Part of the main beach at Ko Wai Paradise
Ko Wai is a small hilly island about 5km south of big Ko Chang in the eastern Gulf.
Party types and comfort-travellers will hate this place - there are no specialist bars, clubs or restaurants , no roads, few tracks, no villages, no shops, no ATMs, - just 4 resorts, the flashest of which struggles to get above flash-packer. Some recent visitors have complained about the influx of daytrippers from Chang and the mainland each day, but these are easy to avoid and can in fact offer good variety.
A copy of an aerial photo at Pakarang Resort - the beach at top left is where Paradise Resort is located. Good Feeling resort starts at the pier on the right of this beach and continues around the corner of the coast halfway to the pier in the middle. This pier belongs to Pakarang Resort. The pier and beaches at top right are where Ao Yai Ma is located. I reckon this shot must have been taken at the lowest tide of the year - there was not this much sand on both my trips - image Wikepedia Commons - khaosamingI like to stay at a different place when I revisit an island and I usually jump off the ferry un-booked, but this trip coincided with the leadup to Chinese New Year and mindful of how popular Wai was with weekending Thais on my 1998 visit, I chickened out. I was real keen on staying at
Ao Yai Ma in the south of the island but the only phone # I could access was
Paradise Resort, my accommodation first trip.
No problem really because Paradise is a pretty good place, on the nicest stretch of beach with fairly good snorkelling along the fringing reef, great views of Chang’s mountainous southern coast and other islands and value bungalows at 250 and 300, all outside bathroom jobs.
The south-east corner of Ko Chang from Ko Wai Paradise -
I reckon this was shot with a wide-angle lens because the mountains are more dramatic live (image Panoramio-Hammarat)
The downside is that Paradise is the daytrip beach and it gets real busy - at one stage I counted 5 small/medium Thai type ferries and 2 speedboats tied up at the pier and over a hundred people in the water, more than half with masks and snorkels.
The small pier at Paradise/Good Feeling can get pretty crowded (image Panoramio-mdeck_1999)The daytrippers seemed divided pretty evenly between farangs and Thais. The Thais are always good value in their brightly coloured flotation vests and high holiday spirits - and with a majority of the farangs being Russian and quite a few of them similar Anna Kournikova bikini-babe clones to those decorating Ko Samet, a bit of relaxed people watching from my bungalow’s veranda was no hardship.
Another gratuitous shot of a Russian bikini babe. Wait a bit - this aint no Kourni-clone, but she sure do look familiar - image Sports IllustratedBut if you want peace and quiet, no problems. For a start, there is a double sign about two thirds along the beach saying
PRIVATE BEACH PAST HERE - RESORT GUESTS ONLY, and I was surprised at how many of the daytrippers were respecting this. Not all, but if you keep heading west at
Paradise past the main 300m long beach there is about 50m of rock and then a second beach say 60m long. Then comes another longer section of rock and finally on the immediate far side of the low western rocky point is another tiny but very nice stretch of sand with quite good swimming and snorkelling off the beach.
Paradise’s path with bungalows adjacent goes right along here, and no daytrippers seem to make the third beach.
Heading the
other way from the pier, around the corner on the path along the side of the island you come to a narrow but nice section of sand where
Good Feeling’s seaside bungalows are located. This takes about 10 minutes.
Another 5 gets you to a similar but longer section of beach at
Pakarang Resort, and another 10 and you reach the southern end of the island where
Ao Yai Ma bungalows has a nice section of sand just down from its restaurant and in front of most of its huts. There is a small headland at the far end, climb over and there is a tiny and very attractive beach - so attractive that a couple of daytripping speedboats put in here for some sun and snorkelling when I visited.
Small beach near Ao Yai Ma (image Panoramio-sym2000)I really liked the look of this southern resort. Note a sign there said
Granma Hut, not the old Ao Yao Mai. The restaurant is built up on a low hilltop behind the pier with nice tree-filtered views, pretty good food and prices around normal budget bungalow. Most of the bungalows are built up the hillside behind the beach and were 350baht with bathroom.
If you are going to stay here be aware that the big
Bang Bao slowboat I was on earlier enroute to Mak wasn’t prepared to put in to the small pier and the one guy heading there had to lug his bag around from
Pakarang - the seaside track is pretty good except for one section where it goes quite steeply over a tiny headland. I noticed the Mak-Laem Ngop ferry and
Ao Yai Ma's own small ferry had no problems, ditto the speedboats.
Ao Yai Ma's beach from the slowboat to Mak - the pier can be seen on the right, the restaurant is hidden in the trees above and behind the pier, the bungalows are behind the beach, the smaller beach is out of frame to the left.
