Ko Chang

Who says you can't find a nice, near deserted beach on Ko Chang any more? This is Long Beach in the far south-east, with only one very nice and funky budget priced bungalow operation.



This is a pretty lengthy thread. For people wanting specific inormation on one particular area, WHITE SAND BEACH starts about 10% down the page, BAI LAN about 50%, LONELY BEACH 65%, BANG BAO 70%, KAI BAE-KLONG PRAO (very limited) 75%, LONG BEACH 80% and SALEK PET and the rest of the EAST COAST 85%. From 90% there are sections on the WET SEASON and GETTING TO CHANG



Big Ko Chang (to differentiate it from little Ko Chang Andaman side and Ko Si Chang north of Pattaya) is a big (duh) mountainous island in the eastern Gulf not far from Cambodia. Relative closeness to Bangkok compared to the southern islands, a domestic airport at nearby Trat and direct flights from Russia into U-Tappao east of Pattaya mean it is becoming one of Thailand’s more popular island destinations. Too popular according to some.
90% of the island is National Park, but there is no rip-off 200b fee to access the tourist beach areas, nearly all of which are on the west coast.

Nearly all the tourist beaches are on the west coast. Secluded Long Beach is that small bite out of the peninsula above the T of Salak PheT at bottom right (image AsiaRooms.com)

MAPS OF MAIN BEACH AREAS showing accommodation, restaurants and more can be found on a sublink at the foot of the page.

I got back to big Ko Chang for the first time in 10 years in February 08. Back in ‘98 it was a pretty laid back island, just starting to attract more widespread budget traveller interest. However recent reports indicate it is doing a Samui and turning to crap, so I though I better get back and see for myself.
So is the place ruined? No way - I thought it is still an attractive destination for budget travellers and because of the development it now offers quite a lot for midrange and high end tourists too. Improvements in services have benefited all visitors.

Some of the harshest criticism has been levelled at WHITE SAND BEACH (Hat Sai Khao), the first beach after the mountain pass from the ferry, which has always been the main tourist focus. Okay, the main beachfront here now has only a few traditional bungalows left, tarted up versions with aircon at pretty ridiculous prices. More common are new concrete structures in the boutique hotel style such as Cookies which has also quite a big beachfront pool. My old favourite, KC is building a huge beacfront concrete structure which would equal most Phuket hotels and has a completed slightly smaller section at the beginning of the mountain road. Further north on the beach, KC still has the above mentioned tarted trad bungalows, but at 2900b, no bargain baby. KC also has a beachfront pool. When the new concrete structure is finished it will probably have a half dozen.
White Sand Beach looking south from half way down the mountain pass from the ferry. That's KC Resort's big new structure going in in the foreground. Cookies is the U shaped joint a bit further on - it has also expanded across the road. The nicer northern part of the beach starting beyond Rocksand's little headland is out of frame well to the right.

If these new places are not your style and the trad's bungalows' 2900 too expensive for you midrange/flashpackers, push on to where the beach appears to end in the north at a short headland with a restaurant. Walk up through this restaurant and you can then access the way nicer northern section of White Sand Beach. I’m sure 80% of visitors never make it up to this area. Here the beach widens out so that there is plenty of sand even at full tide, something the more visited central and southern sections lack (although the beach widens there nicely as the tide drops), there are trees for shade in back of the beach and the last 400m+ is dominated by one outfit, White Sand Resort aka Sai Khao Beach Resort which has a big range of traditional style bungalows, all aircon, starting at 1100 and going thru to 1800 for places made KC’s 2900 jobs look poor value indeed. And hey, two 5 bed family bungalows and two 6 bedders for around 2500. The catch? Well it’s a bit of a hike to the beach bars and restaurants in the middle beach section and main street. Although WSR's own big beachfront restaurant had pretty good food when I ate there back in the old days. No problems accessing with your heavy bags on arrival - the guy told me you ring them from the main street and they will send a shuttle for you. This accesses the resort via a steep track pretty close to the top of the mountain pass on the way into White Sand Beach.

