We have now stayed over a week on 6 different islands in Thailand, over the past two years. We have liked them all for different reasons and I will try to sort that out a bit in this post. First, I need to explain Koh Mak.
This is a place for deserted beaches. The island is about the size of Fox Island in Washington state so although it is small, you really can’t around walk the island easily. Most people rent scooters ($6 per day) or take the pickup truck taxis ($1.50 per ride). There are about 400 residents and about 400 tourisst rooms, most are in small resorts along the beaches. We stayed in the largest resort Makathanee which had one of the only pools on the island. It was good, but not near as nice as the place we stayed the previous week in Koh Chang. The room was fine and the free breakfast was good but everything seemed a bit tired, which is just fine for a small island Koh Mak. The hotel internet was not so great but that is probably due to being us staying on a small Thai Island. You go to this island to enjoy the beaches, not to watch TV.
We were warned about the vicious sand flies of Koh Mak. They are super small and can create a lot of long lasting bites in just an hour or so of sitting on the beach. We didn’t experience this at all. The resorts are now raking the sand and seaweed every morning and that has helped reduce the problem. We didn’t lay out on the beach, but we did take a lot of walks and had many meals and happy hour drinks with our feet in the sand. There were a couple of sundowner bars that we enjoyed our $3 cocktails while we watched the sunsets. Besides the beaches, there isn’t too much else to do. We rented a scooter one day to see some viewpoints, check out the small history museum, and saw beaches on the other side of the island.
We did take a trip to the small island of Koh Kham one day. We got a taxi boat to take us out to another abandoned resort that has some great snorkeling. This resort was never actually finished and the entire island is currently for sale for over a billion Thai Baht if you are interested. The beaches had very fine white sand that made the water look bright turquoise when the sun was shining. I took a lot of pics. We spent a couple hours snorkeling before we started feeling a little too pink and took the taxi back to the main island.
This is the last island we will visit in Thailand this year, so it is time to make some evaluations. It is difficult to rank our favorites because there are some islands where we skipped some of the activities because of weather or other factors. It is also easy to rank one island higher because we stayed in a better accommodation. It is hard to evaluate an island positively after spending a week getting roasted without air conditioning. It is also hard to rate an island negatively after we splurged on a very nice resort. So, I am going to just link our blogposts and say would we liked best about each island. Because we did like ALL the islands. We don’t have a favorite.
Koh Mak- Best island for quiet isolated beautiful beach time
Koh Chang– Best Island to stay in a nice resort on the beach
Koh Tao– Best Island for snorkeling
Koh Samui- Best Island for Night Markets and Fire Shows on the beach
Koh Lanta– Best Island to see a traditional Thai Fishing Village
Koh Lipe– Best Island for being able to walk everywhere and see everything, also really good snorkeling.
Yes, we are hooked and are going to continue to visit small islands in Thailand as well as in other countries around the world. We just like the vibe! But for now, we are going to travel inland for a bit. Our next stop is a new country for us – Cambodia!