Sunsets in Koh Lipe
After a few days snorkelling in Koh Tao, we were enjoying the sea, but wanted to try somewhere different, so decided to change coastlines, from the eastern Gulf of Thailand, to the west Andaman sea. We got a boat to Surat Thani and then a minivan to Hat Yai, where we stayed for one night so we could get a minivan-boat combo to Koh Lipe the next morning. After 2 days of travelling, we finally arrived on Koh Lipe and it was eerily quiet compared to Koh Tao.
Koh Lipe is a small island far south in Thailand, in fact it’s very close to the border with Malaysia and you can even get a direct boat from Langkawi… Although not at this time of the year unfortunately…
It’s in a wider protected area falling under the Tarutao National Marine Park area, and all of the neighboring islands like Koh Adang, Koh Rawi and Koh Tarutao are all uninhabited protected national parks. We were singing the Jurassic park theme song a lot, as the islands do kind of remind you of that… Covered in pure rainforest and very wild still.
However, during the months of May to October, much of the national park and marine park closes to tourists because of the monsoon, and to allow the region to recover annually from the effects of tourism. We did know this, but we thought that fewer tourists would be nice after Koh Tao, and our experience of the Thai monsoon so far was not bad at all, we had a few spots of rain here and there, but never more than an hour, and always sunny before and after. So we took a punt, and found a mega deal on accommodation here too, as the place we booked – Sweed Dreams, was only £16 a night, and was a lovely room with AC and hot water. (But yeah the downside was that it was a cannabis shop 😂, but luckily it didn’t affect us, and the entrance to the rooms was separate from the shop).
The island was VERY quiet though, and a lot of places were closed or having renovations, in fact there were a lot of renovations going on, and especially on sunrise beach we saw people repainting boats, repairing the thatch roofs on the beach-front cottages, or emptying sewers and waste water (into the ocean!). There was also a bit of rubbish on the beaches, especially sunset beach, where we only went once and left immediately as it was COVERED in plastic waste. I think the local residents and hotels/resorts probably do groom the beaches… In high season… But not right now, clearly.
We planned to stay here about a week and do snorkelling everyday, but travelling caught up to me a bit and I got quite ill for a few days on the island. Even having to visit the local international clinic, which I have to say was a pleasant experience, especially given the remoteness of the island.
So our first days on the island generally consisted if just chilling on beaches and watching sunsets up on the North beach near zodiac beach bar, where the beach turns to face west. And we saw some stunners!
The sunsets were in part helped by the dramatic weather, and it seemed that the Thai monsoon had also finally caught up to us too, as we had some BRUTAL thunderstorms whilst we were here, a couple lasting the whole day and pretty much shutting down the island.
When I started to feel a little better, we booked a snorkelling trip, which was supposed to take us to some of the spots around Adang, Rawi and some other smaller islands like Usen and Kla (just off Lipe), but the weather this day still wasn’t great, with on/off rain all day, visibility was quite poor, but we saw some cute clownfish and a few starfish too.
Since I was taking food a bit easy, we ate at a nice western style restaurant called Elephant basically every day, but we loved it, I’d definitely recommend it.
On a couple of other days, we tried to snorkel off the beach on the North end of Sunrise Beach, but the visibility was shocking every time we tried, you could barely see a thing, which was a real shame as we had seen some videos of the reefs off Lipe and they look amazing. I guess we will just have to come back again in high season…
Travelling is always a balancing act between “best time to visit” and “less crowded time to visit”. I don’t mind going to places during low seasons, as they can be quieter and more manageable, and you get mega bargains on accommodation, and often still see the same things. But sometimes there is a reason the high season is the high season…
Speaking of which, before we left home, our plan was to go to Maldives, India, Thailand (only briefly for a few days), before heading to Indonesia, where we both wanted to explore more. Underwater for me, and up some volcanoes for Dave. And the best weather for Indonesia is July – Sep, with monsoons coming in Nov, so we were losing our window and needed to hurry along. We both love Thailand, and “a few days” quickly turned into a month, (ooops), but now it was time to move on. We booked a flight through Hat Yai to KL, Malaysia, where we planned to stay briefly before continuing on to Sumatra, Indonesia and beyond!!
Watch this as a video on Travel Alchemist here:
