Similan Islands National Park — Attraction in Ko Similan (No. 8)

Established as a national park in 1982, Similan Islands are an archipelago of 11 islands in the Andaman Sea, 70 km off the coast in Phang Nga Province. The park covers an area of 140 km² of which 26 km² is land.

With a rich marine life consisting of hard and soft coral reefs, crystal clear waters and white beaches, Similan Islands are considered to be one of the best diving sites in the world. The main characteristics of the islands are the rock formations which consist of huge boulders, shallow waters and dense tropical forests.

Unfortunately, the islands are suffering from too many tourists. One of the worst effected islands, Ko Tachai has been permanently closed since 2016, as of 2020, still closed. Back in 2018 the problem with overcrowded visitors became so big that the park authorities limited the number of tourists to Similan Islands to 3,850 people a day, later further down to 3,325 people a day. Before the limitation, the islands were getting up to 7,000 visitors a day.

During these corona times a very few boats operating to the islands. It is perhaps once a lifetime opportunity for the local tourists and expats to enjoy the empty islands.

Various websites mention all possible spots around the national park as “uncharted”, “unexplored”, “secret spot” etc; there are no such places, all overcrowded any given day of the high seasons.

"Similan" is a Yawi (a Malayan dialect) word, means nine. The park had originally nine islands numbered 1 to 9 but expanded to include two more remote islands back in 1998; Ko Tachai and Ko Bon. Although each island has a name they can be referred with numbers. The islands are;

#1, Ko Hu Yong #2, Ko Payang #3, Ko Payan #4, Ko Miang #5, Ko Ha #6, Ko Payu #7, Ko Hin Pousar #8, Ko...

+: gorgeus flour-like sand (gets everywhere), crystal clear water, when one gets 2 h of beach time in summary (visiting few beaches); some interesting animals if one's lucky; huge -: a lot of going by bus, boat time (for us it was approx. 7 h of 13,5 h trip); boat is EXTREMELY noisy, one's personal space is less than in ryanair (absolutely no stuff space, everything you put on the floor gets wet); organisation sucks - you wait and wait for anyone to tell you what's going to happen, finally you have to ask, cause it seems as no employee knows either and it occurs in the end they have different routes for different groups, so every employee tell's different story; the reef is small, mostly beige and brown, boring and not worth the effort (we additionaly got tiny stingy colorless jellyfish - can't see it, feel it very well); getting on/off the boat takes ages (a lot of people); toilets in every place you visit are dirty and the food is no good (it's not that I don't like thai, it's just tasteless and there's no choice of what you get - breakfast: some rice with few pieces of carrot, small sausages and toast - yuck) and THE BEST PART: they make you take your shoes off, leave it at the port and go barefoot - to the dirty toilets, and by paths covered in guano (e.g. stairs to the lunch place), also the beaches have coral and stones in the water (ouch ouch ouch! if you decide to go, take water shoes). I DO NOT RECOMMEND THE TRIP, especially with...

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