Ang Thong Marine Park

On our last day on Koh Samui, we took a day trip to Ang Thong Marine Park, an archipelago of 42 limestone islands. This scenery was on this trip was nothing short of stunning, and this was easily one of the best days of our entire trip.

We took the trip on a tour with a company called Highway Travel High Sea Tour, after it was recommended to us by a man named Mike who ran a travel agency on Samui and who we came to like during our time on Samui.  Mike was originally from New York but had sold all his belongings and moved to Thailand about ten years ago.  He was never pushy, just gave us all the information we wanted and let us make our decision.  In addition to setting up this tour with him, we rented our motorbike from him, he helped us book our ferry & bus tickets home, and his wife even did our laundry.  

We were originally a little nervous about taking the tour with the High Sea Tour company - we had been planning on spending about twice as much to go with a company that had received high ratings on Trip Advisor.  Luckily, our new friend Mike convinced us that we should go with the company he trusted, and this was definitely the right decision.

The Ang Thong tour was a full-day event.  We were picked up from our hotel at 7:45 AM, and taken to the pier where we got on the tour boat.  Onboard, we were provided a "breakfast" that was really just some croissants and instant coffee.  While we were finishing breakfast, the boat started the 90-minute trip to the Marine Park.

View from the ferry...you can see the park in the distance!

Once we arrived in Ang Thong, the tour boat came to a stop at Wua Talap island, and we got on smaller boats for the trip to the island.

Turquoise water and sandy beaches!

Some of the tour group stayed along the beach to snorkel, but hearing that there was a beautiful viewpoint at the top of one of the island's mountains, we started the trek up.  Although we'd been warned that the trek was strenuous (once again Mike came through by telling us to bring sneakers!), we had no idea what we were in for.  Until about halfway it was just a steep climb up a combination of rocks and mud which was pretty rough but manageable...but the second half was even more difficult and by the end we were using a rope to help us scale razor-sharp rocks!
When we reached the top, however, we realized that all of this effort was definitely worth it - the view was gorgeous.  Turquoise water stretched out as far as the eye could see, with tree-covered islands dotting the ocean. I feel like words can't even do it justice, so just enjoy the pictures:

After clambering back down the rocks to the bottom (along the way being jokingly asked by the Thai guides if we'd taken a shower while we were up there because of how sweaty we were...by the way they were doing the hike either in flip flops or BAREFOOT-no joke), we took a quick dip in the ocean then headed back to the tour boat for lunch.  Lunch was a pretty decent buffet, and it was nice to take a minute to catch our breath on the boat. 

Our tour then took us a to another island, this time where people had the opportunity to snorkel or kayak.  We, of course, went with the kayaking, and had a great time paddling between the different islands.  For most of the time, we stayed up in the front of the pack with the guide, who took us on all kinds of really cool routes so we went through small openings in the limestone instead of just through the open water.  This was really fun and once again, absolutely beautiful, but unfortunately my camera died so we didn't get that many pictures of everything we saw.  

After our kayaking adventure, we stopped at another island famous for the lake on the inside of the island.  Named Emerald Lake, it is actually a saltwater lake, connected to the ocean by an underwater tunnel, and was featured in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach as the Blue Lagoon.  The lake was beautiful, and we took lots of pictures in our minds so that we could remember it!  We also went snorkeling for a little bit at this island - although the water was not clear at all, we still saw a few small fish and just enjoyed ourselves paddling around.

Once we had exhausted ourselves snorkeling, we headed back to the tour boat to get ready to return to Koh Samui.  We soon realized, however, that our adventures were not over, as some of the members of our tour began jumping from the boat into the water.  Of course we had to join in, and I even received some applause for my (attempted) front flip into the water.  Unfortunately, I'd forgotten I still had sunglasses on my head, and I was distracted by my unsuccessful attempts at saving them from sinking to the bottom of the ocean.  The game of jumping off the boat continued for awhile after that, as we started moving up to higher decks on the boat...eventually involving climbing over the railing of the sundeck for the jump.  Only 5 or 6 of us were brave enough for this jump, and it was definitely a sight to behold when the giant German (at least 6 foot, 275 pound, blonde hair longer than Carolyn's, wearing tight swimshorts) backed out of the jump, climbing back over the railing to the deck and muttering "nien, nien, nien".

After all this excitement, we settled back into our seats and dozed off for the boat ride back to Samui.  Overall, we were completely satisfied by the day's events - we had a spectacular time and even got lucky with the weather!