Phang Nga

I recently decided that I would take advantage of a cheap Air Asia flight and head to Bangkok for a week with my girlfriend. The returning flight a week later was however not part of their discount range so I was forced with a decision to either pay the full fare or return home on an alternative form of transport. The decision was made that we would return by bus however the thought of sitting on a bus for up to fourteen hours filled me with dread. We therefore decided that we should make a stop off for a couple of days en route and explore a southern province which we didn't know much about. 

(Phang Nga Town)

The province of Phang Nga is situated on the west coast of Thailand on the Andaman Sea bordering the provinces of Ranong, Surat Thani, Krabi and Phuket. The provincial capital is Phang Nga town and this is where we decided to stop off for a few days on the way back from Bangkok. The night bus from Bangkok took a whopping twelve hours and to say the ride was slightly uncomfortable would be an understatement but at 600 baht each it served its purpose of getting us back down south.  We arrived in Phang Nga town as the sun was rising and my first impressions were how beautiful it looked. The town is surrounded on all sides by beautiful mountains which are a joy to behold. For anyone with an interest in either photography or the natural environment this town is absolute bliss. 

The first thing I wanted to do once I arrived was rent a motorcycle so that I could explore the area with a bit more freedom. Peculiarly the tour guides at the bus station had little knowledge of motorcycle rental and one even told us that it was not possible in Phang Nga. There is quite a bit of information on the internet about places where you can rent a motorcycle in Phang Nga so I'm guessing that they just wanted to sell us some tour rather then tell us where we could rent bikes. It didn't take long for us to find numerous places to rent a motorcycle and within the hour I had done so. All of the places that rented motorcycles wanted to keep hold of my passport as a deposit which of course I was less then happy about. The compromise in my mind was to rent the motorcycle from my hotel and leave the passport with them. I felt more comfortable with this because at least I would not be leaving it at a random place, and not be able to get hold of it in the case of an emergency. 

(Suzuki Smash)

We stayed at the Thawesuk hotel which is situated right in the middle of the town and cost 700 baht per night. I am guessing that the hotel has been renovated within the last couple of years because some of the pictures and reviews that I checked out on the internet (after we had stayed there) didn't look too great and certainly didn't correlate with the experience we had. The best thing about this hotel is the staff who were very helpful throughout our stay and spoke perfect English. The staff were able to find me a manual motorbike after initially being told that only automatics were available and it only cost 200 baht per day. The staff also let me park the bike in the reception at night which I thought was pretty cool. The rooms at the hotel were basic but the bed was comfortable, the hot water in the shower worked perfectly and the wifi ran smoothly. My only real complaint was that the wooden floors were extremely creaky to the point where it almost felt like you had to tiptoe across the room to avoid being heard downstairs. 

(Beautiful roads in Phang Nga Province)

The plan for the first day was to take off on the bike on a bit of a road trip and explore the province. The roads I encountered were absolutely breathtaking with fantastic scenery and were extremely twisty which is a dream for all motorcyclists. I would really love to take my Honda wave out on these roads because as good as the roads were it was difficult to enjoy them fully on the little Suzuki Smash. The smash is incredibly light and very easy to control but you can really tell that it was designed to be used in a city at relatively low speeds and not thrashed on long distances. The small villages I passed were typical of those commonly seen throughout the south of Thailand with warm friendly faces shouting 'hello' as you pass. I passed through the small town of Takua Pa where I had my lunch and planned my route down to Koh Lak. 

(Beautiful Blue Seas at Koh Lak)

I had not planned to visit Koh Lak and actually only did so because it was on the route I wanted to take around Phang Nga. Koh Lak is situated on the west coast of the province facing the Andaman Sea. The area is a full on tourist area and the majority of people I saw there were foreigners. I was only in the area for a couple of hours but the beaches that I did see looked very beautiful and the waters perfectly clear. The main things I noticed were the amount of Russian tourists in the area and the high prices. The prices for food in Koh Lak's restaurants are about the same as nearby Phuket which means they are at least double Phang Nga town. I decided to wait until I got back to town to eat but I did decide that I wanted to visit the area again in the future because it really is beautiful and is perfectly set up for foreign tourists. 

The objective for the second (and last) day in Phang Nga was to see what the town area had to offer. The town of Phang Nga, like a lot of Thai towns comprises of one single road with various soi's leading off of it. There are a number of caves in the town to look at the pick of which was probably the 'heaven and hell' cave. I have found out that if you climb the steps before the cave you can get some magnificent views of Phang Nga Bay and the surrounding mountains but I hadn't done my research on the cave properly and missed it. This is a lesson that you should always do at least some research on tourist attractions before visiting them rather then just heading off with a map like I did. I am a sucker for a nice quiet park with a lake so I really enjoyed Somdet Phra Srinagarindra Park. The park is very tranquil and is home to not only the obligatory pack of stray dogs but also quite a few monkeys. I enjoyed the park so much I decided to get my lunch as a take away and eat in it in the park. There are also a number of caves at the park which were nice to explore but obviously nowhere near as big as the other caves in Phang Nga town. 

(Somdet Phra Srinagarindra Park)

I really enjoyed my little stop off in Phang Nga town and it has definitely given me the inspiration to return to the area again in the future. The town itself is not a tourist hotspot and nearly all of the hotels are family run guesthouses rather then upscale tourist resorts. I think for people visiting Phuket this would offer a nice change of pace for a couple of days and certainly allow your money to go a bit further, unless of course you are in Koh Lak. The town of Phang Nga is very liveable as an expat although it is very small and doesn't have as many western conveniences as other local provincial capitals such as Krabi or Trang. Phang Nga is however only 85km from Phuket which has every western convenience under the sun. I will definitely be coming back to the area to explore the Koh Lak area in more depth and I would also like to visit some of the islands to the south around Phang Nga Bay.