Some of White Sand Resort's cheaper bungalows - trad style but aircon.

Okay, you budget travellers say, but 1100 is still way too much fer us.
No problems. Go back to that headland walk thru restaurant. This is owned by RockSand Bungalows. Back in ‘98 I stayed here in a 50 baht bungalow which was basically a lean-to against the steep cliff-side. These days pretty okay fan bungalows feature, and at 500 baht high season are pretty good value for places within meters of the sea on Chang‘s most popular beach (and at the adjacent north end, one of its better sections of beach). Sunsets from the bar-restaurant are pretty awesome.
The deck of RockSand's bar-restaurant - the nicer, wider, less visited section of White Sand Beach opens up between here and the headland in the background.

Traveller type places immeditately south of RockSand. Independant Bo is the multi-coloured one.

This is a shot of RockSand taken on my first Chang visit last century - shot from the beach in front of where Independent Bo is now located. Just steep rock and higher rainforest then. RockSand has developed a bit too.

A small point - water depth at low tide is a bit of a problem for swimmers at the other southern end of White Sand Beach and gets progressively better as you head north. By the time you approach Rocksand there is no problem.
A problem in all areas and at other west coast beaches during and after storms in wet season is big surf - lots of visitors have drowned due to rip currents. If you are going to visit in wet season it may be an idea to check my How Not to Drown page. In dry season the offshore winds see dead flat conditions or ankle-tickler wavelets only.

Success breeds imitation, and a whole enclave of clones have surrounded RockSand. There are another 4 or 5 joints built up the cliff-side. Independent Bo on the main beach side looked the funkiest and a multi-balconied place on the White Sand Resort side also appealed. They all had vacancies in early Feb, something which surprised me. But then, the bad publicity has maybe caused traveller types to avoid White Sand altogether.
There are also cheap places to stay on the inland side of the main street in town - Tantawan near the internet café on the main street just south of KC and the 7/11had some 350b rooms, and travelfish talks about some cheapies on a road leading uphill from the main street a bit further south.

Ah, main street White Sand Beach. More like main street Chaweng (Samui) these days with just about every type of shop and service you could want.
Hell, who’s complaining? In ‘98 if you ran out of money you had to catch a ferry back to Laem Ngop and go up to Trat to access a bank. There are at least two banks and sundry ATMs at White Sand now (plenty of ATMs on other parts of the island plus 2 bank money-exchange booths near the pier at Bang Bao in the far south-west.)

Other improvements to the island:
- A pretty good paved road almost circles the island. Apparently they are now working on the last short section between Bang Bao and Salak Phet in the south which is at present a very difficult dirt track which should only be attempted by riders with dirt bike experience. In ‘98 the pavement turned to dirt not far south of White Sand then became total crap south of Kai Bae on the west coast. It was unpaved most of the very long length of the east coast (big Ko Chang is the second largest island in Thailand -it‘s about 30km from the arrival pier to the southern tips of each coast).
- Ferries: there is now a good ferry service from at least 3 piers on the Trat coast, including a constant shuttle of 4 or maybe more vehicle ferries from two piers. These have a big upstairs deck for other passengers, are a bit quicker than the older passenger ferries and their size keeps them running when big wet season storm stops the smaller passenger ferries. Your minibus, songthaew or whatever driver on arrival at the coast will work out which pier is best.
- The songthaew service is now quite good the full length of the touristed west coast. Maybe a bit expensive - they were charging 50baht off the ferry to White Sand and I paid 100baht to Bai Lin not too far short of the south end. But come to think of it, that’s a pretty long trip.
If you want to access the less visited east coast there are regular sonthaews leaving from behind the KFC in Trat town and running right down to Salak Phet via the vehicle ferries for less than 100 total, which is lower than the passenger ferry fare alone.
- Inter island access is now great. If you want to move on to Kos Wai, Mak and Kut to the south there are several fast and slow island hopping boats leaving from Bang Bao. Last century I had to go back to Laem Ngop pier on the mainland for the Wai ferry, and then back again to Laem Gnop for the Mak ferry. Wai and Mak are not far apart and not far from the south coast of Chang, but a hell of a distance form Laem Ngop.

