Koh Phangan

Eating Out

Koh Phangan is an island in Surat Thani Province in the south east of Thailand and is very well known for is full moon parties which are held monthly and can attract many thousands of party goers.

We really never had any interest to visit the island, but we have friends who live there so decided it was time we spent a few days there. We took our own car over on the car ferry from Don Sak Pier, I will do a write up on this at the end of this page.

My honest opinions of Koh Phangan, yes there are some beautiful places, we timed our visit not to coincide with any full moon parties but certain places we visited we just did not feel very welcome, maybe it was something to do with our age, I don’t know, some shops we were totally ignored, we had money to spend but ended up walking out.

People say the Taxi Mafia are bad in Phuket, well they pale in comparison to the ones on Koh Phangan. We had some amazing meals there, saw some amazing sights but I am not sure if we will go back again.

Car Ferry from Don Sak to Koh Phangan

I was not looking forward to the 2.5 hour car ferry trip from Don Sak to Koh Phangan due to some horror stories etc, plus the fact I had a migraine so I knew I would need to hug the toilet bowls. So, I was expecting a total rust bucket that was going to sink halfway across and more than likely I would be in the toilets with no life jacket when we sunk lol.

Anyway, apparently the Raja car ferry is notorious for running late but I am happy to say each trip was on time and we arrived approximately 15 minutes earlier than expected both ways.

From Don Sak to Koh Phangan we were on the older car ferry, but it was still nice and comfortable with a little shop onboard that sold nonalcoholic beer for the boys lol. Toilets left a bit to be desired, but you make the most of what there is. Also, I am very happy to say we did not sink.

We were on the 7am ferry to leave Koh Phangan to go back to Don Sak, so arrived at 6am and this time we were on the newer car ferry, very nice, extremely comfortable, spotlessly clean inside and out and the toilets were immaculate.

Both times we booked online through the Raja Ferry Site and paid through PayPal, the process was very easy and straightforward. No need to print anything just show the booking confirmation on your phone and your tickets are issued on arrival at the ferry office.

The car, driver and 3 passengers one way was 1210baht, about AU$48 which included a 30 baht admin fee for booking online. So, a very easy process to book and good trips over and back to the mainland.