Thailand's Most Incredible Road Trip Koh Samui to Phuket, Krabi & Koh Lanta

What's going on everybody? This is Island Hopper TV. We are leaving Koh Samui and we are headed to the Andaman Islands from the Gulf of Thailand. We're going to show you all around the Andaman Sea. Let's do it. Yeah guys, this is a continuation of the part one we did earlier where we did from Bangkok to Koh Samui. We're now going from Koh Samui to Khao Sok. Okay, ready? We're ready. I know some of you might be wondering why I'm paying 3,700 baht to take a taxi to Khao Sok. Well, if we would have taken a flight from Koh Samui to Phuket, number one, we wouldn't have seen Khao Sok or Phang Nga, which we're going to stop at in between, or Khao Lak. But also, it was $300 for a flight on Bangkok Airlines per person. So with this, yeah, I'm paying 3,700 baht, which is around $115 to $120. dollars, but we're going to see Khao Sok, we're going to see Phang Nga, and everything in between before going to Phuket, so I think it's worth it. What it ultimately comes down to is do you want to fly over some beautiful parts of Thailand, or do you want to see it on the ground and pay basically the same price? So if you're a group of two or more people, a private van is a great value. As about to see on this land route without flying from Koh Samui to Phuket all right guys so we're here at Khao Sok we're going to go out on a private boat it's 1,800 for the boat and then 340 baht for each person for the national park fee yeah so you have to pay for the transportation and then pay per person to enter the park so that's what it is and let's do it Khao Sok is considered one of the top five destinations in Thailand by the way oh we're heading out it's a beautiful day water a really nice color the blue skies a little bit hazy but that's okay hope boat doesn't go so quick it's comfortable and the shade works so beautiful time out here this province here is known as Surat Thani, it's basically in between Koh Samui and Phuket, this here is a national park famous for its lake, this is a man-made lake but inside here you'll see these towering limestone rocks all right guys, we're out here on Khao Sok Lake another place that you got to visit here in Thailand the boat tour here takes about one to two hours but it depends on what you want to see out here they also have some floating pontoon hotels people like to stay and camp out here on the lake about Khao Sok, they only take cash there and they don't have an ATM on site so make sure you bring enough money, at least 5,000 baht so because we actually took the ferry from Koh Samui to the pier in Surat Thani and then we visited Khao Sok, it's almost evening time so we've decided to get a hotel nearby Phang Nga, so we were looking for bungalows up on the hill with the view, we didn't quite find the view but we did find a nice location in the rainforest, well we hiked up to the top of the mountain here just at sunset, hope we were going to get a view of Phang Nga at least that's what the pictures on Google Maps showed, but looks like there's a lot of vegetation, they got pine trees, they've got palm trees, i mean you can see right there, i don't know what kind of palm that is, but either way we came all the way up here, no view, it's all good, beautiful it's a thick rainforest up here i mean lots of vegetation lots of bugs and who knows what's crawling around in that forest but it's really nice after a nice night here in the jungle of Phang Nga we're actually going to go to the viewpoint and then on to Phuket we're headed down to Rawai stay tuned actually the best time to visit the viewpoint is early morning at sunrise upon viewpoint and skywalk tickets are 800 baht per person now there are several different viewpoints this one in particular is famous for the glass sky bridge that you can walk out and get good views again you're gonna want to show up either sunrise sunset for the most magical colors we were here at around 11 a.m because we were too lazy to get up at three in the morning to drive 45 minutes down to the viewpoint to catch that sunrise but if you guys wanted to i think it'll be worth it for those of you who are really looking for that or you just get a hotel down here in the area near the viewpoints but now we're driving to Phuket all right guys we're here at Chalong Temple this is the most famous temple in Phuket so getting across Phuket takes a long time we're actually staying on southern part of Phuket in Rawai so getting down here we wanted to get a little stop before we checked into the villas that we're going to be staying here but this little temple right here is undergoing renovation they keep improving it one thing that stands out here more than anything they're always popping off fireworks in the fireplace but now we're actually headed to the southern point of Phuket all right my friends we're here at Promthep Cape this is the southernmost point from here you can see some of those islands that we're going to be going out towards in the Andaman Sea but also once you head down a little bit you go to Nai Harn Beach, Yanui Beach, lots of little pockets of beaches down here just south of Rawai and i like it down here it's a lot more laid back than Patong or even Kata and some of those other famous areas that people go to made it to Kata Beach this is probably the best most famous beach i will say this when we were here Kata was filled with umbrellas and people it's gotten so famous and popular it's crazy by the way guys down