So who said more tourism can ruin a place? - in the above aspects, Chang is much more user friendly for all visitors, budget and upmarket.


LOWER WEST COAST
I was pretty keen to stay in the south of the west coast, an area I didn’t get to last century, on account the road south of KaiBae got killer steep with treacherous ruts and holes, forcing me to turn my rent-a-wreck Cannondale around and pedal the 15 hot dusty kms back to White Sand. I’d heard LONELY BEACH was a cluster of hippie shacks back then, but recent news said it is now pretty developed and has a lot of noisy WOMPA WOMPA music into the early hours, so on this latest trip I passed thru and dived off the songthaew at BAI LAN a few kms further south.
This area is actually a series of tiny bays with scattered backpacker/flashpacker places and at least one midranger and is witten up as pretty laid back. In typical tezza style I walked in cold to Bai Lan Family Bungalows which gets good reviews. Ummm, they were booked out, but the lovely guy running the place could give me a nice bungalow with bathroom for 300b mid week. He suggested Orchid next door, but also suggested he negotiate otherwise they might overchanrge me at 400. Hell, I’d just come from a markedly inferior looking 600b bungalow on Samet - and Orchid even had a small pool. Ummm, Orchid was booked out too.
So I hauled my bag down the road a few hundred meters where I saw a sign for Bai Lan Huts, another place I’d heard about - with a restaurant on piers over the sea. I’m a sucker for that kind of corny tourist stuff, so I took the side road a few hundred meters to the shore and got me a bungalow.
At first this place was a bit polarising. The access road gives way to a sizable dirt parking area which because of overnight rain was pretty muddy and daggy. Then the guy said the price was 500 for one night, 400 a longer stay, which was no great deal compared to the other two nearby places. There is no beach at Bai Lan (well I think the nearby midrange joint may have small patches of sand) just stones - and when I arrived it was low tide making for a restaurant perched on piers over pretty ordinary looking stones.
But hey, on the positive side, the bungalow area was heavily landscaped almost to the level of some of those real nice places in Bali, the fan bungalows themselves were super clean faux-rattan and thatched roofed jobs with lacquered timber highlights, funky brick and tile indoor-outdoor bathrooms with water pouring from bamboo pipes (they also have 600b aircon bungalows which seemed similar in style although with concrete walls), they supplied towels, toilet paper soap and shampoo and the restaurant was super cool once the tide came up and water went under the piers. Food was pretty good and at normal budget bungalow prices plus they did their own baking which meant super thick slices of toast at brekka and even saw tezza order a pizza for dinner, something I’ve never done in Thailand. The owner, his young family and staff were pretty laid back.
So I warmed to the joint and decided to make it my base on Chang while I explored the rest of the island. ph 08 7028 0796 .... email info@bailanhuts.com

Although the bay view was fine, the stoney area under Bai Lan Hut's restaurant piers looks a bit daggy at low tide...

....but not too bad at all when the tide comes up a bit. Some kayaks were parked next to the sitting platforms.

The first place I checked was LONELY BEACH. If you are staying in Bai Lan you can walk down in about 15 minutes. Okay, it may not be a lonely hippie outpost any more, but it looked okay to me. The main street is a bit like Hat Rin’s in the 90s, except it slopes downhill along the main road. Lots of new-age types hanging around with more traditional long term type travellers and lots of shops, stalls, restaurants and services to cater for these types. There seemed to be a host of places to stay down the side tracks towards the water, largely backpacker and flashpacker in price with a few flasher options. The original Tree House is still there and I thought their huts and outside stone shower-toilet blocks looked pretty funky. One thing I didn’t realise was that Tree House is not on the beach but has a similar rock frontage to Bai Lan Hut - however the beach is only about 3 minutes stroll away and is one of the better patches of sand on the island.
So if WOMPA WOMPA don’t worry you, you could do a lot worse than this area.

