Ko Phayam

Low tide - Ao Yai beach - you can actually get some surf here (image Panoramio - Matthew Gill)

Ko Phayam like the adjacent Ko Chang (Andaman) is a small attractive island situated near Ranong and the Burmese border, with several very nice beaches and a surprising amount of old style budget bungalow resorts.

Phayam map from Andaman Island Hopping

A full size version and bungalow information can be seen here

A small slow ferry shuttles people out from the SAPHON PLA pier in Ranong - the trip takes approximately 2 hours (sometimes more - see revisit update down page) and cost me 150 baht in March. There is also a faster speedboat service a faster speedboat service from the TON SON pier further south which takes 20 minutes at 350baht. I also saw a sign at the Saphon Pla pier advertising a speedboat leaving about 30 minutes after the 0930 slow ferry. For people swapping islands, the early shuttle long tail from Ao Yai beach on Ko Chang got me into Saphon Pla about 15 minutes before the Phayam ferry left.
When the ferry reaches the island, representatives from the bungalows are waiting with their picture books - I liked the look of COCONUTS and was directed onto a waiting motorcycle taxi for the 10-15 minute trip across to AO YAI beach (yep, another Ao Yai) on the western side of the island. I think the standard fare is 50 baht but the last 500m was along a tricky sandy track and I admired the skill of the girl pilot with such a load, so I paid a bonus.

Ao Yai is the most popular beach on the island with about 8 places spread along its 3 km length, plus a couple of small bars. It faces slightly south of west, with good views of the sun setting over the big Burmese islands further out. It has no problems with lack of sand at high tide or rocks at low tide, and the water was deep close offshore at lowest tide. The sand and water seemed to be very clean. There was a lot of shade at the back of the beach from trees at Coconuts. And hey, no long tail boats, so this beach was really quiet. Lots of big fishing boats working at night way offshore with the usual display of magic lights.
Something I’ve rarely seen in Thailand dry season - there was a small wave breaking, held up nicely by the offshore easterlies and good for body surfing. I usually get bored body surfing, but I must admit I enjoyed a half hour session several times a day. Board riders should not get excited - the waves tended to close out and had no workable shoulder. However a couple of locals were having a great time on Bamboo Bungalow’s wave-ski. Wave-skis are like that.
Those waves made for a nice noise at night.

COCONUTS is a pretty good place to stay. The bungalows are located not too close together in 3 rows just behind the beach in a fairly nice garden setting . I got me a 300baht one - which was typical Thai timber beach bungalow style. Not huge but not too squeezy for two people and their gear, with a queen size bed (double+), mosquito net in good condition and sufficient hooks and shelves for your stuff. There was no fan on account the generator does not run all night. This did not worry me, I never run a fan at night . The place was clean, but was showing a bit of wear and tear.
The bathroom was big, but had a squat toilet. Once again this doesn’t worry me, but I know some people freak. There was a big mirror over the basin.
The bungalow’s verandah was a good size, had a broom but no light. Mine was the only 300 without a hammock. Whaah!!! Away for cleaning, they said. I love swinging in a hammock late afternoon with a bottle of Mae Khong. Until I fall out.
Coconuts also had some big attractive 400 baht concrete bungalows, and 200 baht bamboo style ones at the back. These were a bit smaller than mine. They had a verandah light - go figure.
The restaurant was the usual spacious open sided set-up, with views of the ocean thru the beach front trees. Food was quite nice, maybe a bit more expensive than most budget places, but not excessively so. The family running Coconuts is friendly and gave good service.

One of Coconut's bigger bungalows (image andaman.com)

The other main tourist beach on Phayam is AO KOA KWAI (aka Buffalo Beach) in the north west of the island. This is a similar size to Ao Yai, has around the same number of bungalow places, and seemed even quieter and more laid back. The bay is sheltered from any swell coming up from the Indian Ocean and was dead flat. Some big offshore fishing boats were using it for a daytime anchorage the two times I rode over there.

MOUNTAIN RESORT and VUJIT'S are two places which get good reports here.

The beach at Vujit's on Buffalo Bay (image Panoramio-krislarter)

Two concrete motorcycle tracks are the main means of transport around the island. Smaller dirt and sandy tracks branch off for other locations. There are plenty of motorcycles for hire but I couldn’t find any rent bicycles. I didn’t see any 4 wheeled vehicles during my visit.
One concrete track goes from the village/pier to the center of Ao Yai beach. About 300m short of the beach is a small collection of restaurants and stores and about 2 km up the track is a slighty bigger collection called Central Village or similar. The main village at the pier has 3 or 4 small “supermarkets”, some restaurants, motorcycle hire etc, and Oscar's Bar run by a Brit and a popular hang for long term traveller/expat types. I took refuge there during a mid-afternoon downpour, sat in a huge old leather armchair under shelter in the outside beer garden with a lovely glass of Aussie red and was immensely entertained as these characters shot the bull .
I didn’t notice any banks or ATMs in town. Note that there are beaches both sides of town, fairly good but not as nice as Yai or Kao Kwai, with a couple of other bungalow places.

