Was in Koh Phangan over Christmas , i was surprised to see how many farangs were working there , i did not like the place it was dirty in Haad Rin where i stayed.

Had Rin is always dirty, ..... you should have tried west or north west beach areas, they are usually much nicer!

As for getting back to the topic, I have asked several Thai's lately to say the word .... it nearly always comes out sounding like Koh Phan-Yang! .... so not just some of us "farangs" or is that "farlangs"?

I have been trying to catch myself lately and say "Pan-gang" rather than Pan-yang !... Even before this topic came up!... it is not easy!

A training exercise:

Keep saying gangbanggangbang ( ) repeatedly - you'll catch the ng-sound naturally as a starting syllable while rotating the words. Next step is to try and phase the first syllable out of gang (resulting in ngbanggbangnggbang), then the dominating B out of the Bang (ngangangang), and last suppress out the remaining G to end up with ngan -> Koh Gangbangan -> Koh Phangan -> Koh Pha Ngan

Hope this helps

Was in Koh Phangan over Christmas , i was surprised to see how many farangs were working there , i did not like the place it was dirty in Haad Rin where i stayed.

Had Rin is always dirty, ..... you should have tried west or north west beach areas, they are usually much nicer!

As for getting back to the topic, I have asked several Thai's lately to say the word .... it nearly always comes out sounding like Koh Phan-Yang! .... so not just some of us "farangs" or is that "farlangs"?

I have been trying to catch myself lately and say "Pan-gang" rather than Pan-yang !... Even before this topic came up!... it is not easy!

A training exercise:

Keep saying gangbanggangbang ( ) repeatedly - you'll catch the ng-sound naturally as a starting syllable while rotating the words. Next step is to try and phase the first syllable out of gang (resulting in ngbanggbangnggbang), then the dominating B out of the Bang (ngangangang), and last suppress out the remaining G to end up with ngan -> Koh Gangbangan -> Koh Phangan -> Koh Pha Ngan

Hope this helps

Couldn't get my head round that,I think I'll move to Koh Samui!