UPDATE late Sept08 - according to macca_t, a local: "The original Treehouse will be closed within a month for accommodation. They have already started to demolish some bungalows. The bar will remain as it is."


In the opposite (south direction) from Bai Lan is the south west pier town of BANG BAO, maybe 4 or 5 kms away on quite a shelterd bay. There were a couple of very classy looking resorts in this 4 or 5 km including the Dusit Princess and Nisa Cabana.
The Bang Bao pier area gets real busy each morning as dive boats, snorkelling trips and island hopping ferries and speedboats depart. The pier itself is real nice, particularly after dark, because the first 300 meters has a good array of non-tacky shops plus quite a few seafood and other restaurants and is well lit and closed off to traffic. There are also rooms on the pier plus a walkway which leads to a midrange bungalows-on stilts-outfit in the bay called Bang Bao Sea Hut - this place has attracted some good posts. A short distance weat of the pier area on the shores of the bay is the attractive budget place Remark Puzi.

Bang Bao pier gets pretty busy each morning with people heading for daytrips, diving and other islands. This is shot from the Bang Bao slowboat to Ko Mak - the section of shops and restaurants ends in the background.

On the main road into town, a few hundred meters before the crossroads leading down to the nearby pier was a place advertising 300baht bungalows, tantric courses and arty stuff. Could be just the spot for you new-agers if Lonely Beach is booked out. I think it is called Koh Chang Hill.

Aboutt 400 m west of the pier on the east shore of the bay are a few other places including the upmarket Nivana Resort. But the one in this area which has caught my eye and has received good reports on the travel forums is the budget Cliff Cottage which spreads across to the ocean side.

Nicely positioned traditional style bungalows of Bang Bao Cliff Cottage. The restaurant is seaside too. Place gets pretty hot user reviews on Trip Advisor.

There are several other budget and midrange places in the area plus the super high-end Koh Chang Grand Laguna about 5 km to the east.


The rest of the west coast, the central area between White Sand Beach and KAI BEA including KLONG PRAO is a pretty big area and I didn’t have time to check it fully. The main road thru here indicates why so many people think Chang is past it because it is an unattractive continuous strip of shops, motorcycle joints, restaurants, massage places, petrol sellers, fruit stalls, hire joints, laundry services etc plus vacant blocks with mounds of used building materials and rubbish which the Thais never seem to clear away.
There’s a huge range of resorts mostly midrange and better down the side roads towards the beaches. I cruised down one of these roads in Kai Bae and had trouble actually getting to the water because these joints’ grounds tend to dominate access. Note in ‘98 Kai Bae actually had no beach at high tide. I’m not sure if things have improved.


So over to the non-touristy EAST COAST on my hire Honda.
In ‘98 my ferry from Ko Wai called in at a small pier on the south-east tip of Chang and picked up a Brit girl. She told me she had stayed at a wonderful beach nearby, LONG BEACH, which had one budget bungalow place. I determined then to check this beach out next trip to Chang. Long Beach is actually a westward facing beach on the eastern side of a big bay which takes a huge chunk out of the eastern half of Chang’s south coast (hey, how's that fer a sentence - check the map and it might be understandable). Being within the bay it is pretty sheltered by spectacularly high mountains which make up the eastern peninsula. A fairly good concrete road leaves the main east coast road (which runs across to the fishing village of Salak Phet on the upper west of the bay). This concrete road goes up over some real steep passes with some great bay and southern-islands viewpoints for about 6 km where it peters out to a dirt track the final 2-3 km into Long Beach - it actually continues down to that pier. This was in fair conditions and had a narrow concrete strip for bikes on the steepest slopes, but would maybe not be a place for amateur riders in wet season.

The newer version of Tree House is on Long Beach and is very similar in style to the original at Lonely Beach. Besides the seafront bungalows there were some fabulous huts on stilts level with the tree tops, plus an elevated restaurant with great views and a slightly lower bar area. Bungalow prices were 180 to 280 (with those outside funky stone bathrooms) and restaurant prices seemed pretty normal. Note the complex is built over the rocks at the immediate northern end of the beach so the bungalows are not technically by the sand. Pretty close though.
Tree House was the only operation on Long Beach, so maybe they took over and developed the place the Brit girl stayed at. There was a sign advertising meals and bungalows at some point further south on the coast, but I gave up the walk after 15 minutes - I’d rather have a swim.

