Ang Thong Marine Park

While in Koh Samui we couldn't skip the water and the beaches completely (after all, it's what the island is famous for). We heard about the Ang Thong Marine Park and decided it would be worth a tour. We booked our boat tour, which picked us up bright and early at 7:15 am! We ended up waiting quite a while at the beach for the rest of the passengers to be picked up, but eventually we hopped on the boat for the one hour ride out to the marine park.

Our first stop was for some snorkeling. The equipment they gave us wasn't the best (there were no fins and the snorkels tended to leak!) but we made the best of it and got a few cool pictures.

After snorkeling we hopped back on the boat and toured through the numerous limestone formations that make the park famous.

Our next stop was a at Koh Mae (the Mother Island). The island had a small beach, which was great, but we were more excited to hike up to Talay Nai, the lagoon inside the mountain. The lagoon is a salt water lake about 120 feet above the beach. It is surrounded by gorgeous limestone cliffs and is emerald green in color (it's sometimes called Emerald Lake). It was a the hike up was not bad, except that the island was very crowded and it was HOT outside! Once we reached the lake we snapped a few pictures, but then realized there was a lookout even higher up which afforded some great views of the whole marine park.

After Koh Mae we were ready for lunch. Out boat docked at a restaurant located in a tiny village. After we ate we were able to explore the village a bit more to see how the locals live.

We then hopped back on the boat and headed to another beach where our kayaks were waiting. We kayaked around the island and around some of the limestone formations.

After about an hour we beached the kayaks and had fun swimming in the bay.

As the afternoon was quickly coming to a close we hopped back on the boat and headed back to Koh Samui! The tour guides joked that anyone who slept on the trip back would have to pay 500 baht. Luckily they were just kidding or Jeff would have had to pay up!