on my flight and happened to all be staying at the same place in Krabi, so I decided to tag along. I found out that they actually weren’t staying in the town of Krabi because it’s not on the beach, but about 20 minutes away in a town called Ao Nang. I hopped on the bus with them and headed down to the little beach town.

I wasn’t really feeling the best when I arrived, having developed some type of cold at the Elephant Nature Park, so I opted to find a hostel where I could have my own room to relax for a couple of days to shake off whatever I had. My plans were to explore the town and beach in Ao Nang but more importantly visit the island of Ko Phi Phi, which I had always dreamt of going to. I stumbled upon a PADI dive shop during my walk along the beach and went in to see if they had any day trips available for snorkeling, knowing I couldn’t dive with my cold. They had a trip leaving the next day that went around Ko Phi Phi, so I didn’t hesitate to sign up!

The beach in Ao Nang wasn’t really a place to relax and sunbathe, so I took a long-tail boat out to Railay Beach where beautiful beaches awaited.

I spent the day roaming around the island, swimming and sunbathing. Railay is known for its rock climbing as there are giant limestone pillars jutting out of the ocean. Climbers from around the world come to test their skills, so it was really neat to watch their moves as they climbed.

Unfortunately, when you come to Thailand during rainy season, sometimes you have to pay the consequences- my snorkeling trip ended up being cancelled due to bad weather and I was heart broken. Even though the weather wasn’t looking great for the next day, I decided I’d try to catch the ferry to Ko Phi Phi for the day. After breakfast the next morning I walked up to the ferry counter and asked when the boat left… I had just missed it. After getting mad at myself for not looking into it the night before, I decided to head back to Railay Beach and enjoy the day. After about 20 minutes on the beach it started to pour.

I had started chatting with a really nice German girl sitting next to me, so we ran under this little bamboo hut and ended up chatting and waiting for over an hour before giving up and just walking in the rain back to our long-tail boat. The boat ride was like something from the movie The Perfect Storm. Multiple times I thought we were going to capsize but thankfully we made it, soaking wet, but safely to the beach.

The weather forecast showed no signs of nice weather for the next few days, so I decided I was going to head over to the eastern islands earlier than planned. I started walking down the street and asking about trip schedules and prices when a guy behind me overheard me asking about Koh Tao. He was also looking to travel there so we ended up going together. Ander became a good friend and we spent a lot of time together on Koh Tao exploring around!

Our bus left around 7am and drove across the mainland to a town called Surat Thani where we jumped on a ferry to take us to Koh Tao. After about four to five more hours, we finally docked and were so happy to get off the boat. Koh Tao is one of the best and cheapest places to go diving, so I was really excited to spend some time unda da sea. Ander wasn’t sure if he wanted to get his certification or not, but we ended up going together to one dive shop to check it out.

Koh Tao

We ended up at Big Blue Diving and I’m so happy we did. Everyone was really friendly and they took safety procedures very seriously. I already had my Open Water Certification, which I had gotten done a few years earlier in Honduras, so I decided to further my certification and go for the Advanced Diver cert and do some fun dives as well.

If you go more than six months without diving, you need to take a refresher class to review how to set up your tank, hand signals, and a few other underwater skills. I took this the following day with a girl from Germany and we flew through all of our skills. We ended up going on a fun dive afterwards and saw some trigger fish, nudibranchs, giant grouper, white eyed moray eel, and colorful christmas tree worms.

My Advanced Diver certification consisted of five dives, two of which are required: deep dive and navigation dive. As an Open Water diver, you are only allowed down to 18 meters (60 feet), but as an Advanced Diver you are allowed down to 30 meters (100 feet).

On our deep dive we were told that Nitrogen Narcosis (a drowsy state induced by breathing air under pressure) can start developing at 30 meters. Our dive master said that it feels a bit like you are high or slightly silly/loopy. Once we were at 30 meters, our dive master asked us a few questions underwater to see if we were feeling any effects. I got asked a simple math question, which I was able to answer immediately but the other question involved an object. We weren’t allowed to touch it and had to guess from a list of about five or six things what I could be. When he showed it to me I honestly had no idea what it was. It was green and didn’t look like anything I had ever seen before. Some of our choices included kiwi, mango, and potato, but I knew it wasn’t any of them. I gave up and picked mango and hoped that the other two guys in my group didn’t know what it was either. Once we reached the surface, our dive master pulled the object out of his pocket and it was a red tomato. It immediately clicked with me and I had a “Doh!” moment. A quick science lesson: the longest wavelengths, with the lowest energy, are absorbed first. Red is the longest, therefore first to be absorbed, which is why it looked green underwater.

