Southern Thailand Region Guide

Southern Thailand is the beaches — a long peninsula with the Andaman Sea on one side and the Gulf of Thailand on the other, and hundreds of limestone islands between them.

On the Andaman coast, Krabi and Phang Nga Bay have the karst towers rising sheer out of green water that made the region famous, with Railay reachable only by boat and some of the best rock climbing in Asia. Phuket is the developed end, with an old town of Sino-Portuguese shophouses that most visitors miss entirely.

On the Gulf side, Ko Samui, Ko Phangan and Ko Tao — the last of which certifies an extraordinary number of the world’s new scuba divers.

Inland it is jungle and rubber: Khao Sok, an ancient rainforest older than the Amazon, with a flooded reservoir of drowned karst peaks and floating raft houses.

The Andaman karst

Railay and Tonsai, cut off from the mainland by cliffs and reached by longtail from Ao Nang, with climbing routes on the limestone and a lagoon reached by a rope scramble. Phang Nga Bay by kayak, threading into hongs — collapsed cave chambers open to the sky inside the islands.

Islands

Ko Lanta for a slower pace and long beaches, Ko Yao Noi for rice fields and almost no tourism, the Similan and Surin islands for the region’s best diving on liveaboards, and Ko Lipe in the far south.

The Gulf side

Ko Tao for cheap, well-run dive courses; Ko Phangan for both the party and, on its north and east coasts, some of the quietest beaches in the country; Ko Samui for resorts and the Ang Thong marine park offshore.

Inland

Khao Sok national park — rainforest estimated at 160 million years old, hornbills and gibbons, and Cheow Lan lake where drowned karst peaks rise out of the water and you sleep on a floating raft house.

Towns

Phuket Old Town’s Sino-Portuguese shophouses and Hokkien food, and Songkhla and Nakhon Si Thammarat in the deep south, where almost no foreign visitors go.

The south is Thai, Chinese and Malay at once, and it is the part of the country where being Buddhist is not automatic.

A Muslim south

Islam is the majority religion in the far southern provinces bordering Malaysia, and there are substantial Muslim communities throughout the peninsula — mosques alongside temples, halal food widely available, and a different rhythm to the week. The four southernmost provinces have a Malay-speaking majority and a long-running separatist insurgency, which is why they are treated separately from the rest of the region.

Chinese Phuket

Tin mining brought large-scale Hokkien Chinese migration in the nineteenth century, and Phuket’s old town, its shrines, its vegetarian festival and much of its food come from that. The Sino-Portuguese shophouse architecture is shared with Penang and Malacca.

The sea peoples

The Moken and Urak Lawoi, traditionally nomadic boat-dwellers, live in settled communities on the Andaman islands now, with distinctive skills, beliefs and precarious land rights.

Rubber and tin

The southern economy was built on tin and is now built on rubber and palm oil, and the plantations run over most of the interior.

A distinct dialect

Pak tai, the southern dialect, is fast, clipped and hard for other Thais to follow.

The reefs are under real pressure. Bleaching, boat anchors and sunscreen have all done damage, and Thailand has closed sites to let them recover — Maya Bay was shut for years for exactly this reason. Use reef-safe sunscreen, never touch or stand on coral, and choose operators who use moorings and brief properly.

Elephant and animal attractions are widespread here. Do not ride, and avoid anything offering photographs with tigers or slow lorises. Genuine sanctuaries observe rather than handle.

Plastic and waste on small islands are a serious problem, with limited processing. Refill rather than buying bottled where you can, refuse straws and bags, and carry rubbish back to the mainland from the smaller islands.

Spread out. Phuket, Phi Phi and Samui absorb the great majority of visitors. Ko Lanta, Ko Yao Noi, Trang’s islands, Khao Sok and the deep-south coast are all quieter and want the trade.

The Moken sea-nomad communities are not an attraction; village visits arranged for photographs are best avoided.

The two coasts have opposite seasons, which is the single most useful thing to know about the south.

The Andaman coast — Phuket, Krabi, Phi Phi, Ko Lanta — is at its best from November to April: calm clear water, good diving and reliable sun. From May to October the south-west monsoon brings rough seas, and some boat services and island resorts close.

The Gulf coast — Samui, Phangan, Ko Tao — runs on a different cycle, with its best weather from February to September and its wettest months in October to December, when the north-east monsoon arrives. November is often washed out on the Gulf side while the Andaman is glorious.

So a trip in November or December should go west; a trip in July should go east.

Ko Phangan’s Full Moon Party runs monthly and fills the island for several days around it.

The Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, in September or October, is a remarkable nine-day Taoist event.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the region

The south is the most expensive part of Thailand, several times the cost of the north for equivalent comfort, and high-season island prices can approach Mediterranean levels.