Ko Wai (Whai)

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 - khaosaming

I 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 Illustrated

But 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 slowboat

Thorntree 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.


TREKKING
This 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 THERE
Pakarang 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.

Budget Cruising and Paragliding the Turkish Coast

Typical gulet south of Oludeniz. This was “Sydney” which ran tandem with “Blue Key” most of the trip. The area under the front sail is covered with thick foam mattresses which are packed with sunbathers in this shot and are ideal for sleeping under the stars at night. The bowsprit has a padded sailbag which is a real comfy perch - I spent a lot of the time sitting here checking the scene. Click for a wider view if you have the right browser.

Picture yourself strapped into a tandem paraglider at the top of a 2000m mountain. You and your pilot are going to run down a short slope, take off, cruise out over the edge, and after 20 to 30 minutes of soaring and drifting land on a drop-dead gorgeous beach directly below. You are on the spectacular Mediterranean coast of Turkey, the mountain is the soaring Babadag and the picture-postcard beach is Oludeniz.

Babadag is not too much short of Australia's highest peak, Kosciusco, but a few minutes after take-off we are considerably higher riding an updraft as the sea-breeze hits the mountain side. The bay and Oludeniz’s beautiful beach and lagoon look spectacular from up here. I can see the gulet Blue Key, my transport and accommodation over the next few days, moored in the southern section of the bay, a short swim away from the entrance to the lagoon. My shipmates are probably lounging on deck or at the beach, but I couldn’t resist this side trip into the heavens. Takeoff area on the less steep north-west facing slope of Babadag. Once airborne your pilot hangs a left ...........

..... which gives a view northwards. That's Fethiye by the bay in the background (widen) .....

.....and further left to this. Oludeniz's gorgeous beach and lagoon below.

Getting lower - flights typically head out to sea and then return (duh!) The big motor yacht in the bay had a small helicopter on the back deck! That is "Blue Key" just to its left near the rock islet. The lower slopes of awesome Babadag are in background.

Gulets are motorised sail boats built on traditional Turkish lines - much broader in the beam than conventional yachts for added comfort and stability. Gulet cruising Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean coasts is a big industry involving dozens of boats ranging from budget to very high end.
The Turquoise Coast between Fethiye and Olympos is pretty special, ruged and mountainous with neat little inlets, beaches and some islands thrown in plus the occasional village or town hugging steep slopes above picturesque harbours. Over the centuries the area has been sacked and settled by Greeks, Romans, Ottomans and Crusaders - it is not unusual to find the remains of a medieval Crusader castle built over the ruins of Helenic battlements. Fairly intact Roman amphitheatres can be seen in several places. Not to mention sunken cities.

Well, only one sunken city, where an earthquake saw the Byzantine era Kekova vanish beneath the waters of a sparkling bay opposite the lovely no-vehicles village of Simena which climbs steeply to a 13th Century Crusader castle. We put into one of the several small piers. Simena seems scarcely changed from what it must have looked like a century ago when it was part of Greece, so we go camera crazy with shots of the narrow spiralling streets and panoramic coastal vistas from the castle ramparts. There’s time to check the shops and tavernas and then we cast off and cruise around the bay where several small sections of Kekova are still visible above water. Several tourists from town are doing the same in kayaks and glass bottomed boats.Picture postcard Simena (widen)

Shot over town and bay - view from Crusader castle overlooking picture-postcard village of Simena. The sunken city of Kekova is between town and distant island.

History buffs will also get a kick out of the first night anchorage alongside St Nicholas Island, where St John was supposed to have been imprisoned for several years. The small hilly islet is covered by the ruins of stone huts from the third century BC and has great views from the highest point.
Gulets tied up for the night in the shelter of st Nicholas Island. Some of the stone ruins can be seen above the people on Sydney's bow (widen)

For non-history types, there is plenty to keep you occupied. Lots of swimming and snorkelling in lovely sheltered coves, beach time on several deserted stretches of sand, some trekking to good viewpoints, other village visits, fishing - and on the last night a visit to a disco in a deserted inlet - deserted except for a cove packed with half a dozen gulets and several cruising yachts. Rock and roll is optional and after a brief look I catch a ride back to Blue Key which is far enough across the bay that noise levels present no problems to a welcome sleep after a strenuous day.
Sleeping arrangements are optional - my berth is in a dual cabin below deck, just enough space, comfortable and well ventilated. But I much prefer hauling my sleeping bag and pillow up onto the thick sunbeds on deck - lack of cloud in Turkey’s rainless summer plus no lights from nearby towns make the star show pretty special.

