Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [541]
Happy Snapper (0 7642 3540; Th Phetkasem; dishes 90-290B; breakfast, lunch & dinner) Wooden statues lie frozen as patrons bop their heads to the nightly live-music acts. There’s a small Thai canteen attached to the bar that serves up tasty usuals.
Pizzeria (0 7648 5271; dishes 200-300B; lunch & dinner) By Giorgio, these Italian dishes are phenomenal! Stuff your face with authentic eats like homemade gnocchi or thin-crust pizzas, and we guarantee you’ll be back for seconds.
Also recommended:
Mama’s (mains 40-120B; breakfast, lunch & dinner) Mama whips up honest-to-goodness home-cooked meals. Located next to the 7-Eleven in Bang Niang.
Scuba Groupie (4.30pm-1am) Friendly bartender dispenses post-dive drinks. Located on the ground floor of the ‘big yellow building’ (you can’t miss it).
Getting There & Away
Any bus running along Hwy 4 between Takua Pa (50B, 45 minutes) and Phuket (80B, two hours) will stop at Hat Khao Lak if you ask the driver. Make sure not to get off at Kokloi (about 40km south of Khao Lak); travellers have been known to disembark here by accident. VIP Buses in either direction breeze through town in the early morning (6am to 8am), while regular buses pass by every hour. VIP sleeper buses direct to Bangkok leave at 5pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm everyday and cost 750B to 1100B. Buses will also stop near the Merlin Resort and the Khao Lak/Lam Ru National Park headquarters. All transportation queries can be answered with a smile at Happy Lagoon Travel on Hwy 4 in the centre of town (two doors down from Stémpfer Café).
SURIN ISLANDS MARINE NATIONAL PARK
The five gorgeous islands that make up this national park (www.dnp.go.th; admission 400B; mid-Nov–mid-May) sit about 60km offshore, a measly 5km from the Thai–Burma marine border. Healthy rainforest, pockets of white-sand beach in sheltered bays and rocky headlands that jut into the ocean characterise these granite-outcrop islands. The clearest of water makes for great marine life, with underwater visibility often up to 35m. The islands’ sheltered waters also attract chow lair – sea gypsies – who live in a village onshore during the monsoon season from May to November. Around here they are known as Moken, from the local word oken meaning ‘salt water’.
Ko Surin Nuea (north) and Ko Surin Tai (south) are the two largest islands. Park headquarters and all visitor facilities are at Ao Chong Khad on Ko Surin Nuea, near the jetty. Khuraburi is the jumping-off point for the park. The pier is about 9km north of town, as is the mainland national park office (0 7649 1378; 8am-5pm) with good information, maps and helpful staff.
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Sights & Activities
MOKEN VILLAGE
On Ko Surin Tai, the Moken village at Ao Bon welcomes visitors; take a long-tail boat from headquarters (100B). Post-tsunami, Moken have settled in this one sheltered bay where a major ancestral worship ceremony (Loi Reua) takes place in April. Painted law bong – protective totem poles – stand at the park entrance.
DIVING & SNORKELLING
Dive sites in the park include Ko Surin Tai and HQ Channel between the two main islands. In the vicinity is Richelieu Rock (a seamount 14km southeast), where whale sharks are often spotted during March and April. Sixty kilometres northwest of the Surins are the famed Burma Banks, a system of submerged seamounts in the Mergui Archipelago. Separately run diving live-aboard trips visit these pristine waters. The three major banks, Silvertip, Roe and Rainbow, provide five-star diving experiences, with coral gardens laid over flat plateaus and large oceanic and smaller reef marine species.
The best way to explore these all-star dive sites is by joining a multiday live-aboard departing from Khao Lak ( Click here).
Snorkelling is excellent due to relatively shallow reef depths of 5m to 6m, and most coral survived the tsunami intact. Two-hour snorkelling trips by boat (per person 80B; gear per day 150B) leave the island headquarters daily at 9am and 2pm.
WILDLIFE & HIKING
Around the park headquarters you can explore the forest