Altogether, a pretty nice island to spend time, ideal for those people looking for places similar to how the better known islands were in the days before they took off.


ACCESS FROM BANGKOK
TOA poster XXRATUF informed me there's an aircon bus that goes overnight from Bangkok to Ranong which arrives in time for the early boat to Kho Phayam (bus leaves about 8pm arrives about 6am for 550 baht).
She also says a Mr Gao on Phayam does overnight snorkelling trip to the Surins.

UPDATE Dec07 - Air Asia has just started flying into Ranong three afternoons a week, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

The buses from Bangkok's southern bus terminal can be seen on this site - http://www.transport.co.th/Eng/SOUTH1.htm

Buses from Phuket to Ranong can be found on my Phuket page.

Another shot of Ao Yai (image Panoramio-Matthew Gill)

BILLP from TT gave this info:
"Coconut, Bamboo, Vijit will all arrange transport (from Ranong) if you contact them, I think. But the ferry leaving at 9 AM from Ranong isn't expensive, and that way you can hire a moto taxi and look around before you settle on a place to stay. I thought Koh Phayam was very beautiful with lovely beaches and an interior full of cashew plantations.

The main beach, Ao Yai, is very broad and clean, with well-spaced resorts back in the palm trees. Like Tezza, I liked Coconut best of all, but trendy young people seem to flock to Bamboo. Rasta Baby is for those who like to party, and I've heard that Vijit is pretty nice.

Ao Kwai is an even quieter beach. Mountain Resort is a beautiful place arranged on a pristine hillside above a deserted sandy cove.

No cars on the island (except for one vehicle they seem to have brought in to help with heavy work), only motorcycles. The locals built a motorcycle "highway" through the middle of the island, abruptly ending at a sand dune. Look for Richard, who owns a restaurant in the strip of shops near the port, for all the latest island news."

LAWRENCE on TT just sent me this Ranong guesthouse website click which has pretty good info on Ranong plus surrounding areas including Visa runs to Burma. There's some stuff on Phayam and Chang with good maps of each island.

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UPDATE - PHAYAM REVISITED LATE JAN 08.

Outlook from Khao Kwai Hill Bungalow's restaurant - Burma islands faintly on horizon.

I couldn’t get a bus from Khao Lak to Bangkok one night late this January. So I went to Plan B and jumped a 2nd class to Ranong to revisit Ko Phayam. Pretty good Plan B.

Kiwi Guesthouse adjacent the bus-station at Ranong is a nice quiet clean place with slightly exxy rooms (250baht), cheap internet, good food and new friendly/efficient local management - just the thing when you bail out of a bus past midnight.
They gave me a 50baht lift to the pier next morning for the horrendously slow ferry out to Phayam - with a lot of mucking around offloading passengers and stuff at the southern beach on little Ko Chang this crate took almost 3 hours to go the 30 odd km.

At 150 baht this aint no value trip. Add the fact that the seats are uncomfortable wooden slabs and cheapskate tezza had no reluctance to make the return trip on the speedboat which now goes right to Ranong rather than the pier significantly further down the coast - about 30minutes for 350 baht.

Last trip I stayed on the nice south-west beach, Ao Yai so this time I decided the other main bungalow area, Ao Kao Kwai (aka Buffalo Bay) in the north-west was the go.

Reviews of Khao Kwai Hill Bungalows suggested it could be my sort of place so I jumped on one of the motorcycle taxis at the pier and we set a course of 45degrees west of north.
Wow, what a nice setting! Buffalo Bay actually has 2 beach sections separated by a small hilly promontory and Khoa Kwai Hill Bungalows is built on this hillside overlooking the sea and rocks with direct access to the north end of the southern beach on a set of good steps to the left.

This is the southern beach on Buffalo Bay. Khao Kwai Hill Bungalow is on the hill middle backgound. This 11am in late January 08 - well and truly high season in the Andaman, but there is still a bit of room for your towel. The handball net belongs to Vujit Bungalows, one of Phayam's 3 most popular places. There are 4 other bungalow places on the beach and one with beach access on the headland in the background.

