Salakphet Bay

With hardly any sandy beaches and a more erratic transport system, the eastern coast of the island is visited by far fewer foreign travellers than the western coast. Most of the places to stay are in the south-east, in the villages of Salakphet, Jek Bae and the newly established Long Beach. The largest village, Salakphet, does not receive so many visitors and so it is less developed and commercialised than Bang Bao. Life for the welcoming locals revolves around fishing, eating and getting away with as little other work as possible. The town is quite spread out over flat terrain, ringed with mountains, and the bay on one side. Perfect for getting about on motorbike.

Any exploration of the area wouldn't be complete without a visit to Salak Khok. A pint-sized fishing village that screams authenticity, houses are built along a series of boardwalks that snake around the canals of a mangrove forest. Red and aqua-painted fishing boats line the boardwalks and you stroll around gives the feeling that you've really discovered something special and unique. It's an incredibly pretty, unspoiled area.

A new business in Salak Khok has just started to rent out kayaks that you can use to go exploring in the mangrove forest. It's 100B for an hour's paddle or 200B if you want a guide along. The business also has a few traditional Thai row-boats in which you can enjoy a romantic Thai dinner while being rowed around the mangrove forest. It's like a strange juxtaposition of the Amazon Rainforest meets the canals of Venice. The dinner costs 1,200B. For more details call (01) 9193 995.

Dan Mai is the largest Thai village on the island and is roughly half-way up the east coast. It's the home of services such as the Bangkok Ko Chang Hospital, the island's central police station and national park office. Internet access is limited and there aren't any ATM's on this side of the island, so get sorted out before you arrive.

Long Beach isn't actually all that long, but it's beautiful and virtually untouched an has recently become a new hippy haven thanks to a relocation of Treehouse from Lonely Beach.

Long Beach is a long way from anywhere and Treehouse management hope that will prevent the beach, as many people fear is happening to the western beaches overdevelopment (this may not have worked out they as Treehouse has changed hands, with the original owners moving to a new site on Ko Pha Ngan).

Some of the best views on Ko Chang can be had on the road that links Long Beach with Salakphet, revealing breathtaking scenes of the bay and its few tenant teardrop islands.

Related reading

Ko Chang Diving Guide
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