There are no complaints about the food. Lots of Turkish salads - tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, eggs, cheese, olives - plus BBQ fish (there is always a line over the side) other meats, omelettes, fruit and heaps of thick rough-cut Turkish bread (cookie’s first stop at any town is the bakery), jam, honey, biscuits and coffee. Alcohol can be purchased on many gulets, but Blue Key is BYO. The other guests, 3 Brit gap-year girls, 2 South African soldiers, a Turkish-Australian couple on honeymoon and a young Danish couple have brought theirs with gusto - the occupants of the big super yacht with the helicopter on the rear deck which has just moored near us at Oludeniz are fortunate we are moving on.
Blue Key is crewed by three Turkish guys in their 20s, who are not only capable sailors, but great cooks, ace fishermen, good snorkellers and full of personality.

Tuckertime on deck! - image boatcruiseturkey.com

“Terry are you crazy?” asks Andre, my French pilot. I guess I am, because I agree to some aerobatics. He puts the paraglider into a tight spin, all the time his helmet camera recording a flight video which can be purchased for $US20. Whoa! Instant vertigo! “Top Gun” I’m not. So I beg out and we renew our sweep back from the sea towards the beach, me snapping merrily away on my camera. We fly in over town, do a turn and descend over the rooftops to a perfect landing at our designated mat on the beach promenade.

Approaching ground zero. Our landing mat is on the far left. Promenade strollers sometimes get a shock. As do sunbathers when the non-professionals overshoot.

I sit and watch some other landings. Amateurs come from around the world because Babadag is one of the highest easily-accessed launch sites. Not all are as skilled as my pilot and several overshoot, scattering sunbathers on the beach and in one case, swimmers in the water.
Good entertainment, but I notice Blue Key’s tender cruising into the beach for me. Time to depart towards Olympos with its lovely cliff-ringed cove backed by ruins overgrown by thick forest. Plus an ex-hippy commune further up the narrow valley featuring budget accommodation including tree houses - wooden huts on high piers, up around the tree crowns.

Gorgeous bay and beach at Olympos. Forest in narrow valley behind conceals ruins from many eras - this shot actually taken from smashed rampart of old Crusader fort. The bay is too shallow for the Gulets which put into Andriace harbour about 50km south. After a few hours shopping and checking St Nicholas' Church in Demre it's into the minibus for the trip thru the coastal mountains to Olympos village which is about 2km upvalley.
Funky treehouse bungalows in the village at Olympos - image boatcruiseturkey.com

WAY TO GO.
Fully catered gulet cruises start at around US$215 for 4 days and 3 nights low season. High season (June to mid Sept) starts around $255. Longer trips and one day cruises are also offered. There are many operators - two of which are http://www.bigbackpackers.com/bluekey1.html and http://www.boatcruiseturkey.com/.
The main ports of departure are the holiday towns of Fethiye and Marmaris, several hundred km south of Istanbul. Turkey’s long distance buses are inexpensive and excellent. You can fly into nearby Dalaman and several Greek islands are within a short ferry ride.
Spring sees mild to warm days, cool nights, little rain. Summer can be very hot, even drier, more crowded. September is perfect with less heat and fewer crowds, as is October except you can expect more rainy days as the month progresses.

Paragliders are steerable parachutes. Their larger than normal fabric area plus a kind of aerofoil shape to the wing or canopy means they can actually gain altitude in updrafts. On a tandem, the pilot sits behind and above the passenger, ensuring top views. Google “paragliding Oludeniz” for some details. This season’s prices start around the $150 mark.
Unseasonal early storm saw a landslide block the winding access road to mountain peak - a two hour delay while a grader was brought up to clear the way (widen)

If you see any mistakes or have extra info, please post it below. If you have questions, please ask them on the FORUM which can be accessed thru the index - I don't get to check individual pages often but I try to monitor the forum daily when not on a trip.

KO MAK (MAC, MACK)

Ko Mak often gets confused with Ko Muk over in the Andaman. Mak is a long way from Muk - it's in the eastern Gulf near Cambodia and south of big Ko Chang.

It is a small to medium sized island, hilly at each end and fairly flat in the middle, largely covered with coconut plantations and natural forest. The two main beach areas are quite attractive without being mind-blowing. These days there are fairly good concrete roads joining main areas, but dirt tracks are still widespread, a bit of a contrast to my first visit in ‘98 when they were all dirt. There is now a good range of accommodation, but overall this is a pretty relaxed island - there seemed to be few longtails, not that many motorcycles, hardly any other vehicles and fewer dogs than normal. If I had to compare it I’d say it is similar to Ko Jum and Ko Phayam. It is certainly a nice contrast to a lot of big Ko Chang, giving visitors to this area a nice diversion.

