Its real easy to get used to luxury. We just came from a gift card stay at the Koh Samui Ritz. So when we got to our little mattress on the floor AC-less room in Koh Phangan, it took a bit of getting used too. Its not too bad though, just hot during the day.
We’re staying at The Cosy now, and I don’t think were going to leave. They have a nice oceanside restaurant with a pool. We finished our books here. Babel, by R.F. Kuang, and the Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Its quite the double feature. Both books set in England, but one is a heavy reflection on colonial Britain, racism, intersectionality, and potential justifications for violence, and the other is a bunch of seniors trying to figure out who killed their old folks home handyman. Both very enjoyable books (albeit for entirely different reasons) to read while listening to the waves lap along the shore.
Koh Phangan’s tourist crowd is noticeably different than Koh Samui. Samui was all families. This is all hippie expats as far as we can tell.
The Cosy has a couple dogs that hang out. There’s an overweight Rottweiler mix that doesn’t like joggers, but doesn’t have the cardio to deal with it. A yappy pit looking but not pit puppy that confuses people grabbing their things for playtime. And an old grey guardian that watches over it all.
It makes for a decent couple of days, but we stayed maybe a couple of days long. The amount of aggressively high tourists veering on the one island road was a little unnerving. We never really went too far.
Now were going a quite far away. Koh Phangan is the end of a travel chapter for us. So we have a couple flights now. We will see you on the other side!
Koh Phangan, has a dated but well deserved reputation for has been hippies, an option once Koh Samui became mainstream after their airport started. The Thais know how to do tourism.