below in the description i'll put a link to all of our specific videos that we did about Samui, Phuket, Thailand in general Krabi all those places that we're going and you also don't want to miss the part one that we did coming down from Bangkok to Samui so check the links below parrot kite with the flute yeah so from Kata we're actually going to drive over the hill and then go to Karon Beach yeah so we've now arrived at Karon Beach there's so many different beaches along the western side of Phuket this is the sunset side but this is just one of many that you'll find all the way up along this coastline hard to find transportation around here but these are the most common kind of tuk tuks i did find out though they have Bolt so download that app okay guys we're here at Kata Noi, Kata Noi means baby Kata our little Kata Beach, yeah so we had the driver take us around to these different beaches, they all are pretty much the same, just pick the one that you want, they do have lots of water sport options at these beaches up and down but make sure you do follow all of the safety guidelines and take precautions, we ended up getting a private villa on Airbnb, 450 dollars for two nights so that means it's like 225 dollars per night, so we're here in Rawai, we were looking for a taxi, we went on the Grab app, we went on Bolt, we went out to the road to try and get a taxi, after about 20 minutes we finally found this colectivo, he's going to do it for 800 baht, we're going to Phuket Town, we're also going to see the night market, but not easy to get a Grab or a taxi around here, i could see why so many people get rental bikes, i usually avoid mopeds because i think they're kind of dangerous, but i could see why someone would get one in that case because it is difficult to get transportation around here, but either way we're headed to Phuket Town to the night market, that's what we're going to show you next, all right my friends, we've made it to Phuket Town, i would say save your appetite if you're going to come here to the market or drumstick, yeah i was hungry, built up a little appetite, so i'm gonna get some chicken real quick, oh come with some gloves, they also have other booths aside from actual food but here you know i try a little bit of chicken here i try a little bit of pad thai over here maybe some thai seafood on this booth and you just kind of finger food finger licking good all around here is really what's going on but they've got some old buildings around here they've got an old history with the Straits Chinese they're called the Peranakans they settled in this area back when phuket town was part of a tin mining colony but now if you want some nightlife you go to the other side of the island to Patong Beach this here has Bangla road which is one of the biggest party streets in the world and certainly top street probably here in thailand not too many places in the world like this one if you like to have a nightlife experience with lots of people loud music in some cases people say they even need earbuds when they come down here it's so loud patong beach is not where you go if you want to find relaxation and peace of mind you go other places in phuket this is for party people coffee in the van it's 3,000 baht it's a private van you can actually go there in a collective van for 800 baht per person so for me private vans are convenient because of flexibility and all that convenience that goes along with it all right guys we've been in the car for about two hours we've arrived here at a pit stop just outside of Ao Nang we're probably about 45 minutes to go it's going to take about three hours to get there if you can see these towering limestone mountains got a cave here got another one over here they're all over in this area really a cool place here in Krabi so as you can see this part of southern Thailand is definitely worth checking out at the ground level all right guys we've actually arrived here in Krabi this is called the Aspira Hotel it's actually a really nice hotel it's just far away from the beach it depends on if you want quality and peace of quiet or do you want to be close to the beach and the nightlife in this case we stayed here and i liked it but our main objective was to get a boat to go over to Railay Beach to experience what's going on over there and get a nice sunset from the main beach the boat ticket from Ao Nang to Railay Beach is about three to four hundred baht for a round trip well it took about 15 minutes to get here maybe 10 not too long a little bit high seas but nothing too bad now you can see the beautiful Railay Beach the cliffs the limestone towering mountains it's a beautiful place it's about three o'clock in the afternoon and this here is Railay walking street here where they have a few different little cafe pubs if you want to call them that so walking this walking street here in Railay Beach definitely something you got to do when you come to Krabi I've come to Krabi maybe 10 times in my life and I always make it a point to walk this little walking street and then go over to the other beaches around here see some unique looking reptiles and monkeys along the walk well we finally made it over here to Pha Ngai Cave and this is the Princess Cave over here sunset's gonna happen over here it's actually a little bit higher than high tide or a little bit above uh where it's usually at yeah your experience here can change depending on the tides if the tides are low you can actually walk out to some of the