Koh Chang

[2long]

We're going to Koh Chang and have conflicting advice on which beach to visit. thai wife, 3 yr old daughter, grandpa and I.

White Sands, Lonely or another beach?

Which pier is best to use (with our own car)?

All we want is three quiet days with a nice clean beaches, nowt too expensive (1,000B/night is ok), and somewhere for a drink in the evening.

Thanks, y'all

[midas]

We're going to Koh Chang and have conflicting advice on which beach to visit. thai wife, 3 yr old daughter, grandpa and I.

White Sands, Lonely or another beach?

Which pier is best to use (with our own car)?

All we want is three quiet days with a nice clean beaches, nowt too expensive (1,000B/night is ok), and somewhere for a drink in the evening.

Thanks, y'all

Hi 2long ! well I visit KC every three or four weeks for personal reasons so I can give you

my observations as if any regular visitor.

White Sands looks convenient but is in my opinion already overdeveloped and very " commercialised "

Lonely beach is quieter and you should be able to get something for a price even though over Christmas

and new year they charged a significant premium - but hopefully they will adjust prices down a bit

again now that all that is over ! personally I like Ao Bai Lan which is the very bottom of the island

which is very quiet.

As to the pier - that's a good question ! I would definitely recommend you go to the BLUE AND WHITE

ferry at Thammachart piers and use Ferry Koh Chang. don't use the old GREEN ferry from

LAEM NGOB they are much slower and older ! I hope that is useful for you

[T_Dog]

Hope the OP doesn't mind my jumping on their thread....... but.... Is there good snorkeling on Ko Chang? What bays are best? I am also planning a trip there in the next few months so all help appreciated.

[mauiguy90]

We're going to Koh Chang and have conflicting advice on which beach to visit. thai wife, 3 yr old daughter, grandpa and I.

White Sands, Lonely or another beach?

Which pier is best to use (with our own car)?

All we want is three quiet days with a nice clean beaches, nowt too expensive (1,000B/night is ok), and somewhere for a drink in the evening.

Thanks, y'all

White Sand Beach has more traffic, however, for a reason. It has the cleanest, whitest sand on the island and the water is quite clean. If you stay at White Sand Beach Resort, you can get a more isolated area although you will have to walk a ways. Lonely Beach is fine, as is Klong Prao Beach, and a bunch of others but for my money, I'd choose White Sand Beach.

[dick turpin]

makes me laugh when they talk about white sands being over-developed

Did my first trip there last year and found it to be just the right balance of

endless beach by day and lively enough by night with the shoreline bars

and eateries.

Told my thai GF we were goin to koh chang for a few days, she thought

about it for a moment and then asked:"They have 7-Eleven on koh Chang?

[wilko]

With the increasingly huge numbers crowding onto K.C. each year wouldn't it be a good idea for it to have it's own forum now? (Mods wake up!)

If you're going with a child I guess Klong Prao Beach would be best...there's a dozen or so places to choose from and less cramped than Whitesands. ....Building everywhere even over Xmas and New year!

MAKE SURE THE RESORT HAS A SANDY BEACH - some don't have sea-front at all...AND DON'T MAKE THAT CLEAR - NB - Ramayana!

Make sure their is no building work intruding into your area....when are you going?

A budget of 1000 baht is a bit on the low side for K.C. - it's a very dear island - if you stay at Klong Prao the rack rates are 2000 to 3500 - discounts are available...many places are asking 5000 over Xmas and New Year.

Both Whitesands and Lonely Beach can be very noisy.....on reaching Koh Chang many people believe that they can or have to play drums until the wee hours of the morning.....????......

Ferries are about 120 for the car and 100 per person...but they seem to chage different ways on each ferry?!?!

Centre point and Thamachat are nearest the island and then there is the old one nereer Laem Ngop which takes well over an hour.

No need to book or pay for a return ferry but sometimes there is a rush-hour and you will have to wait for an hour or so in a queue to get off the island.

Driving from Bkk/Pattaya don't go all the way to Trat, take the right hand turn-off (traffic lights) just after the military check-point signed Koh Chang and Leam Ngop (Laem Ngop is signed both straight on AND right!)

BTW - Don't get a room near the roads winding down the hills ....you'll be kept awake all night by the sound of squealing tyres on the hair-pin bends!

and now my personal view (partially up-dated) of Koh Chang............

Koh Chang - A Paradise Lost…

It is unfortunate that many travelers to Thailand are rather uncritical about their environment and the effect tourism is having on the islands of the Kingdom. Koh Chang is a terrible example of unregulated tourist development gone mad.

I first went to Koh Chang in 2003 and was rather disturbed by what I found and what has happened in the subsequent years I find even more disturbing.

Koh Chang is the second largest island in Thailand. Given an unexpected boost by the post-tsunami unpopularity of the west coast (i.e. Phuket) an ever increasing number of western tourists are heading for this island...here is my polemic on why this is not so good....

I've been to Koh Chang many times over the past few years, largely because it's near to where I live, and every time a friend comes to stay this is the most convenient "paradise island” to take them to... My brother even got married there in March 2005.

