Eco Green Tourism in Koh Phangan, Thailand

Thailand was just another special experience for me. After traveling in my campervan around Europe for five years, living off solar and all that, I decided I had enough of cold winters and decided on making the move to Asia.

First night in Bangkok (or should it be called "Bang Cock"?) I decided that was plenty and moved very quickly on.

Traveled around a bit and stumbled on a volunteer program organized by Suki, way up in the mountains somewhere across the big river that separated the country from the next, Laos. They told me that sometimes people try to swim across but they are shot at by the guards. Why would someone want to swim across that big river from Thailand to Laos, escapes my imagination. Maybe during some crazy war times.

I remember getting up every morning to take my routine shower and having breakfast fed to me by the locals, about 8 of whom would gather around me to watch me in marvel as I ate with my favorite travel chopsticks while carefully plucking off their provided plate of rice and various what nots. Once one local offered me a handful of crispy fried locusts, but after smelling his hard working hands, I found it rather discomforting to eat out of it, but I did a little.

Then it was off to the local elementary school, so I could do my internet work. The government paid for whatever the education it was by supplying about 20 solar panels for this very remote region, perhaps to secure their border? Fortunately, there was a very beautiful teacher, with long, thick black hair who would converse with me. But, as I found with Thailand, or perhaps Asian people in general, she found me rather stinky, in spite of my morning shower. She would use a fan to blow my western aroma away as we used google translate to converse.

Around this time someone I befriended during my travels through Bulgaria wrote to me that he plans to make his annual trip through Thailand and that we should hook up. He suggested Koh Phangan [KPH] and off I went to meet him.

A true paradise, and I ended up staying for a couple of years. While there he suggested to go to a meditation camp on the mainland. I wasn't very enthused, but agreed, but shortly before leaving he found out his girlfriend back in Bulgaria was pregnant and departed after a brief goodbye. But hey, I already agreed, and he urged me to continue, so okay, I did.

That was an entire experience in itself, will have to write a special page < for that. People walking around like zombies, can't look at the opposite sex, sleep on a wooden pillow. But I admit I appreciate what I learned there.

One could say that KPH is like the Ibiza of Asia. The Fool (oh, pardon, "Full") Moon Party. I remember walking through an ocean of people, back and forth along this not-so-long beach, when I noticed what looked like a really tall and big Norwegian. As we were approaching he was so drunk he fell down flat on his face and made this big splat sound, like as if a whale fell out of heaven onto the sandy beach. I wanted to check him out, as a previous first aid attendant, to see if he does not have his breathing nostrils buried in the sand and would suffocate, but alas, it was simply too crowded for that.

Along the way I fell in love with a beautiful Thai teacher. At one point I discovered that, instead of going to Malaysia every three months just to extend my visa, I could pay her for a course in the Thai language and stay there for a full year. So much more convenient.

She said I was her best student, although I forgot everything. But during the lessons we developed grandiose plans of starting this and that. However, in the end, she was simply too conservative for my tastes, as Thais generally are.

The island was a great experience because there were at least one to two jam music spots happening every night. Which gave me the opportunity to practice my new love, the viola. While getting ready to hit the stage one evening, I turned my head to the sound of a female voice saying, "Don't you dare be shy now!" A Russian girl with legs longer than a giraffe's neck, totally hot. Fell in love again.

But after a couple of years of that utopia, I felt once again that I was rotting in the stagnation of paradise and decided it was time to move on. So off it was with my Thai bought bike to Malaysia! Keep the spirit alive!

This page and what it connects to is a product of my stay there.

Find the best places and info on eco and green tourism in Koh Phangan, Thailand. We are a group of foreigners and locals who love this island and want to help preserve it by promoting eco tourism and green practices. We are just starting with this site but we are already well networked. Please feel free to write us so we can answer all your questions and help us expand this website. And please help us keep our island clean and beautiful by conserving waste and help with recycling. Thank you!