Pakarang is a surprisingly big place (
travelfish says 50 rooms) with a wide range of rooms and bungalows which looked to range from lower midrange thru flash-packer to budget. It has a big pier with a very fancy rotunda type thingo - I’m not real sure if this is part of
Pakarang or the adjacent Oceanic Research outfit, which par for the course for Thai government instrumentalities, has the flashest buildings on the island and the usual bunch of guys sitting around doing nothing. Oh yeah, and a big concrete tank full of seawater and about 300 turtle hatchlings.
Part of Pakarang Coral Resort from the Bang Bao slowboatThorntree regular
Callippo gave me this info about Pakarang:
"Pakarang's restaraunt is now better value, the food being much better than Paradise (it always had a better menu). It must be the daytrippers - too tempting for Paradise not to up the prices with a captive daytime market. Oddly, beers are more expensive on Pakarang. It was the only place where I was forced to drink Leo. They were 70 while Singhas were 100 and Heinekens were if I remember rightly were a whopping 120."
Good Feeling’s restaurant is actually immediately behind the pier on the eastern end of Paradise’s beach. The restaurant is a good place to eat because food was appreciably less expensive than
Paradise’s, which seemed to be 30 to 50% dearer than normal budget bungalow levels. It was also one of the top people-watching places on the island - some daytrippers come for the full day but more arrive in shuttles as the snorkelling boats do their round of locations - so there was always a line of colourful people shuffling past and boats putting in and casting off from the pier.
4 of
Good Feeling’s bungalows are located up on the hillside behind the restaurant and would have pretty good views of the beach, bay and southern Chang. 7 more are located about 10 minutes walk down the eastern coastal track, right behind the thin section of beach mentioned before. As a matter of fact, at high tide some of the front piers of these joints were virtually in the water. Some pretty contented looking travellers were lounging on the verandas each time I passed. The snorkelling is supposed to be pretty good all the way down this eastern coast.
The path to the beachside bungalows is a bit rough in parts, but I noticed it was well lit at night. The bungalows themselves are budget trad style with bathrooms, at 350baht when I asked.
Back at
Paradise all the bungalows are outside bathroom jobs - split roughly equal between small 250baht jobs and bigger 300s. They start just west of the jetty, built on piers against the steep hillside right along the path heading west almost to that 3rd beach mentioned before. It must be the best part of 500m from bungalow #1 to bungalow #37. No bungalow is more than 25m from the water. In the far western section the forest tends to overshadow the bungalows - the guys at reception referred to this part as
“In the Jungle”. Looked pretty neat to me - the one catch - a fair walk back to the restaurant in the middle of the first beach.
Note there are 3 bathroom blocks along the way, and they were in fair condition and kept reasonably clean. Squat toilets. Good mirrors and basins.
The grounds were kept pretty clean too - I noticed that 20 minutes after the last daytripper had left the main beach was spotless.
I’ve already said the restaurant is a bit more expensive than normal, and it tends to be often crowded when the daytrippers are around (they start to arrive around 1000, most are gone by 1630). But the food itself is not bad (I seem to remember it was
very good in ‘98) and what got me is that the restaurant itself seems largely unchanged in appearance from 10 years ago. Compare the 2 shots below.
Ko Wai Paradise's restaurant in 1998
Recent shot from Google Earth (image Panoramio - golsteynkristel)
Also unchanged are the bungalows except the timber has weathered into a greyish hue - and there are now more of them. In ‘98 they only stretched to the second beach, and now they go almost to the third. A lot of the newer ones are 300 jobs and showed a variety of designs - some with very extensive balconies. The 250s seemed to be cloned off each other.
These 250 bungalows are basically a box with a double bed and verandah.
Just enough room for 2 and their gear. No shelves, few hooks. The mattress was very firm, the pillows fluffy and the mosquito net was in good condition. No fan, no towel, no toilet paper or soap. Light
just bright enough for reading. Nice spacious veranda with those great beach, bay and southern Chang views. No hammock. Big outside trash bin only. Quiet at night - no long tails and the generator which is over near the restaurant cuts out around 2300.
Value at 250? Well yeah, not bad - you don’t get too many bungalows below 300 these days, particularly so close to the beach/water. Just about all of these have nice views, which made hanging on the raised veranda after a day of sun, snorkelling and swimming a pretty sweet way to spend some time.
Typical 250b bungalow. This is actually my '98 hut (this trip, my camera's backup batteries failed on Wai) - the only difference in 2008 is the wood had weathered to grey.TREKKINGThis is one small island with very limited tracks. You can walk from
Paradise’s third beach in the NW along the coastal track past
Good Feeling and
Pakarang to
Granma Hut’s second beach in the NE in 45 minutes no sweat.
