KHANOM

VISITED MARCH 2017

The mainland coast south of the DONSAC FERRY PIERS (to the islands) is pretty laid back and way less developed than further north. However there are a number of nice beaches, largely split between the KHANOM and SICHON districts. There is a scattering of resorts covering most budgets in both areas, but mainly used by Thai holiday makers. Western visitors are pretty scarce, particularly around SICHON.

I've often looked at the rugged, mountainous mainland coast to the south of DON SAC pier when coming in on a ferry from SAMUI, PHANGAN or TAO and thought "Whoa, looks interesting - bet there are some neat little beaches along there." So latest trip instead of hopping on a SURATHANI bound bus at the pier I hung around for a minibus traveling past KHANOM. I found myself a beach, although it was not all that little.

About half KHANOM BEACH (aka NA DAN) looking north. Turn 180degrees....

....for the other half. In total 7km. There are others in the district.

GETTING THERE

From Don Sac

If you are coming from the islands, catch a SEATRAN ferry - it has minibuses heading south from its DONSAC pier. I made the mistake of arriving by LOMPRAHAH on accounnt its ground connections are usually very good - sure they had a bunch of buses at the pier to SURATHANI, KRABI, PHUKET but none heading south. I was relying on motorcycle taxis being there - but NO.  A few minivan taxis wanted 700 to KHANOM, western prices for the 25km. 
But one dude would take me 10km across to the SEATRAN pier for 100b from where he knew I could pick up a minibus heading south to NAKON SI THAMMARAT. The latter took off 20 mins after (120b - I think this is the fare to NAKON or anywhere along the way). They dumped me at the main road intersection abt 2km from KHANOM VILLAGE.
Probably no more expensive but maybe a bit more time consuming is to catch one of the buses (price usually included in the ferry ticket) from the DONSAC PIERS into SURATHANI and grab a minibus to KHANOM. An advantage is you will be dropped at the MINIBUS STATION in town, not 2km west at the crossroads.

From Surathani 
The minibus station is at TASET 2 BUS STATION in the middle of town and the price is currently 100b from the minibus counter in the south east corner - more from adjacent agents.  

From elsewhere - if I was coming in from BANGKOK, PHUKET, KRABI etc by bus I'd head for TASET 2 above and catch the minibus. 
Alternatively - there is at least one big bus per day from BANGKOK's Southern Bus Station direct to Khanon.

FLYING - you can fly into NAKON (100km to Khanom) or SURATHANI and then grab a minibus. I'm not sure which is the better option.

TRAIN - you can also rail it into SURAT AND NAKON. The former will have more frequent trains but the railway station is a few km out of town. Frequent shuttle vans run to the bus station.

When I jumped out of the minibus at the intersection of Main Rd 4142 and the busy route into KHONOM I thought I'd pick up a motorcycle taxi quickly. Nope, I walked the 2km into town. 35C degrees.
Didn't see any motorcycle taxis around the main intersection of my road and the main street, but after searching for someone who spoke English I was told the quickest way to the beach was to keep going straight ahead. After another 1.6km stroll....

I arrived at GOLDEN BEACH RESORT - more or less where the road from town hits the beach.

This is a nice older style Thai lower-midrange hotel. Although the styling is 60s western, I'm thinking it's probably about 20 years old, and is beginning to show a bit of wear and tear. I reckon it was the first place of this standard built on long NA DAN BEACH aka KHANOM BEACH - when I later walked the 3km or so up to the northern headland there were another 5 or 6 of similar standard but newer looking. I wasn't in the mood on arrival to walk another km or two for a newer place.
Despite being a bit older, my room was spacious, clean, had good aircon, fully equipped. The place has a gym, beachfront rim pool, nice public areas, great staff, free shuttle up to town and okay free wifi. Price 1100b a night (pretty good for this type of place) - breakfast 200 extra.

Breakfasts were in the large dining room - my first on a Friday was a set American (continental option) plus unlimited coffee/tea, toast and juice. Not bad for 200b. On the weekend a big Thai corporate group moved in and with 50%+ occupancy the hotel bunged on a full buffet. While not as mind blowing as some more expensive western orientated joints' buffets, it was pretty good - particularly because I was still paying 200. 
Breakfast for some reason isn't a bargain in Thailand. This was.

For other meals I went across the parking lot to the hotel's beachfront BAR AND GRILL. There was a huge range of dishes here including lotsa budget stuff which was a bargain after relatively expensive island budget meals and drinks. btw if you want to go upmarket, fine: the seafood looked tantalizing. Staff excellent.

Outlook from the front tables.

Spacious lobby had Bangkok News English edition and stronger wifi.

Room not shabby

The beachfront pool was a rim type - section with sun lounges closest the sand was actually on a lower level. Not exactly crowded. My first day was a Friday - place only 15% full split evenly between westerners and Thais. Thais are not beach/pool people (okay, Thai kids enjoy the pool and most Thais you see are kids with mom).

Thai corporate group gets into some bonding stuff

AROUND GOLDEN BEACH RESORT
The resort had a good map showing district attractions.
On Friday afternoon I decided to walk the northern half of the beach which has at least a half dozen similar standard resorts and several more budget oriented places - but such is beach length that all are nicely spaced. It took about an hour one way but I only saw 2 other walkers and 2 sun-bathers, all westerners, on what was a very nice sunny afternoon. Sand is a bit coarse but I was surprised by its relative cleanliness - east facing beaches like this usually have a lot of flotsam blown onshore by the prevailing westerlies.
Right up on the far headland is an ore unloading facility. This side there are several beach bar/restaurants lining the parallel road but all were deserted. I got the idea this may not be the case Friday evenings and on weekends - these sort of places are local Thais' idea of how to spend time at the beach. btw - this far northern part of the beach is known as HAD KHO KHAO.
I walked back via the beach road - there were a few more accomm joints on the inland side plus on or two restaurants and small stores. But development along here is pretty scattered and low key.