Houses in the trees at Long Beach. I'm a sucker for places like this.

Note that Tree House has a shuttle around from their Long Beach operation on the opposite coast at 10am each day.
Two travellers arrived by public songthaew when I was leaving the car park - I’m not sure if they’d come around from the where the Trat-Salak Phet songthaews terminate or had come all the way from the northern Chang ferry piers on a charter. That wouldn’t be cheap.

The rest of the east coast has a few places to stay - there were several side roads on that concrete road leading down to places which I believe are flash-packer/midrange on the bay (google for Ploy Talay) plus a few similar joints that looked orientated towards Thai tourists on the long main road up the east coast.
SALAK PHET also has a few places to stay near the pier, but is a typical Thai fishing village, far less attractive than Bang Bao.
I also noticed on my return from Ko Wai a week later that the south-east corner pier where the Brit girl had been waiting all those years ago had some pretty neat midrane looking rooms being built on it. There is no beach here but I noticed a small beach a short distance away on the bay side. Long Beach would be 3 or 4 km away. I reckon it would be pretty hard to get a more away from it nice location on Chang than this one.

Okay, I didn’t worry about trekking in the national park or checking the waterfalls. I did the latter last century and found them underwhelming - and I didn’t have to pay a 200baht entrance fee then. You can also do elephant rides, but frankly that to me is even less whelming. But hell, whatever floats your boat.

KAYAKING - TREKKING - KC Farang gave this great info: "On the west coast of Koh Chang the best kayaking is from Klong Prao or Kai Bae beaches - paddle out to the small islands offshore and you get some very nice views. best not to do this in the rainy season unless you know what you are doing as the sea can be choppy.

Head over to Salakkok to do some mangrove kayaking. Get your kayak from Salakok Kayak Station and paddle through the canals in the mangrove forest out into the bay. Very nice. This place is run by members of the local community and won an award for Ecotourism at the 2007 TAT Awards. Salakohet Bay is also a good place to rent a kayak. Can paddle though the fishing village and into the bay then head to Koh Sai Khao where there's an old unused resort and a very nice little beach. Can also get to Koh Laoya if you are happy to paddle further.

If you want to see islands that virtually no tourists see then go to Hat Yuthanavy at the far south east of Koh Chang. Rent a kayak for 250 baht/day from Sea Breeze restaurant and paddle to Koh Ngam and then onto and around Koh Mai See Yai - a large isladn where the only inhabitants are sea gypsies. This will take half a day - 15-16km of paddling. Could also easily paddle to Laoya from here too.

Trekking - take a walk up Khao Jom - the peak that overlooks White Sand Beach. I did this last week, saw some Hornbills too, photos etc on iamkohchang.com "

A WORD ABOUT WET SEASON.
The Trat-Chang area is one of the wettest in Thailand particularly in June July August and September which average something like 900mm each month. To put this into perspective, I think London averages 400mm each year. Despite this I have seen a number of posts mentioning ok visits to Chang in wet season, so it looks like you can still rely on some good sunshine between rain showers, but when it rains it REALLY rains. I also notice statistically that the rainy season seems to end a bit earlier here than in the Andaman - November averages are considerably lower. My first visit was in November and saw no rain over about 3 weeks in the area.
Once again heed the warning about often dangerous surf on Chang’s westward facing beaches (nearly all the good ones) in wet season. Note that neat little beach across from the pier on Bang Bao Bay would be nicely sheltered then.