I walked into the open sided tiled and wood beamed restaurant perched on the edge of the cliff about 15 meters above the rocks and was pretty impressed by the tree filtered views out to the big Burmese islands and back down the southern beach.

But I noticed they only have 8 bungalows dispersed up the hillside - hope there’s a vacancy. No problems, I can have my pick of 5!! - all are trad style wood and tiled roof jobs with concrete and tiled bathrooms, clean, good condition and reasonably spacious. 3 are actually perched on the cliff-side like the restaurant, but those are already taken. I’m thinking okay, these are the sort of places I used to pay 300-350 just a few years back in other places, would be 600-1000 on Phi Phi right now - bet they’re 400+ even here on quiet Phayam. Nope, the guy tells me 200!!!! Ummm, well, sure I might just take one - how long? Well at prices like this more a couple of days.

200baht chez tezza at Khao Kwai Hill Bungalows. Clean, simple, plenty of room for 2+gear - 3 a bit squeezy, big bathroom with skylight, sink+plug, big mirror, firm mattress and pillow, squat toilet, good water pressure, towels, mosquito coils, bin, no fan (not hot next to sea), lights good, grounds clean and paths well lit at night, genreator 6pm-11am, splish-splash of wavelets on rocks at night. ph 0066-(0)81-8476285
***** (at end)

I usually don’t waste a lot of time hanging around my accommodation, but I gotta admit I did like spending time in KKHB’s restaurant. You got those tree filtered maritime views. Nice vibe. Very quiet with the nearest longtail waaay out going across the bay mouth, and no nearby road. Good food. Prices towards low side of normal budget restaurants - small Changs 30b. Service quick and friendly. English not great except for owner, but everything gets done. Great hammocks out near the apex of the point, looking back on south Buffalo Bay, perfect place for a swing or five-hundred with the obligatory bottle of Maehkong.

Checking the view from Khao Kwai Hill Bungalow's restaurant. That's the southern end of Buffalo Bay background top right.

Get tired of that, walk down the very good concrete stairs to south Buffalo beach - nice expanse of sand, hardly any people even at peak beach time, water not too shallow even at low tide to swim laps not that far off the beach in the near section (although the mid section of the beach looked very shallow a long way out at low tide).
To get to North Buffalo you have to wait to low tide for an easy walk across the rock platform* which separates the two, but once there, more of the same. Two sections of beach of equal appeal.
* this walk looks a bit intimidating when you approach - like 400m of rock-hopping. But once into it, you see that 90% is sand between the rocks - easy street trendsetters!!

The northern beach at Buffalo Bay - 1130 late January, top sun-up time but not exactly crowded - there are 10 bungalow outfits along this nice section of beach. Khao Kwai Hill Bungalow is on the hill at the end of the beach. The southern Buffalo Bay beach is at background right.

I was kinda interested in these walks and my later bicycle tours of all the island's tracks and beaches to see what occupancy was like, on account my last visit was in March shoulder season, this one in late Jan peak (not PEAK PEAK which is Christmas/New Year).
Well it was busier, but not busy. The only places that seemed to be maybe approaching capacity were Bamboo Bungalow and Coconut Beach on Ao Yai.

Places that were maybe over 50% were Long Beach Bungalows*** (Ao Yai) and Vujits (Buffalo south).

There were nice looking places like Mr Gao, Janson’s and Sai Tong on Buffalo north; Buffalo Bay Vacation Club and Payam Cabana (both more mid-range) all with only a handful of people hanging around, the adjacent beach virtually deserted and heaps of bungalows with no towels, sarongs or washing on the verandas.
I despaired for places like Silver Sand (Ao Yai) and Arjan Pan (Buffalo north) which seemed deserted - I hope they haven’t gone broke thru lack of patronage.

*** Lots of good places to stay on Phayam, but for younger travellers wanting the old style rustic bamboo wall-thatch roof bungalows fronting the beach, you could do worse than Long Beach Bungalows. Seemed to be a fair few groovers hanging at this place. Its position at the far north end of Ao Yai makes it less accessible to town etc than a lot of joints, but this is probably an attraction to the cool types. The beach is nice all along here.
For people wanting a slightly more upmarket version, Bamboo Bungalows in the centre of the beach fits the bill.

Okay, this “occupancy survey” I did has a point.
One of the nastier contributors to the travel forums put up a post saying Phayam was way overcrowded - OOOPS!!! - she didn’t realise that I was there at the time.

Check the beach pictures folks and judge for yourself.