other islands if the tides are up you know you won't be able to walk over there you'll have to swim or maybe kayak actually the boats head back just before sunset so if you wanted to catch a sunset there's a little bit of a fee that you have to pay just to be able to catch the late boat we're back in Ao Nang it only cost 50 baht extra per person for being late they got a fire show going on down here so let's see what's up now krabi is not known for its nightlife but if there was one place in krabi where you can get some nightlife it would be Ao Nang but don't expect anything like you're going to find in patong beach in phuket it's a laid-back experience they do the fire shows they've also got some pubs and bars and restaurants and that's really the vibe down here in Ao Nang for me i think it's good they don't have much nightlife because what i like to do in krabi is do the adventuring in the daytime so much to see around here and lots of islands to visit hey if you guys love videos like this you can also subscribe to our channel Island Hopper TV all right well we're gonna go try and get a boat to go island hopping to hong island yeah there's a few ways to get out to Hong Island one would be just going to a booth and booking a jet boat tour that takes about an hour from Ao Nang to Hong Island but we decided we wanted to get a boat that takes us over there on a private boat as you can tell i prefer the private boat experience over the group tours just because there's more flexibility and convenience you pay a little bit more but you get to have more of a customized tour i've done plenty of those group tours that's how i know the difference but over here you don't know if you're going to get a boat you kind of have to go on faith and thankfully we were able to find somebody who would take us out there those guys there are plucking jellyfishes out of the ocean the area we departed from is actually just past the Ritz-Carlton a lot closer boat ride just so you guys know you can actually get a group tour it'll save you some money it's just when we do the private tour we got to go where we want to go when we ask the driver so it's more customizable but if you're looking to save money you can easily do a group tour that'll take you to all these places as well water is actually at low tide if you want to become for a high tide you got to come in the morning if you look right there where that boat's coming in you can see the water level right there for me this is a bit better experience than going out to PP island which has become very overpopulated with tourists and once you arrive out here you arrive on this blue bridge here with these uh milk carton kind of jugs that are floating it's a floating bridge you just walk off that yeah out here in Hong Island they have about four or five stops they do for you one of them being Hong Island the beach and then they have that lagoon which is where we were before but here at the lagoon you can spend about 30 minutes to an hour do some snorkeling or even hike up to the viewpoint and get a great view looking out towards all of the Andaman Sea from here on Hong Island guys we've arrived at Koh Lao Lading this is a really beautiful beach hopefully it's not too crowded yeah that noise you heard there that's the long tail boat engine he's just revving it up so he can get around but uh yeah right here at Koh Lao Lading it is another nice place it's quite small so if there is a lot of people it's not quite the experience you would get if you showed up here and there wasn't a lot of people a lot of it just depends on the time of day you know here in Krabi there's about 150 islands just in the province that's a lot of islands to island hop that doesn't even include what's over in Phuket which is right next door so Phang Nga Bay has a lot of islands guys we'll have to do a lot of island hopping out here we're headed back to the land we're gonna go see if we go to the Tiger Temple and maybe the Emerald pool tonight so good day so far it's a little bit uh low tide right now so they have to drop us off out there and we just kind of walk in the water's real warm Klong clear water canal this is actually one of the spots they filmed for Jurassic Park, anyone in the comments want to tell me what Jurassic Park, this was from let's see how good you guys are at remembering there's basically two things you'll probably want to do either kayak or swim you can see the people out there swimming and kayaking this is actually kind of like a brackish water it's not quite salt water and it's not quite fresh water, alright guys we've arrived here at the Tiger Cave Temple you can actually go up to the top there to the viewpoint but guess what i'm not going to do today hike all the way up there it's just a little bit too hot i've been island hopping but i'm just showing you there is an uh overview lookout point but let's go inside yeah it used to be that the big thing that you had to do was go to the top where that viewpoint was but they just built this brand new temple i will say that uh on a hot day like this for me it's just not worth it and when i say hot i don't think you fully understand just how hot i'm talking about because the video doesn't do it justice that's one of the reasons why i like to go out onto the water island hopping because on a hot day you can just get in the water and cool down when it's that hot when you're out here inland at the Tiger Temple man there's no water around here to cool you down you're just out