We’ve gone to Khao Lak twice now to indulge in some amazing live-aboard diving around the Similan Islands. But since that’s our big splurge, we never have much money to spend on tours during our time on land. So we’ve had to figure out how to get as much out of the Phuket experience on our own. Khao Lak is full of tourist offices pushing tours, and it can be hard to figure out what’s really doable on your own. But with a little research, a scooter and a sense of adventure, we found Khao Lak to a be a great place for the DIY traveler.

(Green = links to other sites & blog posts Blue = link to google maps)

What you need:

Cell phone, scooter & helmet, sensible driving skills, water and sunscreen or sun cover. Be aware that whatever time estimate Google Maps or your phone’s GPS gives you will be based on a car’s driving speed not on a little 125cc scooter. So don’t expect to get to places super quick! It’s probably best not to take small scooters out more than 30 minutes on the road. In fact, we have a story about that we’ll share at the end. Also be aware that in Thailand you drive on the left hand side of the road. This takes some practice getting used to! While driving a scooter, make sure you do a double stop before pulling out onto the road. People frequently drive on the shoulder and on walkways or sidewalks.

Where to go:

Ko Kho Khao Island

We got this tip from the sweet lady proprietor at The Mouth Resort. Located about 40 minutes north of Khao Lak,  Ko Kho Khao island is an off the radar, sleepy island great for exploring by scooter.  Oh! And if you’re interested in birding, add an early morning stop by Bang Niang bridge to your itinerary. There are also more than a couple beach and waterfall accesses along the way. Here they do a great job of posting English signs along the road denoting major points of interest.  So there’s plenty of opportunities for impromptu exploring as you go. But don’t forget to keep an eye out for the turn off for Baan Nam Kem pier. That’s where the fun really starts.

Basically, you just pull your scooter up to the pier and look confused. Once you catch the eye of one of the long boat captains, he will and motion you over. Pay a very small amount of money, hand him your scooter keys, and he’ll drive the scooter onto the boat. Scramble onto the boat and 10 minutes later you disembark on Ko Kho Khao Island! Once there, drive out and find some long stretches of beach all to yourself. Apparently some areas of the island have a lot of water buffalo, but we never saw them (although we enjoyed the signs warning about them). On the other hand we did get lucky and spotted a whole flock of hornbills back in the trees just off the road.

Bamboo Raft Tour

While staying at the Rakkawan Residence, I noticed a poster advertising taxi fares to different points of interest including a bamboo rafting company. This clued me in to the nearness of the bamboo raft operators and the ability to just show up and ask for a tour. Which is exactly what we did!  Sutin Group Bamboo Rafting is just a 20 minute or so drive south of Khao Lak. And they are more than happy to accept drop in guests.

Price per person was something like 500 Baht, which included a plate of fruit for us as waited for our guide to come pick us up. When he arrived, we jumped in the back of a truck to be taken down river. There we boarded the bamboo raft! For the next 30 minutes we enjoyed a relaxing float. Our young guide navigated us between rocks and around the bends in the river. At one point we had the option to jump in for a swim. We didn’t see much wildlife. But I was delighted when our guide pointed out a green snake camouflaged in one of the trees.

Lumpee Waterfall

Another 30 minutes down from the bamboo rafting is Lumpee Waterfall. Lumpee waterfall is a lovely multi-tier waterfall. The base of the waterfall has some very big fish in it, that you can swim with if you like! Unfortunately, the area right under the falls is roped off. Although if you hike up to the other tiers you can play around in those cascades (fair warning though, the trail up to the other levels is quite a scramble)

Really, there are lots of great waterfalls around Kao Lak that are easily accessible by scooter (khaolakexplorer has a nice list of them!). Most are located inside National Parks, which you do have to pay to enter. Some people complain about the price of entrance, because locals pay a much lower price for entry. Personally, we think its reasonable to give local tax paying citizens a discount into their own national parks. Plus we like the idea of our tourist dollars going into the hands of a not-for-profit government organization set up to preserve and protect natural habitats. 

Lunch at a local hole in the wall

From Lumpee Waterfall Josh and I continued down toward Phang Nga Coastal Fisheries Rsearch & Development Center. Along the way we stopped at a little hole in the wall restaurant where we had the best food of the whole trip. The people inside didn’t speak English. I used my phone to look up the word vegetarian in Thai and woman gave me a thumbs up. And soon we were slurping down two big bowl of some limey soup noodle dish. Who knows if it had fish oil in it – all I know is it didn’t have chunks of meat and it was DELICIOUS.  Their Thai Iced Tea was also fantastic, and it was possibly the best tasting of our entire trip.

