Ko Chang, Thailand 4

Aittipol Snorkeling Tour

Four Islands in the Southwestern Ko Chang Archipelago



Driver picked us up at 8:30am and took us to Bang Bao fishing pier. Bang Bao is essentially a town built on stilts over the water in a quiet little cove where fishing boats and tour boats dock and vendors sell seafood and souvenirs. The seafood restaurants look great and there’s plenty of shopping. About 10 min. south of lonely beach.

The boat was an ancient relic. A family business. Dad drives the boat. One son was our snorkeling guide. And the other brother –a boy-girl, does the cooking and creepy flirting. They took us to 4 islands. The first three were rock and jungle. Uninhabited. No electricity. Nothing at all, apart from the snorkeling tours.

The fourth stop was Ko Wai, which has two small resorts with power generators. From the boat it looks like the essence of paradise. The sand at lonely beach is better and there was too much construction going on at the resort. Power tools in paradise.

Taxi boat service to Ko Wai is 500 b one-way. So if I ever decide to stay there, I’ll just take a snorkeling tour and jump off of the boat. The selling point was the snorkeling, but we essentially got an island tour of the whole ko chang archipelago on the old boat. This alone was worth the cost of admission.

We traveled about 90 minutes south of Bang Bao on the Southwestern tip of Ko Chang. There were so many little jungle islands, so many tiny little white sand paradise beaches. You could jump from the boat and just disappear until you wanted to be found again. The snorkeling guide saw it in my eyes. Every time we stopped, he said the same thing to me, “you have one hour. When make horn sound, if you don’t come to boat, I come back tomorrow.”

They prepared lunch twice on the boat. Plates of tasty stir fries, spicy rice soup, fresh pineapple and watermelon.

The best part was jumping off of the roof of the two-level boat. But when my mask sunk to the bottom and the guide had to dive down and get it, he asked me to stop.

The sunburn on my back is now looking dangerous. I’m sporting a big red blister on my nose. And some nasty gashes on my foot from the coral reef. Time for a beer.