Map from KO MAK. com

A FULL SIZE VERSION can be seen here

When I hopped off the speedboat from Ko Kut and walked up to the road along the south coast I saw a sign saying KO MAK’S BEST SUNSETS - SUNSET RESORT AND RESTAURANT which jogged my memory about a place all by itself out on the south-eastern promontory (15 above), with SITTING PLATFORMS OVER THE OCEAN. Now I’m a sucker for sunsets from sitting platforms so I started hoofing it south of east. Pretty soon a beat-up songthaew taxi came along and seeing I had about 4km to go I flagged it down. He could give me a ride but first had to pick up passengers heading for the speedboat’s next leg to Whai and Chang. So I got a free tour of a lot of the island including some tracks that didn’t exist in ‘98.

Sunset Resort didn’t disappoint me. It has maybe a dozen bungalows spit between 450baht with bathroom and 250 without, the majority with direct or tree-interrupted ocean views.
The restaurant is built on a small headland with similar views and eschews the normal tables and chairs for multi-level sitting platforms and picnic like benches.

Sunset Resort's airy headland restaurant - poor contrast conceals pier and main southern bay immediately in background.

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Just outside the restaurant is a short pier with a sitting platform at the end. There is another raised pergola type platform 30m to the south, but the access wooden walkway was badly weathered so most of us spent time at the end of the pier. Nice place around sunset - joints like this usually tend to attract the older long term type travellers and so I had an entertaining time listening to the wonderful travel stories these people had. There was one guy, an incredibly rude Englishman, who thought sunset on the pier was for silent contemplation, and stormed off when the bull started flowing. I wondered what the hell he was doing here - surely one of those deserted resorts I’d seen on Kut would be his scene? - but later I noticed him hound-dawging a rather striking late-30s South American lady. Rude, but not crazy.
Sunset’s food quality was good, prices at the low end of normal budget levels, service friendly and fast.

One of the 250 baht bungalows at Sunset - this one looks west over the bay and Ao Kao beach

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I bargained a 450 bungalow down to 400 - a wood and thatch roof job with intricate bamboo lining and tiled floor inside which must have looked special when new but was getting a bit tatty. Big king sized bed with enough room for 3 adults, thin Thai type mattress and thin pillows which I didn’t find particularly uncomfortable. Plenty of bungalow room for 2+gear - sqeeezy for 3. No mosquito net but screens in very good condition. Big concrete and tile bathroom, wash basin, towels, good water pressure but no mirror. No interior waste bin, no soap, no toilet paper. No hammock or chairs on balcony. Grounds pretty clean, bungalows not too closely spaced.
The 250 bungalows must have been built first because they seemed to have the best views.

Chez tezza at Sunset Resort. Most of the bungalows look north to the sea.

THE SOUTH COAST
Sunset has no beach. It is pretty nice swimming off the pier even at lowest tide but we are talking rock and coral bottom here. I’m always getting hell from my stalker somebodyelse for not checking the snorkelling - so I thought I’d make her happy and not check it here too. But my previous trip and others' opinions suggest coral and fishies aint great on Mak - however apparently the snorkelling daytrips to not too distant islands throw up some very good stuff by Thai standards.
To get to a nice beach from Sunset, go back to the paved section of the road towards the main part of the island, and take the side track thru the cononut plantation where it does a kink. Go straight ahead on this track until you have no choice, then turn left and you will hit the beach at Lazy Day Resort. The beach is pretty nice here but if you walk further west past the small headland where Ao Kao Resort's restaurant is located, you will reach the main south coast beach of Ao Kao. This is a nice beach, maybe 1500m long, with a half a dozen or so resorts scattered widely along it. One caveat is that at highest tide there is not a real lot of sand in most places, but that is common to most of the beaches I saw in the eastern Gulf. I have seen people complain of a lot of rubbish washed ashore along here - and during wet season its exposed position would see the south-westerlies blowing junk from right across the Gulf. However this dry season things were not too bad, with much less junk at the tide-line in back of the beach than on my previous trip, suggesting someone must have done a bit of a clean-up along here sometime earlier.

Ao Kao beach on the south coast of Mak. Sunset Resort is on that headland in background.

Now the resort which caught my eye budget along here was Island Hut with funkily painted trad style bungalows with bathrooms, many built immediately behind the sand, in one of the nicest sections of Ao Kao. Front rowers were 500, second row 350 - before bargaining.

Bungalow and beach at Island Hut (images KO MAK com)

Old timers will cry about Lazy Day - this was a Mak budget institution until recently when they rebuilt - now it is decidedly midrange - check the new accomm and restaurant.

(lower image KO MAK com)
BUT I noticed there were still about half a dozen trad style huts on the hill which the guy told me were going for 500. Not great value compared to Island Hut.

In ‘98 I spent a few nights at Lazy Days as it was called then. I also stayed at Ao Khao resort - this was mainly flash packer but had a few very nice and amazingly cheap outside-bathroom bungalows. These are gone, it has moved to more midrange but still with some flash packers - the restaurant on a small promontory is in an excellent position and has pretty nice views.