This lady has a history of posting in how AWFUL her favourite places are - thing is she doesn’t want to find other people sitting under HER palm tree.
A while back she posted that Phayam now has A BIG NEW BIG INTERNATIONAL STYLE RESORT COMPETE WITH HOARDS OF BUZZING JET-SKIS. Small problem - I couldn’t find it. Didn’t see one jet ski and I covered every track and every beach on Phayam walking or on my mountain bike. None of the locals I asked knew about the place. Either a passing Klingon battle-cruiser vaporised the joint with its zantha beam, or the naughty lady has been lying again. I’ll let you decide which.

Hey, beaches near deserted at peak sun-up time, plenty of unoccupied bungalows, no tents to be seen (this lady claimed heaps of tents for overflows), Oscar’s Bar and the seating area of the bakery not crowded, ferry on entry 50% (lady claimed people left stranded on pier/beach), speedboat on way back had 4 paying passengeres (max 20) -----as America’s only singing Jewish cowboy-detective Kinky Friedman once said:
“I KNOW NUTHIN‘ ABOUT ART, BUT SOMETHING‘S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE”.

Phayam's most popular beach - Ao Yai - 11am late January 08. There are 10 bungalow places spread along this long beach including the 2 busiest on the island - Bamboo and Coconut Beach.

Okay, sorry about the rant, but I hate self-interested BULLSHIT.

So what else?
Okay, had to have the obligatory visit or two to Oscar’s Bar, run by expat Brit Richard, who I noticed seemed to have an new off-sider this trip.
Not a bad place to spend an afternoon (or later) hour or two - turn right off the ferry pier and walk maybe 100m. As was the case last trip, the place had a mixture of all-nations travellers from young ferals as we call them in Oz (you maybe call ‘em hippies) to older long-term travellers and expats. More than one expat bungalow owner seems to like to call in. Plus the usual handful of mature-age Brits both singles and couples who are always good value with their funny stories and irreverent attitude to things in general. Which sums up host Richard pretty well.
Richard always has some red-wine available for which tezza, starting to suffer withdrawal symptoms from the absence of Chateau Cardboard cheap Oz red paintstripper, does not hesitate to pay a whole 70baht.

And bicycle touring. Last trip I found hire-bicycles way scarce - this time they were available from a restaurant-internet place about 30m past Oscars, from the speedboat booking joint 30m up the main road inland from the pier and from a general store on the concrete road on the way down to Ao Yai not far from the cross-roads near town (and the turn-off for the track into Khao Yai Bungalows).
I got me an 8obaht fer 24hours one - hey for once I didn’t have to do the usual mini rebuild - only problem was it had a big click when pedalling, the result I figured of the main-bracket bearing having never been adjusted. Hell, the chain looked like it hadn’t received a lick of oil since it left the factory.
Anyway, I much preferred touring the island on a pushie compared to the motorcycle last visit - I’m not a real experienced motorcylist but I’ve done heaps of bicycling, so super rough sections and steep hills don’t throw me. Well sometimes steep hills do throw me - literally. But not too often. Not that Phayam has too much real steep stuff. And I reckon you can’t beat a bicycle for cruising a beach at low tide. So I managed to do just about every bit of track and most of the beaches on Phayam, including some I missed last trip.

Pretty cool, except I was negotiating one rougher than normal section and the right-hand pedal crank-arm fell off!! WTF!! - it was clear the fastener had loosened way back and the slack bastards had done nothing, resulting in it shearing in two. No way could my basic tool kit fix that.

Okay, usual Thai hire practice is if it breaks, you pay for it.
Stuff that, I’m not gunna pay for slack maintenance and maybe the miss-use of previous hirers letting the bike fall over or stacking it (I NEVER stack bikes - ummm, don’t bother reading my Jum or Tao pages) - so I did the world’s fastest pit stop in town, swapped to a new crate so quick the dudes in the restaurant/internet café didn’t see a thing. Too busy playing Donkey Kong.

I hate slack bastards never fix bikes.

Now some of you upright people are probably thinking this is all pretty underhand. But I figure my bike-hire karma is in surplus big time on account I usually have to do a mini-rebuild at the start and hand them back a better bike 9 times in 10. Okay, this one was a 10.

But if yer still incensed, no problems, you can give them my details: Terezza Tryhardy - Golden Shore Chalet, Paradise Beach, Sunshine Island, Queensland Oztsraya.

Trust me, that will find me. Island only has 4000 chalets, look for the pile of busted Cannondales.

JanSon Bungalows on north Buffalo, typical of several places along here. Flashpacker grade bungalows built on foredune - front rowers with nice views of bay, Burma islands. Front row 500b, 2nd row 400. Running at maybe 30% capacity. Real nice restaurant built out over beach.

