This beach in Koh Kradan looks like a little slice of heaven, no? Given that this picture was taken during the busy period of Songkran (Thai New Year) in Thailand, I was fortunate to get this picture before all of the tourist boats started pulling in. Generally speaking, you won’t find any five-star resorts or mega hotels in this area; you’ll find a bunch of bungalow style accommodations steps from the beach.
Some of the hidden beach gems of Thailand can be found in Trang province, an area that isn’t frequented by as many tourists as Phuket or Koh Samui (in the region you will find the islands of Koh Mook, Koh Libong and Koh Kradan). My wife and I took a five-hour ride from Phuket to get to the islands, and we were amazed at how much different is was than Phuket; it was almost like stepping back twenty years to what Phuket must have been like in the 1980′s.
One of the real treats of the trip was seeing some dolphins and dugongs in the water, which our boat captain said was a pretty rare experience these days. Overfishing in Thailand means that many of the larger sea animals are not seen as frequently.
Nai Yang Beach is the beach closest to the Phuket Airport, which you will fly over when you land in Phuket. A couple of really cool things about Nai Yang Beach:
1. Not nearly as crowded as the beaches in Patong.
2. There are a number of decent restaurants along the beach (my wife recently told me that this may not be the case now, however, because some of the locals may have had some conflicts with the local government).
3 You can go snorkeling at Koh Wei, located only about twenty minutes off-shore by long-tail boat, and check some tropical fish out.
4. The Beach Club is a really chill place to party or just hang out. The Beach Club is pretty slow during slow season, so you can expect to have the place almost all to yourself in the early evening hours.
My wife and I went to Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2007 to go see the “real Thailand”. During the course of our trip to Chiang Mai, we had a chance to see a Thai cultural show over a traditional Khantoke dinner, complete with women dancers, men playing with swords, and men playing with fire.
While probably not my best composition ever, I’m mainly posting this to show the beauty of the Klong Mueang beach in the Krabi province of Thailand. If you’re looking to get away from the crowds of Phuket, Krabi is the place to go to get away from it all. The other benefit of Krabi is the adventurous types will find tons of activities to do in the area, including rock climbing & tons of places to snorkel.
The orangutan is slowly becoming my favorite primate because of their facial expressions. When I see a picture like this, it is hard not to wonder what the orangutan was thinking about at that particular time (“Am I going to get out of Singapore Zoo?”, “What’s for lunch?”).
The only reason I’m posting this is that this is one of my most viewed photos at Flickr. While I don’t think the picture of the Panda Bear is bad at all, I actually like a number of other Panda pictures that I took at the Chiang Mai Zoo that day. I guess it just a matter of taste…I largely enjoy doing a lot of close-up photography work.
These pictures were taken many years ago during Mark Bingham‘s 31st birthday party in New York City, with many heinous details that I care not to share with the general public. That being said, I would just like to say that I miss having the big dude around over the past nine years…so many great, good & bad things have happened during that time that I wish we could talk about.
Here’s to better times, great memories & good friends.
