Last of Koh Samui: Anthong Marine Park

One final highlight from Koh Samui that I'd like to share was the day trip that the 5 of us (Melissa, her dad, Ann, Natalie, and I) took through the Anthong Marine Park. This "park" is essentially a protected series of 47 islands off the coast of Koh Samui. While many are nothing more than rocks protruding from the water, there are a few that are noteworthy for their shapes, and also a few that have beaches of their own and are therefore worth visiting.

This was a company organized and rather "touristy" trip on a speedboat which was less than ideal, but we all scrambled on to the boat early which allowed us to get the front seats and the best view. This came with some consequences, though, mainly the bumpiest ride and a non-stop face full of wind. The hour or so ride out to the islands was rather uneventful and I was happy to find that I wasn't getting seasick as I thought I might have (remembering a deep-sea fishing trip from way back when that didn't turn out so well).

Our first stop was for some snorkeling, but as we had been told prior to booking, the area we were snorkeling in really wasn't anything particularly special. That said, I did get to swim with some pretty big schools of fish and when the boat captain started tossing bread at me, I became surrounded on all sides by what felt like hundreds of hungry fish. Thankfully, nothing big enough to bother me. After about an hour in the water things got boring, and we all re-boarded to begin our tour of the islands. The first one of note is known as "Monkey Island" and can be seen below. If you look closely at the top part of the rock, there's a silhouette of an ape, I guess.

We did a bit more sightseeing of "islands" for a short while more, stopped on a remote island for a fantastic lunch in a fishing village, and then made our way to the first real highlight of the day. This was the first island with some real beach, and some extremely steep stairs had also been built into the side of the rocks to allow for climbing up to see great views of the Park.

From the beach, looking out at some of the Marine Park's islands.

Hopefully this picture conveys just how steep these stairs really were. Other than that, yes there are a ton of Band-Aids on
my feet. Flip-flops need to be broken in and so did my feet.

This is a 4 photo panorama. I recommend clicking it to go to the Flickr site, and then reclicking it to view it in full screen.

As promised, I continue to make this pose all over the place. Feels pretty silly when there's a ton of people around you.

Melissa and her dad, experts of Thailand.

The water you see was off limits for swimming. There were not only tons of huge fish visible from our vantage point, but also endless sea urchins lining the bottom and although
I didn't see any, poisonous sea snakes.

Heading back to our boat and treated to this view.

From this stop our boat departed for one last beach island. Along the way we passed the famous imitation island that looks quite similar to "James Bond Island" found in Phuket, Thailand. The Phuket island received its name after being featured in the James Bond movie, "The Man With the Golden Gun". A quick google search will confirm how similar these two islands look.

Imitation James Bond Island, on the open ocean.

The beach island was actually quite close to the Bond lookalike, and Melissa and I were given a kayak to use for an hour or so. We decided to go the extra mile and paddled out to do a circle around the island, pretty cool since the rock actually hangs over your head while you circle it.

Lastly, the highlight of the Marine Park trip was the time well spent lounging on the absolutely beautiful beach  . Initially it was a bit crowded with two boats worth of tourists lining the beach, but as time passed it emptied out and began to feel as though we were the only ones around. I lounged and enjoyed the view for quite some time, not looking forward to the boat captain's call that it was time to head back to the mainland.

Finally, after a long day of sightseeing and an amazing week of experiences in Koh Samui, it was time to say goodbye to the house and head back to Singapore. We made use of the time to grab a few more photos of the incredible view. 

This is another panorama, this time of Melissa's house. They are just putting the finishing touches on the construction now. As Koh Samui continues to
gain popularity as a tourist hotspot, this home will certainly serve as a good investment as property values increase. A full screen view is ideal for it.

One last chance to make this ridiculous pose in Koh Samui. Melissa's house can be seen in the bottom right part of the picture. The driveway is incredibly steep.

Looking back at the Koh Samui Airport. Not your typical airport design...

I'm still well behind on blog posts. The next time I post I'll cover our trip to the Singapore Zoo. I took far too many photos there as I'm an animal lover, so it's taking quite a while to go through them all. You can expect a few short videos in that post as well. I hope you enjoyed!