GETTING TO CHANG.
Buses leave Bangkok’s eastern bus terminal (Ecamai) to Trat just about hourly for a 5 hour trip. Even better for many visitors are slightly less frequent buses leaving Bangkok’s northern Mo Chit bus terminal and calling in at the new international airport’s transport center for a similar length journey to Trat. Mo Chit is not too far from the old airport for many domestic flight arrivals.
From Trat bus station there are regular songthaews down to Laem Ngop’s pier and the Thamochat pier via downtown Trat. If you arrive late, Trat is a pretty nice town to stay in.

macca-t added this useful info if busing into Trat: When you travel to Trat let them know your going to Koh Chang.
They will drop you off at a taxi / songtaew point approx 15 km from Trat.
The taxi goes direct to the Thamochat ferry. This ferry runs every 1/2 hour approx as compared to a very unpredictable Laem Ngop to Centre point ferry.
The bus is 241 baht and the taxi 60 baht. The ferry 100 baht return . The last ferry is 7pm.

There are also privately run coaches and minibuses leaving KSR and dropping off at the pier at Laem Ngop. These have the advantage of avoiding the hassle of getting across Bangkok to Ecamai, but tales of theft from luggage are not unknown on big buses operated by KSR travel firms. And 5 hours+ is a long time if it is a minibus.

By the way, I found a great way of getting to Ecamai from the KSR precinct was by catching one of those big fast public water taxis from pier 13 to pier 1 at Saphin Thaksin Bridge, walking the well signposted 100m to the SkyTrain station and going thru to the Ecamai stop which is 50m from the bus station. You need to change lines at Siam Square (Central) - walk up the escalators. Total cost 55 baht - time probably quicker than an expensive taxi during daytime. And the river trip is wonderful viewing-wise. Note the last water taxi is about 1930.

Car with driver transfer from Bangkok Airport and Bangkok downtown (also vans for large groups).

Just a word of caution if you are leaving the area for Bangkok by big bus - Give Cherdchai Tour the big miss - this outfit cancelled its direct bus to Mo Chit via Bangkok airport and loaded the unsuspecting passengers onto an Ecamai bound bus - dumping them on Sukhumvit and responding to complaints with those short shakes of the head and flicks of the hand we see so often in this type of stunt. Even for Ecamai passengers the service was a bummer because the Sukhumvit stop was about 500m past the bus station meaning a hot haul back to the SkyTrain with luggage.
Cherdchai are the outfit with the office in town where all the pier to bus-station songthaews stop first. Stay on to the bus station, but still take care - Cherdchai has a counter there too and that’s where its buses depart.

If you are coming to Chang from Ban Phe (the pier for Samet) or Pattaya there are regular minibuses to Laem Ngop. You can also come by big coach but the route is not direct and you need to change buses. The 2-4 hour minibus trip could turn into a half- day saga depending on connection delays. Captain Haddock gave more detail from Pattaya:
There's tourist minibuses, but they are always exhorbitantly priced in Pattaya travel agents as well, at least 500 and sometimes as much as 800 baht. Coming the other way, from Trat TO Pattaya, they're much cheaper, only 350 baht as of last year (prices may have increased). There's two direct buses a day to Trat at around 6am and 12 noon, but they don't stop at the Pattaya bus station but on Sukhumvit Road adjacent to it. You have to flag them down. It's easy to grab a Rayong (the place name is painted in English on the side) bus, change there for Chantaburi and then change again for Trat and then songthaew to the ferry.

There is no ferry from Samet or Pattaya.

You can fly into Trat on Bangkok Air, which then runs a minibus from the airport to your island accommodation via the vehicle ferries for 250 baht.
I think the Russian package tourists flying into U-Tappao are poured into big tourist coaches in a cloud of vodka fumes and thunder across to Laem Ngop.

There are no cross-Gulf ferries to Samui and its neighbours, an oft-asked question on travel sites. The only way to avoid Bangkok if doing this trip may in future be to get Bangkok Air Trat to U-Tappao and then change to a Samui flight. Trouble is they were only thinking of introducing the former service last I heard.

MAPS OF MAIN BEACH AREAS showing accommodation, restaurants and more can be found at White Sands Thailand com.

If you see mistakes or have extra info please post it below. But if you have questions, please ask them on THE FORUM page which can be accessed via the Index - I don't get to check individual island pages regularly, but I try to check the Forum most days when not travelling.