there baking hiking up that mountain there but i will say they do have hot springs around here but they're about 30 minutes to 40 minutes away from the Tiger Temple you can have your driver take you over there now again they're hot springs but the interesting thing is in Thailand because it does get so hot that kind of induces a monsoon rain shower in the later part of the day which ended up happening on this day so after a long adventurous day another great day out here island hopping around Thailand we're headed back to Ao Nang this time we're staying at the Ibis Styles one of the good things about this is we're a little bit closer to the action to the restaurants and the beach nightlife all that so we decided we were going to get some food and then walk around and see what's up with another nightlife action here in Ao Nang didn't really get too carried away because the next day we are actually headed towards Koh Lanta which is another great island but let's see what's going on down here for the nightlife for me first and foremost i would say the restaurants there's so much variety in food international cuisine seafood local Thai food it just depends what you want but again it can get crowded down here as with many places in Thailand but again aside from just looking around and seeing what's going on we didn't really participate in any of the action because we needed to get some rest for tomorrow let's do it my friends we are now headed to the pier to catch the speedboat to go to Koh Lanta and in case you're wondering the ticket price for this is around 500 to 600 700 baht just depends on the service that you go with are they going to provide the transportation or you going to provide the transportation to get to the port either way 500 to 600 baht is usually the going rate all right guys we made it to Koh Lanta and where you actually arrive into Lanta is at Saladan Pier that's here in the northern part of Lanta island now where you want to go from here just depends on which beach area but the most popular one i would say is long beach all right guys we're down here at long beach this is actually where the hotel is there's a few different beaches on lanta but we got a sunset shaping up here here you get calm water beautiful sunsets it's like a front row ticket and then you get to enjoy your dinner so i got masaman curry have you guys tried masaman now lanta is seasonal so depending on the time of year is depending on the price you can get really high prices in january and february or you can get really good prices in may or september all right well we're going to the best beach on the island right guys we've arrived at relax beach this beach reminds me of Robinson Crusoe there's so many like tiki hut trees it's almost like stranded that's the Phi Phi islands i feel like they're closer here than they are in aonang all along the whole west coast of Koh Lanta is beach beach beach like beaches all the way on the side okay we've arrived at Klong Nin this is a really cool area they got lots of trees here we've noticed uh more shade not as exposed to the sun which can be really good on a bright day but the interesting thing is we didn't quite realize this at the time but a big rainstorm was brewing on the horizon viewpoint we're actually headed down the hill here and this is the actual Lanta Old Town it's very similar to Phuket Town but much smaller again it was set up by miners who were out here you know settling this area of Lanta the interesting thing i noticed about both Phuket Town and Lanta Town is they built the colony or the settlement on the sunrise side of the island my friends we are now here at the mangrove actually doing a mangrove tour around here on a boat is one of the top things to do on the island for those of you who are looking for a more eco-friendly experience you can get a kayak and just kind of go around hopefully the weather is going to be in your favor on that day because the weather changes quick here yeah so we're out here on the mangroves in Koh Lanta if you guys get a chance come on out here you can do a private boat tour or you can actually get out on a kayak right now we've seen monkeys eagles some reptiles lots of fish we got off just in time because look it's downpouring all right guys we're up here on the bridge for those of you who wanted to drive to Koh Lanta from Krabi you would actually cross this bridge to get to Koh Lanta which is an island and this is another island that it takes you to but either way you can get a nice view here of the inlets and just how the island is set up now they do have a night market here at Sala Dan if you wanted to come up here you just get one of those uh tuk-tuk or motorbike tuk-tuks if you want to call it that and some people call it a rickshaw but you can get over here and see what's going on at the night market all right guys we're actually headed to the port we're going to Koh Muk island on a 35 to 40 minute uh high speed boat all right guys we are here at the ferry port at celadon we're going to Koh Muk once you leave Lanta going south you're going into a whole new world in the Andaman Sea Koh Muk Koh Phra Daeng Koh Ngai even further south is going to be Koh Lipe and if you're a real island hopper you just island hop around on these speed boats all right guys we've arrived here in so on this tour we've come from Phuket Phang Nga Krabi then from here we went down to Koh Lanta now we're here at Koh Muk all right guys we've arrived at the hotel here in Koh Muk look