When down there, there is a rough track which climbs up over the hill to a small rocky cove on the southern coast.
Back at
Pakarang you can walk up past the garbage dump benind the bungalows and go over the hill to a bigger but nondescript southern coast bay (no real beach) and return on another track which follows a fence-line to end up at
Good Feeling’s seaside bungalows. Some nice rainforest and rubber tree vegetation along here, not much else.
There is a sign around about
Paradise’s #20 bungalow to
Sunset Viewpoint - this goes steeply across to a narrow rocky inlet on the south coast which indeed is nice for sunset viewing and not bad for swimming if you are experienced in entering and leaving water in sometimes choppy conditions off rocks. Don’t leave your return too late - thick vegetation and a steep sometimes tricky track makes for no fun when it gets dark.
There is a sign+map on the back wall of
Paradise's restaurant showing the location of these tracks.
GETTING THEREPakarang Resort’s slow boat, a small ferry, will deliver to all 3 piers on Wai. It leaves Laem Ngop around 1500 and returns around 0800. Cost is 25O baht. I went back to the mainland on this boat - it is reasonably comfortable (much more so than the best seat on a speedboat) and the views of the south and east coast of Chang and the smaller nearby islands are very nice. I think the trip was a bit under 2 hours.
All the speedboats to Ko Mak will call in at Wai, so
Mr Ball’s KO MAK.com speedboat information is good as is his info on getting to Trat/Laem Ngop from Bangkok.
There is also no mention of the direct bus from Bangkok’s KSR to Laem Ngop for the island boats but Mr Ball told me the reverse trip has a big aircon coach for the morning trip and a less comfortable minibus for the later journey. I saw the coach waiting at the pier at Ngop on my way back to Trat - saves a lot of mucking around getting to Trat bus station and then across Bangkok from Ecamai - but 5+ hours in a minibus is stretching it a bit.
Speedboats and slowboats come from Bang Bao on Chang - the
Island Hopping Boat didn’t seem to be running this season, but
Bang Bao Boat services were. I went past Wai on the Bang Bao slowboat on my way to Ko Kut - a pretty comfortable old ride, taking around an hour.
I came into Wai on the speedboat from Ko Mak - a fast bumpy trip, only about 15 minutes for 350baht.
A caveat here - I'm not sure if the Chang connections run low season and I reckon not all the manland services would so don't take the above for granted between say mid April and November.
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If you see mistakes or have extra info, please post below. If you have questions, please put them on the Forum, accessed via the Index - I don't get to check each island page each day but I try to check the Forum when not travelling.
Bamboo Island near Phi Phi and not too far from Krabi - this is a daytrip island, no accommodation (image Krabi Tourism)
I rate it equal in "untouristy" to Kos Sukorn, Libong and Yao Yai. Main activities are cash cropping and fishing. The 3 low key resorts on the west coast have minimal impact.
I stayed at the original Siboya bungalow outfit - 
Nice lawn area behind beach and immediately south of restaurant - elcheapo 250 bungalows at left, more expensive 350s start at top. Private houses, some for holiday letting, start further south and to the north.
You don't go to Siboya Bungalows for the beach - but maybe for the sunsets.
About 300m north (and south) of Siboya Bungalows the beach improves, but it still aint Phra Nang.
Some of the private houses at Siboya Bungalows. 
Owner Mr Chung. The perfect host - remembers your name and quietly asks every now and then if everything is okay. Image Siboya Bungalows.
No TV, amplified music, computers at Siboya Bungalows. The only time the no-music policy is relaxed is at Christmas and at New Year where a buffet-dinner and dance is organised. A long-termer told me this is one of the few times when there is 100% occupancy. Image - Siboya Bungalows.
My 250 baht bungalow at Siboya Bungalows.
Beachside sitting-cabanas - perfect place for post-midnight discussions about the meaning of life.
A regular mid-afternoon game of Tak Raw (volleyball type soccer) with staff, long termers and other guests. Mr Chung (foreground) is a keen participant. Image Siboya Bungalows.
I hired a bike (right) and explored the rest of the island. Ban Siboya here is the main village, but is pretty basic - a few stores and restaurants - no ATMs, money changers, computer shops. Most roads are dirt, thru flat and lowly undulating countryside with rubber plantations, cash-cropping and rainforest. This concrete section stretches W to E across the island to the small pier for Laem Kraut on the inland side - about 500m down the slight hill from this shot.
Fishing and cash-cropping are the main activities on large sleepy Yao Yai. Big on tourism it aint. Nice for laid-back tourism it is.