The navigation dive consisted of learning how to use a dive computer and compass to, of course, learn how to navigate underwater. We learned the skills above ground and then underwater were asked to do a reciprocal heading and square route with a buddy. I was a little nervous I wasn’t heading in the right direction, but after I made my last turn of the square I was able to see the dive master in the distance. Success!

The other three dives are up to the diver and can be picked from a list. My group decided to do a wreck dive, night dive and buoyancy dive. Descending to our wreck dive was really neat because the water was a little murky, so it made the wreck look extra spooky. To actually go inside a shipwreck you have to do a specialty diving course, as you have to learn to weave in and out of tight spaces. We were able to go a little bit inside and swim around the ship. It was an American ship used during WWII called the HTMS Sattakut, which was later commissioned to the Thai Navy and eventually sunk to make a wreck dive site in 2011.

I’ve never been scared scuba diving, but the night dive definitely was a little nerve-racking on the way down. Something about descending down into total darkness and not knowing what’s around you in the ocean is a wee bit frightening. Once we saw the ocean floor I immediately felt better and enjoyed looking at the reef. We saw a lot of really awesome stuff including a huge hawksbill turtle, blue spotted ribbon-tailed rays, blotched porcupine pufferfish, bioluminescence (SO cool to see) and feather stars.

Knowing how to control buoyancy underwater can take some practice. Breathing underwater is a lot slower than you would normally breathe on land, and learning how to control it can make a big difference with staying level. I think I’m pretty good at it, but it was nice to take a dive that was focused solely on buoyancy and learning different tricks to make it a bit easier.

After I was finally a certified Advanced Diver, I spent the next few days just going on some fun dives to different sites and seeing what fish I could see. Some of the sea life I saw included: yellow boxfish, juvenile harlequin sweetlips, jenkins’ whiprays, longfaced emperor fish, crown of thorns starfish, longfin batfish, many different types of shrimp, nudibranchs and much more!

Apart from diving, Ander and I hiked to Mango Viewpoint, just one of the few viewpoints on the island. It was a very steep hike and we saw many people on scooters having to quickly jump off as they started rolling backwards. We decided to spend the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and enjoying some good Thai food.

When I wasn’t diving, I went on a few morning runs on the beach, walked around the street shops, restaurants and bars, and enjoyed some sunbathing. The island is easy to navigate and everyone is very friendly!

I definitely recommend visiting Koh Tao even if you’re not planning on diving, as there are many great snorkeling spots and beaches to relax on!

Koh Phangan

My last beach stop in Thailand was the island of Koh Phangan where one of my good friends from college, Bob, was coming to visit. Koh Phangan is home to the infamous monthly Full Moon Party on the beach, which of course happens on the night of the full moon, and we decided we had to experience it ourselves!

Bob and I stayed at a hotel called First Villa, which was right on the beach and had the nicest and most accommodating staff.

The island is decently sized, so we decided to rent a scooter for the afternoon and next day to do some exploring. We had dinner at the town’s night market where we tried some green curry, chicken skewers and fruit shakes, and watched the sunset at the pier.

The next day we woke up bright and early and decided to explore the northern portion of the island. It was raining, but we hopped on our scooter and carefully drove to our first spot, Chaloklum. We stopped at a street restaurant to have breakfast and headed to Hadd Khom, a secluded beach east of Chaloklum.

We parked our scooter at the top and walked down the hill to the beach where we ended up being the only people there. Clear blue water and skies, the beach was perfect. We swam and hung out for a while before deciding to head west and explore more of the island.

The roads on the island are not very good, so half the time we were driving on dirt roads. Bob was an excellent driver and we managed to traverse many potholes and steep hills. Other beach stops along they way included Mae Haad Beach, Haad Salad, Secret Beach, Ao Srithanu, and a quick stop at a little beach to enjoy some hammock time.

We returned around 5pm and knew we had a long night ahead of us with the Full Moon Party. Everyone at the Full Moon Party covers themselves in neon paint, so we couldn’t be the only ones there without it! The place we were staying was doing it for free, so Bob and I adorned our faces and arms with brightly colored designs.

Once our taxi arrived, we hopped in the back of a truck with three other people from our hotel and started our journey to Haad Rin beach, where the party takes place. The ride was an event itself, as everyone on the island was heading to the same place.

The beach was packed with people from all around the world covered in neon paint, fire dancers, and different DJs. The night was spent drinking out of buckets…yes, buckets…and dancing to music up and down the beach.

Our final day was spent recuperating and watching a beautiful sunset on Sunset Beach!

Thailand’s beaches are some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve visited. The white sand and crystal clear water would make anyone fall in love. There is a spot for everyone whether you’re looking for a place to party, dive, hike, watch sunsets, or simply relax. Combined with the hospitality of Thai people, the delicious food and opportunity of adventure, it’s a place not to be missed!

Check out more photos in my Thailand Islands album here!