Koh Lipe, Thailand
April 06, 2014
After a peaceful nights sleep for myself and no sleep for Dani due to the spider population we packed up our bags and wandered off round the island in search of somewhere else to stay that was (a) cheaper and (b) didn’t have the wildlife of the jungle using the room as a rest area.
Koh Lipe is small, very small. You could walk around it in a couple of hours if you wanted to. There are 3 main areas to the island. Sunrise beach (fairly chilled but with more up market fancy places to stay) Sunset beach (very chilled and a small hippy beach with a “Rasta” bar) and Pattaya beach (supposed to be the party central beach but is only big enough for a handful of bars and maybe a small camp fire at best). We eventually wandered into the middle of the island having checked a few places out and found a place called Kok guesthouse that was nice and cheap and had good clean rooms as well as air-con. It was also a great location being in the middle of the island as each beach was only a 5 minute walk away in each direction.
So happy with our move from Porn to Kok (we like consistency) we ambled off down to Sunrise beach to see what that was like having already checked out the joys of Sunset beach and still having some of Boom Boom bars lovely produce left over. Sunrise beach is beautiful. Turquoise water that stretches for a good kilometer all lined with a soft white floury beach that gently slopes into the clear waters letting you walk out a good 30 yards. We saw plenty of people snorkeling off the beach there and started to think if it would be worth buying snorkel equipment as opposed to renting it on a daily basis. We had really enjoyed the snorkeling off Lembong Island next to Bali and were looking to do a lot more of it now that we were moving on through the Andaman coast Thai islands.
We chilled on the beach before heading down the main street in search of good but cheap snorkeling equipment and to see what the prices were like. It was about £20 a set which is good by back home standards but still quite a bit out of our limited budget. We decided to sleep on it and pop out for a few beers and some live music instead at the Long Tail Bar which was a fairly cool place on the main walking street down to Pattaya beach. The bar is your usual “buskers get up and do your thing” affair but with what seemed like a regular expat type of crowd. It was decent craic and before we knew it, it was the only place left open on the strip as the island started to shut down for the night. Time flies when your having fun so back to the land of Kok it was for a few cheeky Jim Beam night caps.
The next day we were out early after sampling some quality Pad Thai from what seemed like the only cheap and decent local place on the island next to where we were staying. The food in there was amazing and thankfully so much cheaper than some of the standard tourist fare found on the one and only main street on the island. With breakfast sorted we went in search of snorkeling equipment.
Picking snorkeling equipment was a long drawn out hard decision as there was so much to choose from. We are novices so didn’t want to spend a fortune but we also wanted something that would last us so eventually after chatting with several people from reputable dive/snorkel shops we settled on some decent but fairly cheap equipment and headed back down to sunrise beach to check out what it was like there.
Once out past the shallow clear waters and among the coral and rocks about 50 yards off shore the marine life was everywhere. Angel fish, tiger fish and stone fish. Some industrial looking lethal sea anemone’s and crazy long skinny Barracuda but best of all, among the soft swaying fingers of the coral were three different species of clown fish. There were clown fish everywhere and Ala Nemo style I had always wanted to see these so was well chuffed with what we found. We spent hours out there watching the fish going about there fishy daily life and were really stoked with how much we could see just from snorkeling off the beach.
All snorkeled out and turning wrinkly we wandered up the length of the beach and around the headland to catch another sunset before heading out to catch a few beers and some more live music courtesy of one local dude on acoustic guitar, an Aussie tourist who had just turned up that day and was sporting a beard ZZ Top would be proud of and a German guy on Bongos. Once the wee gig was over we were headed back up to the guesthouse of Kok when we got tempted by passing the very last bar on the short walk home for a cheeky nightcap.
Tattoo bar really was in the middle of nowhere, pitch black unless you were headed up that little lane so in we tootled and were greeted eagerly by the barmaid, her French boyfriend whom she was pretty sure is actually gay and a half dressed half drunk lady boy and his two mates, one of whom seems to think he comes from Norwich, even though he is blatantly from Thailand and only went to University there.
It was good crack and a few beers and free shots of Tequila later the bar was locked up and we all headed off to a different bar. Our little group included two family dogs one of which was a bit small and gay and needed carrying there but hey he made it…..and that is about all I remember of that night other than the lady boy trying to massage my feet at the beach bar. it’s fair to say a decent night was had by all.
What started off as a few days on Koh Lipe rapidly turned into a week. Snorkeling every single day and enjoying the marine life in all it’s colourful aquatic glory. Chilling out with a few films on a night in Pooh’s bar and we generally ate some great food, drank some decent drinks and laid back enjoying island life. I really like Koh Lipe. The place has a great laid back feel about it. There are characters all over the place with the locals. The crazy pancake woman with her minute interval chirps of ‘hey hoo hey hoo hey hoo, pancake, pancake pancake’ that makes everyone chuckle as they pass, the lads at Boom Boom Bar with their permanent glassy eyed smile and the girl at Tattoo bar, determined that her fella was gay and that she wasn’t getting enough sex which she liked to voice quite openly, loudly and at every opportunity that she got. The place has great character for somewhere so small but it was the right time for us to move on. We left reluctantly as we could have stayed there so much longer but a boat was booked from Koh Lipe to an island called Koh Mook and that is where we are headed next.
