Koh Samui & Ang Thong National Marine Park

The second part of our Thailand vacation was spent on the island of Koh Samui, about an hour flight south of Bangkok. We flew Bangkok Airways which we loved, mainly because they provided us with a meal and drinks on the short flight instead of water and pretzels like most of the other airlines we have flown.

During our time on the island we stayed at Amari Koh Samui. This was a beautiful resort on Chaweng Beach, one of the top beaches on the island.

The night time view was just as beautiful.

We arrived at our hotel around 3pm so we had a bit of time to explore the beach before heading to the resort’s beach BBQ dinner they put on each week.

The beach had some amazing massage spots where you could get hour long massages for under $5. We splurged and got the hot coconut oil massage multiple days; $15 for 60 minutes. This was my first ever massage (minus the small massages given during mani/pedi sessions). My back cracked about 10 times. It was awesome.

After our yummy BBQ dinner we checked out a few more spots further down the beach where we made these cute new friends. Aren’t they adorable?

We watched a fire show before heading back to our hotel for the night. On our walk back we heard an awesome singer at one of the beach restaurant bars and decided to stop for a few minutes. As soon as we sat down we witnessed a young guy from England propose to his girlfriend. (She said yes!) We were invited by some other English folks to sit at their table with the newly engaged couple and ended up staying a few hours longer. We had an amazing time and actually ended up meeting them all again for dinner later on in the week.

Our first full day at the island was spent with 100 Degrees East Dive Team on their excursion to Ang Thong Marine Park. We have nothing but amazing things to say about this company. They were very professional, informative and took great pictures for us to document the awesome trip. We started off the day on a 45 minute speedboat ride to Koh Wao to snorkel. The water was clear and warm and we were able to see some really amazing sea creatures. They even took us into an underground cave which was super neat!

Our highlight of the trip was cruising through Ang Thong Marine Park. There were so many beautiful islands; pictures don’t do justice.

We stopped at a secluded beach for lunch. We were the only boat there so the 10 of us on the tour had the whole island to ourselves.

They served us a variety of traditional Thai foods for lunch that were all amazing.

To burn off the calories we just consumed we decided to go on a hike with one of our tour guides and two other people from our boat. It was a pretty strenuous hike but the view was well worth it!

No, not the view of Adam’s behind…

This View!

The guide made us do some cheesy poses.

It was such a perfect day.

We made our way back down to the beach and took a few more photos before making our way to another island.

At our next island stop we picked up some kayaks and went out exploring around the islands and inside a cave.

After about 45 minutes of kayaking we had a quick water stop on the beach and headed to our last stop, Emerald Lake.

To reach the Emerald Lake viewpoint we had to climb up several steep stairs. It was definitely a haul but what a great view we had. Emerald Lake is a landlocked saltwater lake that is separated from the sea by sheer limestone cliffs. This spot along with other locations throughout Ang Thong National Marine Park was what inspired author Alex Garland to write ‘The Beach’. The actual movie was shot at another location off the coast of Phuket, Thailand.

After a long day of exploring and fun in the sun, we headed back to Koh Samui. This was probably my favorite day of our trip. The entire area was just remarkably beautiful and not having to worry about crowds made it much more peaceful than we ever could have imagined.

We were definitely worn out after this all-day excursion so we just ended up eating dinner at the hotel and called it a night.

On our third day at the resort we relaxed, got massages, read and napped by the pool. We did end up venturing out for dinner to meet our new friends from England and had a jolly ‘ole time. 🙂

Day four we ventured further down the beach and made friends with this handsome fella. I ended up stepping on a scorpion after lunch and couldn’t walk the rest of the day so we camped out by the pool before heading to our Thai dinner excursion.

We booked our dinner through The Thai Experience which we found through TripAdvisor. This was such an amazing night. There were about 20 of us there from all parts of the world experiencing some of the best Thai food we have ever had. We learned how to make delicious Thai cocktails and sampled scrumptious dishes that still make my mouth water when I think about them.

We left with full and happy bellies as well as some laugh lines and hurt cheeks from our hilarious guide, Richard.

Our fifth day on the island was spent relaxing by the pool, mainly because I still wasn’t able to walk because of my scorpion bite.

We did manage to make it out to the Fisherman’s Village for dinner and shopping. Fridays are the best day to visit as all of the locals make their way out to sell pretty much anything you can think of. They also have a variety of street food vendors as well as several restaurants around the area. We had seafood pasta on the beach before having some street mango sticky rice for dessert. SO GOOD!

After about 3 hours at Fisherman’s Village we decided to call it a night.

The next day we woke up early for some pool time before grabbing lunch and getting our things together for our overnight flight back to Korea.

Our entire trip was amazing. We fell in love with the people of Thailand and the beauty of the country. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to travel this side of the world and make lifelong memories that Adam and I will always hold dear to our hearts.

Sawatdee, ❤ Elaine