Our best guess is that we ate here but it could have been one of the other little shops like it on that side of the road… Really the bigger lesson is just to be adventurous, try little local places and get away from the tourist restaurants as much as possible! It’s way cheaper and we really believe chances of hitting the foodie jackpot are higher. So take advantage of the opportunity to do that when you are out scootering between tourist hot spots! Stop in the more local business areas to check out the local restaurants and convenience stores.

Phang Nga Coastal Fisheries Research & Development Center 

This is my favorite thing we did on-land in Khao Lak! Phang Nga Coastal Fisheries Research & Development Center is located on the coast about 30 kilometers South of Khao Lak and about 20 minutes down from Lumpee Waterfall. When we arrived we were a bit unsure of what to do. There were no English signs welcoming or instructing guests on where to go. So we entered the main building and found some ladies in an office.  They asked us to sign a guest book, and we tried to ask where the turtles were (by making silly gestures, of course).  They said/gestured to go outside and around back. So off we went.

Under some corrugated tin roofs we saw rows and rows of cement tanks… but it looked like an employees only area so we continued on. We looked for signs or a building for visitors to no avail. Finally, we decided to just go into the employee area. We figured at least if we weren’t supposed to be there we’d get scolded and then pointed in the right direction. But as it turns out, that WAS the right direction.  All to ourselves we weaved in and out of a maze of tanks filled with turtles! Turtles of all sizes and shapes. There even ended up being a couple of English signs identifying the turtle species. There were also tanks of clown fish of all different colors and sizes. 

Having such a close encounter with marine life in such an understated manner was surreal. We did cross paths with few employees, but they paid us no attention at all, as we videoed and selfied our way through. Of course you shouldn’t (and we didn’t!) touch the turtles, but there weren’t any barriers set up to stop us besides a couple of signs warning you not to.  From what we understand, the turtles either are all hatched there for release, or they are being rehabilitated from injury to be released back into the wild. (read more here) I can’t remember if we paid anything to get in. If we we did it was next to nothing (say less than $50 per person)

Hat Thai Mueang National Park

After oohing and ahhing over turtles you might as well hit the beach and the Hat Thai Mueang National Park. The turtle center is literally just across the street from a long stretch of beach. The road that follows it eventually leads to Hat Thai Mueang National Park which boasts an interesting mix of ecosystems from jungles & beach to swamps and mangroves. Unfortunately, by the time we got here we didn’t have time to explore much. But according to wikivoyage, the park has canoes available if you want to explore the mangroves by boat and other sites mention longboat rides. If you go and find these, let us know!

Build Market & Bang Niang Market

Bang Niang Market is the most well known market in Khao Lak.  We enjoyed souvenir shopping there, not to mention getting a great deal on a kilo of some perfect mangosteens (in Khao Lak we got two mangosteens for the same price). It’s about 5 kilometers away from Khao Lak, so its quick and easy to get to! But be aware its not open every day. And its not a morning market!  But on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays you can go enjoy it anytime between 2pm to 10pm.

But what to do Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays? No worries. That’s when Build Market is in business! It’s just a few minutes away from Bang Niang (off the same main road). This one is especially worth going to for cheap local eats (thanks to travelfish’s blog post for that tip!)

Cautionary tale

Khao Sok National Park & a flat tire

For our first trip to the Phuket area, we were a bit more ambitious with our goals for discovering things on land. The famous national parks were a big draw for us, and what could be better than a park that measures roughly 730 square kilometers that holds an estimated 5% of the world’s species?

The park entrance was a reasonable 60km away from our hotel. But that also meant getting an early start to have time to enjoy the park before it got too hot. For a little scooter, that meant pushing it to its comfortable limit for driving at highway speeds. It took us a little over an hour to get there.

Fortunately we stopped at the park entrance, where there was a small town nearby. We had considered driving up to the area where you can see a corpse flower, one of the largest flowers in the world. If we had gone to see the flower first, the day might have turned out drastically differently.

While we were hiking at the park, the front tire of our scooter lost almost all of its air pressure. By the time we returned, the tire was so flat we almost couldn’t push it anywhere. Fortunately, we found a local mechanic within pushing distance of the local convenience store. He didn’t speak English, but his girlfriend did. A new tube, foot pump, and about $8 later we were on our way.

(For more ideas on DIY scooter tours around Khao Lak check out this great blog post by hungrybackpacker, it was super helpful to us when we were planning our DIY tour of the area)