Koh Chang Thailand Guide

Than Mayom Waterfall: Koh Chang's Royal Waterfall on the Quiet East Coast Every visitor to Koh Chang hears about one waterfall. Klong Plu, on the west side, is in every brochure, on every tour list, and busy on every sunny weekend. Than Mayom, the island's other national park waterfall, sits on the opposite coast, behind the park headquarters on the quiet east-coast road, and most holidaymakers never reach it at all. That is a shame, and also the point. Than Mayom is smaller, shadier and more local in feel than its famous sister — a tiered fall running over black rock into clear pools, on a stream called Klong Mayom, in a place Thai visitors know for a reason no west-coast waterfall can match: kings came here, repeatedly, and carved their marks into the stone. This guide covers Than Mayom properly: where it is, why it matters in Thai history, what the four tiers are like, when the water is worth the trip, what the park ticket costs, how to get there from the west-coast beac...

Most visitors to Koh Chang never see its east coast. They land at the ferry pier in the north, ride down the west-coast road through White Sand, Klong Prao and Kai Bae to Lonely Beach and Bang Bao, and they go home believing they have seen the island. They have seen half of it — the beach half. The other half faces the sunrise. It is a coast of mangrove bays instead of sandy bays, of fishing villages instead of beach bars, of orchards, temples and waterfalls that most guidebooks mention in a paragraph and most travellers skip entirely. This guide is about that quieter half: Salak Phet, the island's oldest and largest fishing community; neighbouring Salak Kok, where a village hides inside a mangrove forest; Long Beach, the far southeastern strand; and the slow road that links them all. None of this is secret, exactly. The east coast is on every map of Koh Chang, and the road there is good. It is simply that the island's rhythm pulls people west, toward the sunset and the sand, ...