There are also some pretty nice midrangers and flash packers up the other end of the beach - Baan Ko Muk and Maka Thanee for the former, Ko Mak Cottage, TK Hut and Holiday Beach Resort more the latter. Actually the only place along here I thought looked a bit daggy was Monkey Island where the Bang Bao Speedboat from Kut terminates. But occupancy seemed pretty good - I think it is associated with the nearby Ploy Divers.

THE SOUTH WEST.
Next day I grabbed a bicycle from Ao Kao resort (150baht per day) and after the usual minor rebuild with my trusty travelling tool-kit (wheel rubbing on frame, frozen seat post - I say it every island report, but I’ll say it again: what do you guys do to them?) I took off to check the dirt tracks which headed up into the hills in the west of the island. One branched left, went along a nice, deserted section of beach on the far north-west coast and cut back to a small beach in the south-west. One pretty nice budget bungalow outfit here, called Baan Ing Kao, which was kind of like another Sunset with a beach, the kind of place for people who want to get away from it all. Big beachside bungalows here were 450, smaller ones 350 before bargaining.

Beach at Baan Ing Kao (image KO MAC com)

THE NORTH-WEST COAST.
Taking a northern branch of this western dirt track takes you pretty high to where you can get some real nice views of the main northern beach. You can follow the road down and cruise along the back of the beach. Accommodation along here seemed to be midrange and higher, with several new flash places under construction. Old favourite Ko Mak Resort (flashpacker - midrange and higher) is still going strong - the pier at this place seems to be the terminus for a lot of the slow boats and some speedboats from both the mainland (Laem Ngop) and Ko Chang.

The north-west beach - that's the pool of Ko Mak Cococape in the foreground.
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By the way, the rather attractive looking Ko Mak Cococape Resort immediately above, big pool, flash looking bungalows - is flash alright with bungalows up to 10000 (!), but get this, the above link says they also have fan bungalows at 500!

THE SOUTH-EAST PENINSULA
A bit further along from Sunset is Pano Bungalow with a hell of a lot of nice looking bungalows built along the hilly side of the peninsula. These would have fabulous views up the island towards Ao Kao beach and even better sunsets than Sunset. The place looked midrange to me, but KOH MAK com says they are 700 to 900! The place seemed largely deserted of tourists when I went past.
A side track heads back towards Ao Nid pier - there were a couple of places high up here with views back towards the sunrise, but only Ao Bong resort seemed to be operating.

THE FAR EAST
I got lazy and didn’t check the eastern third of the island. Hell, it’s HOT pedalling like a madman in the mid-day sun! After a few hours, the golden sands and sheltered waters of Ao Kao beckoned.
There are only 3 resorts in this big eastern section and they sure look laid back on KO MAK com. Hey, maybe just the place for rude Englishmen!

KOH KHAM
This tiny attractive island with picture postcard beach is less than a km off the main north-west beach. The resort here is budget and attracts lots of positive reports. A girl I met on Chang said it was wonderful, as long as you didn’t mind hanging in the one place. Apparently the snorkelling is a bit better here.
UPDATE SEPT09 - I just saw a message from a Ko Chang resident saying Koh Kham has been shut down. Luxury pool villas are being built on the island - open soon.


SERVICES.
There are a couple of small supermarkets in the tourist parts of the island. 7/11s they aint. Surprisingly, just about all the villages are separated from the bungalow areas so I’m not sure what is available there.
There is an excellent internet café just by the pier at Ao Nid in the south-east, run by the super friendly Mr Ball, who also is pretty efficient with boat bookings and bungalow reservations. He has some tables set up outside with nice bay views and a special each day - yummy cheese cake when I visited. Mr Ball is the guy behind KO MAK com. which is a neat website. The multiple pics of the various bungalows are great and give a real good idea of what’s available.
Mr Ball had quite a lot of bicycles for rent and they looked to be in good condition.
Motorcycles and bicycles can be rented at one of the small supermarkets towards the eastern end of the south coast road, and quite a few bungalows offer motorcycles.
There are 3 dive operations on the island.
There is medical clinic bu no ATMs or banks.

GETTING TO MAK
KO MAK com has an excellent Getting There section. This covers ferries and speedboats from the mainland and Kut. Plus buses from Bangkok's Ecamai and from Mochit via the new Airport to Trat for songthaews to the piers.
Plus flights into Trat.
It doesn’t mention transfers from Chang and Wai - this season the Island Hopping outfit did not seem to be running but Bang Bao Boat had both speedboats and a slowboat to Mak, via Ko Wai. Back in ‘98 I had to go back to the mainland from Chang to get to Muk and then back to the mainland to get to relatively close Wai!
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.

A caveat here - I'm not sure if the Chang connections to Mak 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.