Ko Nang Yuan
Interesting facts
- The island has long banned visitors from bringing plastic items or foam boxes; drinking water is served there in glass bottles instead.
- Japanese Gardens, a dive site off the islets' eastern side, owes its name to coral formations arranged like an oriental garden, starting just 2 to 3 metres down.
- Red Rock, or Nang Yuan Pinnacle, is a large underwater boulder with swim-through arches and a big cave on its western side.
- At the Twins dive site, three groups of granite rocks covered in corals and sponges rise from sandy patches beside a coral garden.
- Green Rock, a nearby site, is a maze of swim-throughs, canyons, caverns and caves formed by huge granite boulders.
Why it is worth it
Three small, steep, rocky islets joined by a curving bar of white sand, with clear turquoise water on both sides: Ko Nang Yuan in the Gulf of Thailand has one of the most distinctive shapes of any island in the country, and its image is used again and again to represent the Thai islands, alongside places such as Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi. Seen from the viewpoint on one of the islets, the sandbar forms a narrow causeway between two bays, with the larger island of Ko Tao rising just behind.
Ko Nang Yuan lies only about 480 metres off the north-west coast of Ko Tao and belongs to the same administrative subdistrict, part of Ko Pha-ngan District in Surat Thani Province. The islands form part of the Chumphon Archipelago on the western side of the Gulf of Thailand. The land itself is state property, owned by the Treasury Department of Thailand's Ministry of Finance and leased to a single operator. The sandbar is so narrow that the islets have no internal transport; one walks from one end to the other.
The real wealth of Ko Nang Yuan is underwater. Coral reefs fringe the islets, and the shallow bays are used daily by dive schools from Ko Tao. Among the best-known sites nearby is Nang Yuan Pinnacle, also called Red Rock, a submerged rock formation off the islands. The same waters are well suited to snorkelling.
Getting there
Ko Nang Yuan is reached by boat from Ko Tao: catamarans run from Mae Haad, the island's port, and smaller long-tail boats and water taxis from other beaches, in about 15 minutes. Ko Tao itself has ferry connections to Chumphon on the mainland, about 74 km away, and to Surat Thani, Ko Samui and Ko Pha-ngan; Chumphon is also on the railway. The nearest airport is Samui International Airport (USM), about 69 km away in a straight line; Chumphon Airport (CJM) is on the mainland side.
On these lists
10.11734, 99.81440per Wikidata