So what’s wrong with this slice of “bounty” advert?

(Deep breath)

Koh Chang is a tragedy....it’s being badly developed, it’s overpriced and it's going down hill at a rate of knots......

Why? The land for development was all bought up by bigwig friends of the "great and powerful" and now anyone who wants to set up a business there has to pay through the nose for it. All the hotels are overpriced even when you compare with Phuket and Samui. The insensitive despoiling of the island had started before the Tsunami as the island had been ear-marked for development by releasing the flat coastal land a few years before. Whether it ever appeared for sale on the open market I don’t know. In the post tsunami era the island’s desecration has continued with increased vigour as developers realised the new potential.

Almost all the west coast is now covered with awful self-contained resorts, built with no thought for the environment, conservation or island infrastructure. They are for the most part badly designed and ill finished. Appearance is all, the places are little more than decorated concrete sheds. Health and safety is simply not addressed - some of the pool designs look positively lethal. Slippery tiles adorn pool-side and bathroom alike. The building never stops; frequently you can find your room is on a building site. It is unlikely the hotel will warn you of this. This is now greatly restricting the amount of beach that is accessible to the public; it can only be a matter of time before all the good sandy beaches become resort owned or dominated sea fronts.

If you're coming from Europe or the States you'll find that the cost of living and rooms is cheap but not compared to elsewhere in Thailand. You'll love the sunsets and the white sand, you won't wonder where all the sewage is going and what happened to the mangroves or the fishing industry that gets smaller catches every year, or the fishing villages being turned into souvenir arcades-com-hotels.

The centre of Koh Chang is a national park, but unlike all of Thailand's other National Parks, apart from the odd waterfall, no-one is allowed inside, you can get a guide who will take you in but strictly speaking that's against the law. There is virtually no effort made to set up a good system of eco-tourism in the park as you might find in Australia. “Jungle Trekking” is now increasingly offered at the numerous travel shops; without proper regulation this will be anything but eco-friendly.

There is only one road around KC and it doesn't go all the way round, it's a horse-shoe affair. There is a motorbike track that connects the two ends but it's not for the faint of heart! The main road is barely more than single track (asphalted) but cannot cope with the ever increasing load of traffic pouring onto the island. Most of the bridges have been washed out and are replaced by drains covered over with rubble – beware of hitting these at night or on a motorbike.

As KC is the second biggest island in Thailand, walking around it in a day is not an option. KC is also very mountainous and the roads are very windy and hilly and the resorts can be a long way from any shops, night-life etc, the baht taxi service (song taew) is very patchy and any where you want to go is further than you want to walk, so it’s really essential to hire a motorbike or car; these are about 50% to 100 % more than on the mainland. It might even be worth hiring a vehicle on the mainland and driving there (Pattaya is about a 4 ½ hour drive to the KC ferries - fare approximately 350 baht).

The main town, if you could call it that, is White Sands a n increasingly crowded long strip of hotels, resorts and motley bars about 3 km long. The building over the last 3 years has completely filled the space between hills and shore. They are now excavating back into the hillside here to make room for more buildings.

If you arrive on foot with no hotel booked a baht taxi will take you from the ferry to Whitesands and drop you there. (So long as he has a full load at the ferry or he'll want you to foot the extra money before he sets off.) You will then have to find somewhere to stay this is impossible on foot and with luggage so book in advance at least for the first night. Then get some wheels, car/Jeep or motorbike and look around the next day for a place you like.

There is no airport on KC itself, if you go by plane you'll land at Trat airport which is on the mainland quite near to the ferries to KC. Get a taxi to the ferry - only a few baht. There are several ferries across, the crossing takes 45 to 90 min, depending on which ferry you take. On one ferry I paid 30 e/w for me and my car, on another I paid 360 baht for my car an five people return. The ferries can now be very over stretched at high season and week-ends – even thought there is a new car-park the queues can extend back up the hill for quite a way.

Now you may think I hate the place, well I don't, I just get very disappointed in the direction the powers-that-be have taken KC, it's lack of infrastructure and any forward planning will mean that sooner rather than later this place will become a collection of overpriced resorts and nothing else.

Where to stay? – Whitesands is the probably the largest conglomeration on the island – hotels, bars shops etc all increasingly crowded into the strip between sea and mountain, the developers have now started to dig away at the hill behind and are erecting buildings wherever they can - between the mudslides. One wonders how long it will be before a cliff collapses and takes a building with it. Look above the buildings to see evidence of land-slip....

For resorts with a beach, Klong Prao Beach is probably as good as it gets, there are about 4 resorts there actually with beach frontage, The Paradise is all nicely built new bungalows, very tightly packed, Coconut and Royal Coconut are next to that and Klong Prao resort has a long beach front and good pool beside the sea. All are constantly redeveloping to increase the density of accommodation within a given strip of beach.

