How do you like my island, Mr Bond?

You wait for ages for one idyllic tropical island (Boracay) to come along, and then two more turn up one after the other.....

Practically every backpackers itinerary includes the islands of Koh Samui and Koh Phanagan when visiting Thailand, and with good reason, as they are stunning, traveller friendly and still have some budget accommodation available despite loads of development.

Big Buddha Statue, Koh Samui

There are endless possibilities for activities on Koh Samui, including the obvious options of go karting, off roading, bungee jumping and the like. Given the amazing scenery, we booked a trip on the Speedstar speedboat (tag line, "teaching the wind how to fly!") which was an all day trip for snorkelling and island hoping in the Ang Thong marine national park. 

The all day trip started with a bumpy journey to the first island, where there were so many schools of fish that at times we were practically swimming through them. Shortly after, the boat took us through the marine parks multitude of small islands, most of which were named for their obvious shapes.

King Kong Island

Shoe Island

Lion Island

The highlight of the trip was the visit to the "Golden Bowl" lake, a land locked sea water lagoon that is completely encircled by cliffs, but is linked to the sea via under water passages. The was widely touted as the inspiration for the location for the beach in the Alex Garland book "The beach". Unfortunately its not where the film was made however, but is still impressive.

Golden Bowl

Turtle head gag anyone?

The last stop was for "James Bond" island. This is the rocky island, which we were led to believe was the location for Mr Scaramangas solar panels in the film "Man with the Golden Gun". Impressive as it was, the James Bond nerds amongst us weren't convinced, and a little research showed that it looks maybe a little like the island, but isn't actually the same one (the real one is on Thailands West Coast).

"James Bond Island"

Koh Phanagan was the next island to visit, and proved even better for travellers, with a host of beach huts available for remarkably little cash. The island is much less developed than Koh Samui, which adds to the charm of the place, and also brings down the prices. The island, and its smaller neighbour Koh Tao are a divers paradise, but unfortunately as with previous journeys, we had both picked up bugs on the flight to Koh Samui, and we couldn't dive at all.

Everyone on the island travels around on rented motorbikes, which usually cost only £4 per day. We travelled around the island on one of these, only to discover later that Koh Samui and Koh Phanagan are statistically the most dangerous places for motorcyclists in the world!

Two vodka bottles of petrol required for a lap of the island!

Leaving the island we treated ourselves to a first class sleeper cabin on the train to Bangkok (following an easy ferry trip). Thai trains as we discovered are regularly very late, and ours arrived 3 hours after it was due (at 2:20am....)

Ursh catches up on some kip and Surat Thani station

When it did arrive the train was great though, and having our own compartment meant that we got some much needed sleep.

Relegated to the top bunk!