On Saturday, I grabbed a bicycle from my joint (100b a day) and took a look at places to the south. 

Bicycle route - down the coast to Ao Thong Yi, then inland via the waterfalls to town, back to GBR

First on the agenda was to check the other half of NA DAN beach, at least from the road - things were even less developed along this section.One or two mid-rangers, ditto budget places and a couple of nice looking beach bar/restaurants.

It is very flat riding the behind beach road but at the end, the route starts to climb and then undulates along the coast to the south. Luckily I cycle every day in a very hilly town. Nevetherless the 35degrees+ was a tad enervating.

There were a couple of small beaches immediately south of NA DAN (background). Then after a few killer hills is....

...NAI PHLAO, a longer strip of sand dominated by this abandoned project. Some smaller resorts far end and more on the headland behind camera (I took this from a beachfront seafood restaurant/bar - there was more than one in this nice area).

It's real RAINFOREST BY THE SEA country south of NAI PHLAO. After 2.5km and a few more killer hills the road terminates at....

....compact AO THONG - more correctly known as AO THONG YI/YEE (I'm sure there are dozens of Ao Thongs in Thailand). 
This is most people's idea of a tropical beach.

Behind the beach is a budget resort and restaurant. The place has bungalows, camping, even an attractive looking dorm area on the hillside behind (pictured). My type of place but a motorcycle would be needed for access (public songthaews don't come down here). I'm not a motorcycle guy.

Well the PAVED coastal road terminates at AO THONG YI, but a short distance uphill from the beach a new dirt section heads further south - I later read it meets the SICHON COAST's northern most beach PHIAI DAM after a few rough undulating kms. (3.0) My mountain bike is just the thing for such conditions - but in the heat and after 2 hours riding, plus a bunch of waterfalls I planned to check out, this 71yo was in no mood to try a rough steep in parts bush track. In retrospect I should have - I didn't get a chance to check PHIAI DAM when in SICHON a few days later.

THE WATERFALLS
So I backtracked on the paved coastal road a few km - in the middle of NAI PHLAO I saw a well sign-posted side road leading inland to HIN LAT WATERFALL This paved road was knocked about by wet season drainage problems in a few places but otherwise pretty good. It went inland on a gentle gradient for about 2km - at the end a work-gang was busy on a new bridge - I parked the bike and took the sign-posted track further uphill (never steep or too rough underfoot) for maybe 400m to the falls.

HIN LAT WATERFALL

Thai waterfalls may underwhelm westerners used to some VERTICALITY at such places. The Thais seem to class any fall of a meter or so a waterfall - all the better if there are multiple drops. Nevertheless I have found most falls in LOS pretty nice places - including this one.

SAMET CHUNG WATERFALL
I had to retrace my ride to the north end of NA DAM beach, turn inland, take the fist left and keep an eye out for the side road after a couple of kms. Once again it was clearly sign-posted. The side road was paved most of the way and gradually climbed for a few kms until the main pool of the falls area was clearly visible beside the road.

This would be a nice spot for a hot day dip - Thai family making the most of it. However I couldn't see any falling water so I took a poorly defined track to the right and after 5 minutes...

....reached this area. This was one of a cluster of similar - I could see why the track was poorly defined: not too many people venture past the nice pool near the road.
My suggestion is that if you are looking for a nice swimming spot, come up and use the roadside pool. But the "falls" are not worth the effort.

BACK TO THE HOTEL VIA TOWN
I retraced my steps to the main road which soon turned north and headed towards town about 5km away. This inland road runs parallel to the beachside road - flat gradient, scattered businesses etc. More sheltered from the strong onshore easterly winds.

Khannon town central - it is not a big place as regional main towns go, but certainly busy. I called in at the 7/11 for supplies and rode around to locate the MINIBUS STATION for the next day's trip to SICHON.

Main street runs north south - major business area extends north of intersection of beach road abt 350m - past there is a discontinuous ribbon of town development. Ditto after 150m south of the intersection.
The 7/11 is just south of the intersection on the right. My ride indicated some motorbike taxis hanging about this area. The minibus station is way north of the intersection (abt 800m) on the right, but the vehicles will pick up and drop in town central.

MISSED ATTRACTIONS
My map indicated that by heading directly north on the main street I would reach the FISHING PORT and RIVER in abt 3km. Across the other side the main road (4142) initially turns inland but by staying on that I would be able to access some northern beaches via side roads (one of these has the famous PINK DOLPHINS pier) - plus some caves, viewpoints and at least one more waterfall on the mountainous inland side.
But I gave them a miss - by this time I'd been cycling more than 5 hours in the heat and felt a bit used up. A nice cold beer by GBR's cool pool would go down well. And it (um...actually they) did.
Okay, I could have stayed an extra day and explored the north, but I had the next day penciled in on my dance card for SICHON.


IF YOU HAVE EXTRA INFORMATION OR SEE MISTAKES PLEASE POST BELOW. BUT IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, PLEASE ASK IT ON THE FORUM - I CHECK THE FORUM MOST DAYS WHEN NOT TRAVELING BUT I RARELY REVISIT INDIVIDUAL PLACE PAGES LIKE THIS ONE.