Indeed, the last time I stayed at Klong Prao Resort in last August (2005) the place was a building site. They didn't tell me until the day I arrived even though I was a regular guest there. If you do book in advance you must ask about this sort of thing because you will very likely not be told by the staff. Building also precedes a hike in prices. I used to pay 1800 baht to stay there. That time I paid 1750, a discount of 50 baht (just over a dollar) because it was the wet season and there was building going on! I was told the new price is 3500 baht and that was what they would still charge whilst the building was continuing. In fact as of Feb 2007 you should be able to get a room for about 2800 baht.

Wherever you decide to stay - CHECK BEFORE YOU GO ABOUT BUILDING WORK.....ESPECIALLY IN THE WET SEASON!

The problem with Koh Chang is that it is changing and changing rapidly for the worse. Hotels are constantly building and encroaching on the environment. Prices are rising and beach access is getting more and more taken over by private resorts. The days of a hut on the beach for 200 baht are in fact, virtually gone. The scuba divers are going further and further a field in search of clear water and fish, and don’t be kidded that so long as the hotel claims to be by the sea that it has a beach! (v. Ramayana!!)

Untrammelled development is occurring all over the islands of Thailand and visitors to the country should be aware of the unsympathetic, unregulated development that is taking place here. It is happening everywhere; Samui has suffered in particular at the hands of unscrupulous “developers” and the same thing is happening on Koh Chang and it is now beginning to spread to the rest of the islands in the archipelago.

However, I think that Koh Chang is unique in regards to this as it is not only the second largest island in Thailand. (Phuket is the largest but connected to the mainland by road) but the most recently developed. Even as you lie on the beach, an opportunity is being missed here to avoid all the mistakes made on the other “paradise” islands.

Anyone will tell you that their favourite island has changed beyond recognition in the last few years, but Koh Chang still in my opinion has a chance of changing its ways especially if people are made aware of the situation before they go. Business interests on the island will react to market forces, there is little hope for swift and effective government intervention, as this is almost without precedent in Thailand. During a 2 week stay it is unlikely that the average visitor will become aware of the larger issues surrounding the conservation and development of the island, so I would hope that some at least will think before they go, and ask questions like...

• Where does the sewerage go?

• Where are the mangroves?

• What happened to the local agricultural industries?

• What do the fishermen do now?

• Where are all the fish?

• Where does the water come from and where does it go?

• What is the sea water quality on my beach?

• How is the coral?

• Who is looking after the marine and forest nature reserves?

• Why is there no satisfactory public access?

• Who owns the land?

It is quite possible that in the future Thailand could run out of islands to develop and lose one of its main attractions as a tourist destination. All this will be achieved with your money…you are paying for the development on these islands; it is your money that makes these short term goals achievable.

PS - If you want up to date local info on KC, try this site: IamKohChang.com

a good site for info on Koh Chang and sounds like an interesting place to stay too!

PPS – I cannot recommend the Ramayana and Boutique resorts!

PPPS - Yes they have dozens of 7/11s on Koh Chang!

Edited January 4, 2008 by wilko

[2long]

The snorkelling post was no interruption, as I'd like to do some, myself.

Another thing, is the weather ok there at the mo? The wife's family heard about rough seas and did their usual Thai knee-jerk reaction.

Keep the info coming. I'm lovin' it.

[Smithson]

Weather is fine this time of year, the rough seas are during the rainy season.

I had friends go to KC this year, stayed at white sands and loved it. For them B3,000 a night with 2 kids seemed reasonable. I visited them and really thought it was paradise lost. First time I went was in 2000.

It seems a lot of the beach at white sands has been washed away, I heard this happened in a storm years ago. Access to the beach, as it's being blocked by the big resorts. I don't think I'll ever go there again. There may be some unspoilt beaches in Thailand, but there hard to find and require a lot long travel by mini bus and boat.

Edited January 4, 2008 by Smithson

[wilko]

At present visibility is at its best....but it is not guaranteed, increasing effluent around Koh Chang means that one has to go further and further afield to ensure good visibility and lots of wildlife.Over Xmas/New Year an onshore wind didn't help either.

Edited January 6, 2008 by wilko

[jayenram]

If you're looking for something quiet and remote, there is Long Beach to the South East of the island (circled on the map). It's in the vicinity of a naval monument.

I was there just over 12 months ago (November 2006) and there was a small 'resort' consisting of 3 or 4 concrete bungalows with air-con for Bht 1,000/night and a few bamboo bungalows with fans for Bht 600.00/night.

There was quite a large bar/restaurant but it was always empty when we visited.

There are some pictures in this gallery:

http://gallery.thaivista.net/thumbnails.php?album=11

Edited January 6, 2008 by jayenram
The circle was in the wrong place

[wilko]

The last relatively undeveloped beach on Koh Chang - not a great beach though......You might want to take a 4WD there, it's a fairly rugged (even spectacular) piece of road and there are some parts that have been partially washed away now. Due to the incomplete "horseshoe" road system it's actually quite a long way round. You can get there on a hired motorbike...I guess there is a Song

Taew service too.

Edited January 6, 2008 by wilko