at this palm tree here with all those coconuts right there but nice half pool i got this fruit tree here it's called a rose apple into the waterfront here you've got a lot of fishermen's boats there's Koh Lipe you might even go over there there's the mainland but out here Andaman Sea in that direction is Koh Lipe and Langkawi Malaysia here on the island you guys like this shirt you guys can pick it up put the product link right here yeah best way to get around the island is with these rickshaw drivers about 100 baht each way uh just depends on how far you want to go it's a small island here and if you're still with us thank you to everyone who's watching all of our videos and keeping up with us around Thailand Koh Phraong or Sunset Beach, Phraong in Thai means foreigner and then hod means beach so when they call it hod Phraong they're basically calling it foreigner beach but you get a nice view of sunset, nice little rasta bar we got right here called Fonta Bar now from Ko Muk you can see other islands out there and that's kind of what we got this idea to do the next day was actually go out there and see what's going on with the other islands so that's kind of where the inspiration to do more island hopping the next day came, good news is Ko Muk does have nightlife as you can see we'll just kind of poke around and see what's going on now let's not get too carried away and get our expectations up about the nightlife it does exist but it's very limited i've also got a mango tree these are green they're not quite ripe what you're looking for is a yellowish color almost a red yellow but these are hard to taste they'll be hard if you attempt them just like this yeah that Muklamai was actually fully booked so we decided to change hotels we didn't really have a choice and we are moving hotels now all right guys we're actually going to go over to Ko Kradan right now on a long tail boat we might have to pay extra if we want to go to Ko Kradan or around Ko Muk but we'll see what ends up happening we might just stay at Ko Kradan for about 30 minutes we got three hours with this guy so it's gonna be a good day this is truly a paradise beach look around thailand may be known as the land of the smiles but it's also the land of beautiful islands and remote beaches just like this one you see right behind me there's 1,400 islands in thailand we talked about those in the gulf of thailand right now we're in the middle of the andaman sea from phuket south you have so many different islands this one here is called Koh Kradan look how beautiful this place is you got a little sardine right here here you go mr friend here in the middle of the island of ko Kradan they have these bungalows which you can stop get some water but you can even stay here they've got about 10 bungalows including a family unit right there so after about a 10 minute walk maybe 15 minutes through the island from one side to the other we're here at the main area of Koh Kradan so right here they've got a really long beach facing Koh Mook that's the island we're staying at but let's look around here at Koh Kradan a beautiful island with many different bungalows just to give you a little bit of perspective for those of you who stayed along for the ride to see this beautiful place i've actually stayed at one of these beach bungalows for a night they have an outdoor shower you actually come in on a speed boat there's no port or dock here so they have to take your suitcase and lug it on the beach but for like 50 baht or sometimes the hotel actually sends a sherpa or someone who can actually do it they'll carry your suitcase for you to your hotel room that's way more convenient than trying to lug your suitcase along the beach but oh it's worth it i would say two to three nights here because there's nothing else really going on i mean it's pretty much just beach and you know you're gonna do a little bit of eating and chilling in your room but that outdoor shower i was really happy about that you look down you can see the bottom starfish and all that from this point you can actually go back over to Koh Mook and they do have a very large cave that you can explore around this island although another storm was brewing on the horizon so we didn't actually end up going to that cave on Koh Mook but it's an incredible cave so at this point we were looking at all the islands in the Andaman Sea there's so many like i said Koh Ngai and then if you go further south you've got Koh Lipe which is called the Maldives of Thailand and then from Koh Lipe you can actually island hop into Malaysia into Langkawi but here's what i have a question for you guys do you guys want us to show you the continuation of this route when we went from the land border crossing in Thailand to Penang all the way down to KL into Malacca down to JB to Singapore if you guys want that let us know and we'll make that video so here at the end of Koh Mook is Pearl Beach they've got a nice restaurant here look at these views of the mainland but either way we had to figure out what we were going to do next where we were going to go so we decided to continue heading south in vehicles without flying today's the day we're leaving Thailand we were going to go down to Koh Lipe but we decided to go into Malaysia so we're going to go through the land border crossing from Thailand to Penang through Malaysia border crossing it's going to take about five hours so keep you updated if you guys like this one and you want to see part one click right here