******* Some of you who read all the island pages are probably thinking - hey this tezza dude thinks every place he stays in is pretty special. Guy probably believes he has top choice ability.
Hmmmmmm - could look like that. Thing is, I reckon unless you are a real fussy bastard you could walk into most places on Phayam and other islands and not be disappointed. Sure, if squat toilets and things which rustle in the night throw you, it could be different, but I find most Thailand bungalow places not bad at all.
I spend a lot of time backpacking Australia - hey, the equivalent of 700-900 baht will get you a dorm bed with 9 others 3 blocks from the beach in Byron Bay or Cairns - forget about the 2am shaggers, it’s the 4am drunks who return with bad cases of noise and aggro make yer little beachside bungalow in Thailand seem so sweet.

But okay, sometimes I’m less than impressed - see my Phi Phi page about price hikes in general, my Krabi page on Ya Ya and how bungalow operators are not pulling their weight on infrastructure, my Lanta page on the poor value cheaper bungalows at Lanta Paradise or my comments on the daggy cheapest bungalows at Lighthouse near
Leela on Phangan.

UPDATE MARCH 09 - Mc Deli just spent a couple of weeks on Phayam and sent this great update:
"We expected Koh Phayam to be very quiet. Buffalo bay still was quiet but Ao Yai beach had some pumping bars - and we ended up right next to one.
On Phayam there was quite a curious mix of expats, long termers, older european couples, the odd family, young singles and alternative types. This may be the Thailand of your dreams - especially if you like a bit of juggling and the odd 3am rave up.
Last week (we were there two weeks) it was still OK for me. The gorgeous sweep of sand never feels crowded. The atmosphere was very nice, and most of the resorts are spread ot enough that they out of earshot of the pumping bars. It seems inevitable that it will change. The busy 'strip' that runs from the 'middle road'; with BBQ bar one side (pretty loud random music every evening), continues with Smile Hut (bungalows very close together- don't be fooled by the promo pictures), Bamboo Bungalows (very good quality but busy restaurant but some ace bungalows at the front), Phayam Beach resort (new place that has only been able to put up tents), Joker bar (cheap huts), and South Star Bar; can feel pretty busy - much busier than I was expecting. Mostly because of the music policy. One night Phayam Beach has live music, the next South Star turns up the reggae until 2am, then Joker has a promo - it seems to be spiralling louder. After one big South Star party there were complaints from other resorts but I wonder if reallythe other owners would like the placetogeta party party reputation. Monkey Bar is just opening on another part of the island and two new more upmarket big concrete bungalow places are about to be completed in the Northern half of Ao Yai beach - so the place is changing.
We stayed in Coconut Beach (next to South Star Bar). We got a front rower for 400 (bamboo) though they mostly have bigger concrete jobs at the front. We got pretty annoyed by the noise but (apart from the one big night) no one else seemed to notice - the better built concrete bungalows on the seem to keep out any late night bass rumble. We had thought about staying at Aow Yai, next down the beach, but our impression was that it was a bit of a mess.Maybe the quiet of Koh Jum had made expect too much quiet.
Anyway Ao Yai beach is stunning. The waves are gorgeous. The chance to join really friendly volleyball games was nice. A bonus was the stretch of shops just up the 'middle road'. Pratsai was a tiny restaurant serving big and delicious curries for 60b - all fresh veg and they cook anything to order all much much cheaper than any of the resorts. A few stores down was a good library (15b day per book) with regular acoustic music. And lastly there was a new (ish) farang-owned minimarket.
The LP's description of a 'more sociable crowd' on Phayam is apt. I can really see the attraction if you want to meet people, learn to juggle, perfect your German, have access to ex-pat goodies but be away from big crowds. I'm joking a bit but it was a great atmosphere. I just worry that next year it might start to get a bit overbearing for people who like it quieter and want the unadulterated sounds of the waves.
Koh Phayam transport tip - at the Phayam pier just outside Ranong there is a racket going on where people in big shiny new trucks charge farang 50b to get back to Ranong. The songtaew is only 15. The say there are no songtaews or it is far to walk. These people are not taxi drivers earning a living. They are opportunists in flash new cars ripping of tourists by lying to them. From the Phayam pier the songtaews are a 200m walk from the mainroad clearly singposted Phaym Pier. And, if the on the return journey, the tide is low and you are dropped off the boat at the fishing boat dock. There is a songtaew queue just 150m up the road. We felt like right idiots driving in the shiny SUVs past them - after being lied to."

If you see any mistakes or have extra info, please post below. If you have any questions, please ask them in THE FORUM rather than below. I don't get a chance to check all threads daily, but unless I'm travelling I'll try to monitor THE FORUM regularly.