KHAO LAK (Page 2 of 2 - Go to Page 1)

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	View from main road, Khao Lak town	Main road, Khao Lak town	Beach at Baan Khaolak
	Beach at Baan Khaolak	Beach at Baan Khaolak	Beautiful sunset on beach at Baan Khalak
	Police boat from tsunami	View from main road Khao Lak town	Main road, Khao Lak town
	Beautiful sunset on beach at Baan Khalak	Massage next to Baan Khaolak	Main supermarket in Khao Lak town

 

Restaurants and Bars in Khao Lak

 

Khao Lak nightlife is very low key. There are quite a good selection of restaurants and bars, but no nightclubs or girlie bars. Great for couples or families. Don't leave it too late to eat as some restaurants turned people away after 10pm. Some good places to eat and drink were:

Baan Khaolak Resort - Nice for lunch. Good selection of food and delicious Phad Thai with prawns, chicken fried rice and papaya salad (although not spicy enough). Had one good experience of a club sandwich and one bad one (with soggy toast and crisps). Bit more expensive than some places as they add 7% tax and 10% service charges.

Ruen Thai - On the main road. Nice spring rolls, enjoyed our red and yellow Thai curries although the yellow one had a flavour of Indian curry which was odd!

Phukhaolak - Directly opposite Baan Khaolak Resort on the main road, this place has a lovely atmosphere with seats outside with candles on the table and trees covered in fairy lights (maybe just for Christmas), with cute subtle Thai music playing. The food was good without being spectacular - nice spring rolls to start, then a Green Thai curry and a Penang Gai curry which were nice and spicy but didn't have enough vegetables for us. The place had just opened and they were extremely busy, but the service was attrocious and lots of people were complaining. The staff were mostly really young, and probably inexperienced, so hopefully these were just teething problems. Lots of potential anyway.

Viking Steak Restaurant - Excellent, very popular restaurant. We ate there twice and both times were delicious. If you feel like a change from Thai food you can't do much better than this. First time we had a Fillet Steak and a Chicken with a wine & mushroom sauce. Both were served with nice vegetables and hugy, yummy potato wedges. Very tasty and the meat was very tender with no fat. Complementary salad to start is a nice touch. We went back for a meal on New Years Eve. This time tried their extremely spicy Penang Gai - very flavoursome - and we had a couple of nice liqueur coffees.

 

We had a delicious pizza in Khao Lak Restaurant, also on the main street. The pasta looked really nice too and the place was very popular. Again, however, the service was terrible. This was certainly not the fault of the Thai staff who were running about trying their best to serve everyone. The western owner didn't seem to be making any effort to help them.

Divers Bar - nice for an ice cold beer

 

D-Time - Had a couple of cocktails here and it was worth it for the cocktail menu. If you look to the right you'll see the item that had us in stitches. B52's ingredients are Khalua, Baileys and Triple Secretary!!! This place was very popular but the service was terrible the night we were there and lots of people were complaining about having to wait too long for food.

We had a terrible lunch at Suwan Palm. The menu was pretty basic but we ordered a tuna sandwich and a chicken satay. The satay was absolutely vile - the worst sauce we've ever had - and the sandwich was tiny, with hardly any tuna and some anaemic chips. If you're looking for somewhere to eat on that area of the beach just walk a little bit further and eat at Baan Khaolak!

 

Massage

We were surprised that there weren't people offering massage along the beach like they do in Krabi. There were a few massage shops along the main street, but we find it more appealing to get a massage on the beach, listening to the waves. We can recommend the massage area just next to the Baan Khaolak where we paid 300B for an hour*. The man doesn't speak English but proudly points out his certificates and appears to be trained to a high level. One of the best massages we have ever had. His card says Wiwat Hatsanee, Nangthong Bay Resort II and telephone number is 089 4751060.

 

Shopping

Shopping in Khao Lak is very low key. No large malls but plenty of small shops where you can buy clothes, souvenirs, silk, wooden items, paintings, etc. There is a large supermarket in Khao Lak Town, several opticians (we can recommend Top Charoen Optical - helpful, friendly staff and very good quality ) and tailors, and several other small stores like 7-11 where you can buy drinks, toiletries, books, etc .

 

Like everywhere else in Thailand you are expected to barter. However, it's hard to do that in a place where many people have lost their family, friends, house, etc in the tsunami. A discount of a few baht will mean nothing to you, whereas every baht counts for these lovely people.

 

Trips from Khao Lak

There are many things to do from Khao Lak. Khao Sok National Park is nearby where you can go elephant trekking or canoing. Khao Lak is an ideal base for visiting the Similan Islands, some of the best dive sites in the world where you can either go on a day trip or stay on a boat for a multi-day dive tour. There are tours to James Bond Island, featured in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun.

Or hire a car and explore the area yourself. A reliable place to hire from is PCC Adventures (13/44 M.7, in Khao Lak town on a side street off the main road, down from the main supermarket, Tel: 076 485 126 or 089 6469195)). They are Budget Car Hire approved but we hired a car in high season and their budget cars were fully booked. They were still able to give us a Suzuki Jeep for just 1100B per day*. Very friendly and we'd go back there to hire again although we'd book in advance to try to get a better car.

 

The roads are fairly quiet, the standard of roads are good and it's nice to have some freedom to explore. Try to get a decent map before you head out though, as some roads aren't marked well and the map we had was useless. We decided to drive north to Takuapa and then get the ferry over to Kho Koh Khao, but we couldn't find the turn off for the ferry and finally decided it was 'a sign' and moved on! If you fancy going to Kho Koh Khao make sure you get good directions first!

 

On the main road at Bang Niang there is the Tsunami Museum. It's a small, low key museum but is interesting to look round, and there is a donation box where donations go to local children. Just along from the museum is a chilling reminder of the tsunami - a police boat that was swept about 3km inland, across the main road and into a field from the power of the wave.

 

Transport

The nearest airport to Khao Lak is Phuket, approximately 1½hours away. For transportation from Khao Lak to Phuket airport, we used Khaolak Travel & Tours Center, which is the first travel office on the main road just round the corner from the Baan KhaoLak Resort. You can call them on (66)076 485065 or e-mail them. We found them to be very friendly and efficient. Cost was 1100B.

Some useful sites about Khao Lak

Khao Lak Lovers - Useful site with an excellent forum. Ted who runs the site is incredibly helpful and knowledgeable about the area
My Khao Lak - a German site which is soon to be translated into English. The useful forum has some posts in English

Trip Advisor - Reviews from other travellers and a useful forum
Hotels in Khao Lak - Book hotels in Khao Lak, read travellers reviews of those hotels and earn rewards worth 5% of your booking to use against other reservations.

 

 

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