Bottle Beach on Ko Phanang
Ko Phanang, Thailand, 2009-08-14 12:00 by Laerke
Bottle Beach, in Thai known as Haad Khuad, is a beach on the north of Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand. It lies in a protected cove with no road access, so we had to take a boat there from one of the nearby beaches. We got a shared boat for 100bath a person. The seclusion of this place means that it feels a million miles from the notorious Had Rin and its Full Moon Party. Bottle Beach has developed from a little known traveler hide-away into a very popular backpacker beach with plenty of people having a beer or a bucket at night in one of the cozy little restaurants where you sit on cushions on the floor. The beach is beautiful and the accommodation, most of it fairly priced (bungalows start at 250bath) is good. We stayed at “Smile” for 350bath a night. The long sweeping sand beach is quite lovely, particularly in early morning and late afternoon when the bulk of the day-trippers have left. However my favorite thing about Bottle Beach was the look-out point, from the most eastern end of the beach you start a steep climb up a forested hill, after a little while you reach a little house where you pay 20bath per person and you can then keep on climbing. We encountered many small lizard-like animals and we also saw a long yellow snake. The climb up is a bit though – so we were happy we had brought water and didn’t wear flip-flops ! The reward once we reached the top after about 40 minutes was well worth it though! We had an amazing view down Bottle Beach and the ocean and there was a nice breeze at the top to cool us down a bit :-)