Koh Chang, Thailand – Nirvana in Bang Bao

Koh Chang, Thailand – Nirvana in Bang Bao

We ventured back to Thailand for our last week in South East Asia – spending 8 nights on Koh Chang Island, at the Nirvana Resort near the small fishing village of Bang Bao.

A monkey on our balcony

The island is Thailand’s second largest island after Phuket, however it’s not near as developed. Koh Chang is over 70% virgin rainforest, and protected as a tropical marine national park, so it’s a nice place to get away from the hustle and bustle and just enjoy the natural beauty of the island.

The view just behind Nirvana Resort

While there aren’t huge stretches of white sandy beaches surrounding the island, they do exist, but they have to be found by boat for the best spots. This way you can explore the secret little areas of the island mostly inaccessible by road or foot.

We stayed at Nirvana resort near Bang Bao on the south of the island, which was a little hard to get to, but it’s worth the trek. It’s made up of about 10 bungalows strung along the waters edge at the front, and met by thick jungle at the back. Literally thick jungle. Many mornings, we were awoken by five to seven monkeys scrambling across our roof, and swinging off the gutter onto our balcony. They were quite funny to watch, and are very game too. On our last morning they must have been able to smell the bananas in our room, as the doors were mirrored so they couldn’t actually see into the room at all, but this particular monkey we called Mo (due to his hair sticking up on his head), tried to break into our room, standing on our door handle trying to twist it with his feet, while trying to pry it open at the top with his hands. Quite clever little fella. He still never got any bananas though! It’s obvious many people do feed them, that’s why they are so game and curious in the first place. We were told not to encourage them though, as they can be very dangerous if they want to be, and often have rabies too!

A monkey trying to break into our room

The rooms themselves  are very cute, and styled to blend in with nature. All the furniture’s made of natural rustic wood, timber floors, sandstone bricks in the bathroom etc. it’s a very romantic set up. 

Our rustic room at Nirvana Resort

The only thing missing is mosquito nets to protect you from the MANY mosquitoes that loom the entire resort night and day. We were both covered in at least 20+ bites from our weeks stay, so that part of the experience will definitely not be missed. The hotel provides great value for money, compared to other three star resorts on the island too, we managed to get a great pre-season rate of $32 USD per night including breakfast!

The Lagoon Pool

The resort has 2 lovely pools, one overlooking the ocean, and the other up in the jungle behind the resort. Unfortunately the mozzies were a little to hectic to use the jungle pool, and there was construction going on around the other one. With the mostly rainy weather though, we didn’t need to use the pools much anyway.

There’s a lot of adventure to be had on this island, unfortunately the wet monsoon season stopped us from experiencing to many of these activities, so we just relaxed and walked around the small parts of the island near Bang Bao. We did manage to get a nice snorkeling trip in for one of the sunnier days. The snorkeling itself wasn’t the best, as the clarity wasn’t so good after all the rain we just had, but to explore the smaller islands and beaches was nice.

Dave exploring on an island stop of our snorkeling trip

After a few days tucked up in our romantic bungalow watching movies in bed from the resorts DVD library, keeping dry form the monsoonal rains outside, we decided to venture out despite the rain. Rain jackets on, we set out on a little jungle walk, a boardwalk along the side of the mountain/islands edge, that pops out on the other side of the headland. There’s a nice little spot you can watch the sunsets and things from there, but at that time it was better suited to playing games and pretending to fly leaning against the sheets of rain and gusts of wind. Not so romantic at this time of the day! 

Dave enjoying a break from the rain

The storm finally clearing

We took the forest route back, right over the top of the headland to get back to the resort. The dirt in the area on top of the headland was made of thick clay like mud, so I (PW) dug some up, added some water and worked it in my hands to turn it into workable pottery clay. Back at the bungalow I made a candle holder out of it. Not a bad effort for digging in the mud. I gave it to the very appreciative lady on the reception desk when we checked out.

The food at the resort restaurant Tantra was quite good, with great staff and service too. It was built on stilts over the waters edge, and all very open and airy, with 2 great big chandeliers on the roof to top off the already great ambience. 

Pamela at Tantra restaurant, Nirvana Resort

Dinner at Tantra is primarily Thai food, with a couple of western dishes to choose from if you wanted. The average price at Tantra is about 250 baht ($9 USD) per person. We had breakfast included every day, which allowed us to choose as we wanted from a nice selection of meals. The only downside was nothing was open at the resort for lunch. 7/11  two-minute noodle cups were our lunches most days, as in the pouring rain, it’s not to inviting to venture out and walk 10 minutes through the mud to get to the town.

Bang Bao town itself is quite small, and consists mostly of handicraft/souvenir and dive shops. The shops themselves are built on stilts off the edge of the main pier, which if you continue along, eventually  takes you out to the tourist snorkeling/dive boats, and the lighthouse which is no longer used, and then at the very end the fishing boats, which is what originally settled this town before tourists came along and provided another source of income for the locals. Majority of the dive and snorkeling day trip boats all leave from Bang Bao, so if you are staying in the more central part of the island, and planning on doing a dive course, it’s good to stay close to this town, rather than have to get taxi’s back and forth every day. Most day trips/tours however do include a crowded free return transfer from Lonely beach to Bang Bao via songthaew, but you may have to wait a while until they can fill up the truck with people to its maximum capacity before leaving. 

Eating

Our favourite place to eat in the town was the Buddha View restaurant. Great Thai food, with funky tables and seats cut out of the boards, so that you sit down with your legs dangling over the water below.  A top pick, and meals were priced around 150 baht ($6 USD) per person, for a main and a drink.

A restaurant at Cliff Cottage resort close by to Nirvana

There are many seafood restaurants along the pier as well, however neither of us being that into seafood, we didn’t really explore that option, as the menu’s seemed a little over priced compared to other restaurants in the area.

For a snack, there was a good crepe place – where for 30 baht ($1 USD) you can choose from a variety of toppings, anything from Banana and nutella (our recommendation), to powdered shrimp or pork.

For any basic toiletries or snacks, there is a 7/11 right in the centre of the town, and it’s the only real shop in Bang Bao that’s not a souvenir/gift shop or restaurant.

Getting To Koh Chang

From Bangkok, Thailand - it’s a five hour mini bus ride OR 1 hour  flight via Bangkok airways to Trat. The ferry port to Koh Chang island itself is 20 minutes out of Trat. From here you catch a car ferry for an hour to get to the very north port of the island. It’s another hour or so on the windy hilly roads from the port to Lonely Beach, the main backpacker area of the island, and a further 10 minutes to Klong Prao, the islands main town centre. To get to Bang Bao where we were staying its a further 20 minutes along the road again, along significantly worse dirt roads with many pot holes. Basically as far south on the island as you can go, before reaching a dead end. To reach the eastern coast of the island, you have to go back north and all the way around, as the road doesn’t connect all the way through to create a circuit, which can be somewhat frustrating. Generally the easiest way to do it, is book the same bus/minivan all the way through, and it will take you from your hotel, on the car ferry, and all the way through to either Bangkok airport, or the bus terminal down town.

We had a great relaxing and peaceful getaway on the island, however if ever coming back, we would make sure we were further into the season to avoid any late monsoonal rains.

All our photos from Koh Chang can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/KohChangThailand?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave