Ko Phaluai: Stumbling upon a dazzling hidden beach in the Ang Thong islands
In the first piece of the new "extraordinary spots" series, venture to a spectacular slice of sand on a little-known island near Ko Samui.
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It is true, being a travel writer who focuses almost entirely on one country has its drawbacks. Having conducted most of my writing and photography work in Thailand throughout my career, I’ve never been one of the “lucky ones” jet-setting from, say, Osaka to Bhutan to Oahu to Antarctica. For me, it’s been more like Ko Mook to Hat Yai to Bangkok to Yasothon — and honestly, that is just fine.
Because a narrower niche has advantages, too. The biggest one is that, if you really explore Thailand or a similarly sized country for long enough, you can go just about everywhere. Okay, not to every one of Thailand’s 928 administrative districts (unless you’re totally nuts), but over time, exploring each of its 77 provinces is within reach for dedicated travelers. (I plan to hit my last four provinces, three in the Deep South plus pesky Mae Hong Song up North, over the next six months.)
Of course, Thailand is no tiny country — it’s about the size of Spain with a coastline that is more than twice the length of California’s. Travel destinations? The kingdom has loads of them. Yes, some might have been created straight out of thin air by the TAT, but I’ve found that most of the hundreds upon hundreds of travel spots that I’ve visited in Thailand were worth the journey. They have brought extra meaning and beauty and fun to life. Yes, even the bus station in Aranyaprathet.
And they also gave me something that few of those jet-setting travel writers ever have: the depth of experience that one gathers from continuously traveling a single country. I still have some distance to go and there are a few parts of coastal Thailand — Phuket province’s outer islands, for instance — where I have little travel experience so far. But I will get to those last remaining outliers. You’ll see.
If you ask me, to make a truly authoritative list of “Thailand’s best beaches” (for example), the writer needs to have actually visited (in person!) some thousands of beaches spread among every coastal province and marine park in the kingdom. I have done something close to that, and now I inch closer to the goal of having explored all 24 coastal provinces and their many islands, inside and out.
Thinking back over my travels, there are a fistful of particular spots that shine through the clutter of memory for being, in one way or another, the most extraordinary. That is the point behind this new series: to share the select few spots that took my breath away, including in obscure places where you might not think to look. You can also think of these pieces as nominations for the “most extraordinary” lists that I intend to compile, eventually, to share the absolute best of coastal Thailand.
Yes, of course, that is a subjective thing — my beach heaven might be your idea of a dive. But I’ve doubtless come across some truly special spots, where I’ve paused to mentally soak in just how sublime it was. Think about it. Do any spots come to mind for you, where it was so beautiful, or felt so perfect, that you got goosebumps? Those are the kinds of extraordinary spots that this series conveys.
In addition, I view this coverage as a record of what Thailand’s beaches looked like during the 2010s and ‘20s, when many beaches and coastlines have been and are eroding and disappearing around the world. I’ve seen it first-hand all over coastal Thailand, with dramatic changes coming fast. Unfortunately, beaches that were extraordinary five or ten years ago might look different today.
Now, in the category of “hidden beach,” the first extraordinary spot takes us into Mu Ko Ang Thong, a national-park-controlled chain of primarily limestone isles that ranks, without a doubt, among the five or six most extraordinary island groups in Thailand. It’s well known to those who frequent Ko Phangan and Ko Samui, but the beach that dazzled me most is sparsely found on the boat-tour routes.
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