Koh Libong - A True Off The Beaten Path Thai Island Paradise
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We’ve worked our way down the west coast of Thailand staying on the islands of Phuket, Koh Yao Noi, Koh Jum, Koh Lanta, Koh Mook and Koh Lipe. You would think we’d be bored of islands by now! But no, the Thai islands keep us coming back for more and each island has its own unique charms. Whatever it is you’re looking for, from scuba diving to rave parties, there will be a Thai island that provides.
Our final island stop on this visit to Thailand was to be three days and two nights staying on the island of Koh Libong. We knew very little about the island, but had heard positive things. We were expecting an even more laidback island than Koh Mook and with even less tourists than Koh Jum. We set off into the relative unknown, and boy what we found… Koh Libong may well be our favourite Thai island!
This off the beaten path island was stunningly beautiful and blew all of our expectations out of the crystal clear waters of the Andaman Sea.
How To Get To and From Koh Libong?
From the mainland you can get to Koh Libong via the Hat Yao pier in the province of Trang. This pier is located about an hour away from the city of Trang, or two hours from Krabi airport. It’s a short ferry ride and should cost you around 100 to 150 baht per person.
If you’re already on a neighbouring island, then you can get to the island via a long tail boat. The long tail boats will drop you off either at Koh Libong’s main pier of Banphrao Pier, or if you’re staying on the western beaches, directly on to the beach outside your accommodation!
We travelled from Koh Mook and it cost us 1400 baht (£33.02 or $41.51) for two people including a tuk tuk pickup from our Koh Mook accommodation and a private long tail drop off to the beach in front of our Koh Libong accommodation. The whole journey took around an hour. This was a pricey option, but the alternative would have been a ferry to the mainland, a taxi or minibus between two piers and another ferry to Banphrao pier on Koh Libong. After all of this we would still have needed to have got a tuk tuk from the pier to our new accommodation. We may have saved 500 odd baht doing this, but we would have sacrificed the best part of a day. Backpacking is all about compromising your time versus money and on this occasion with the shorter stay on Koh Libong we thought that our time was more precious.
If you find yourself on Koh Mook and do want the most budget friendly option; get the public ferry across the water from Koh Mook pier to Khuang Tung Ku pier for around 100 baht per person, then get a private taxi, or a shared minivan from the pier to Hat Yao pier (a fifteen minute ride), and then catch a public ferry across the water. This should get you to Koh Libong for a little under 900 baht for two people.
If you’re on an island slightly further away, you can hop on any of the speedboat services that work their way up and down the western islands. This is usually the more expensive option, but will almost certainly be the quickest. Both the speedboat and long tail boat tickets can be arranged via your accommodation or via any travel agent wherever you are. If you like being prepared and having everything booked in advance, the tickets can be brought online via 12Go.
The Island of Koh Libong
Our long tail boat from Koh Mook approached the island and we could see a near endless and empty white sand beach stretching along the coast. It was only as we skimmed closer over the ridiculously clear water that we realised that this was the “busiest” main beach on the island! It was something out of a tourist brochure, you know the ones where they have to photoshop out the crowds of pasty sunbathers, except here there was no photoshop trickery, just a beautiful, deserted stretch of the most perfect beach you could imagine.
Koh Libong’s busiest beach….
Koh Libong is far less visited than other islands on the west coast of Thailand. It is still a `working island` in that it has an economy outside of tourism and there are no 7/11s, chain stores and only a few small scale beachside “resorts”. Koh Libong is also a predominantly Muslim island so alcohol is not available outside of some of the hotels. This all means that it is not a party island which discourages a good portion of the banana pancake trail backpackers. Koh Libong is a little oasis, a Thai island with beaches straight out of a postcard but with hardly any tourists there.
Our visa was running out in Thailand and we had only booked a couple of nights on Koh Libong but as we jumped from our long tail boat into the diamond sparkling water outside our hotel we were already regretting not booking more.
Where to Stay on Koh Libong?
There are only a smattering of hotels and guest houses to choose from on the island and most of them are clustered on a single beach in the south west. These hotels stretch along the beach with wooden bungalows sitting up on stilts looking down out onto the sea.
We opted for Le Dugong Hotel (location), The hotel was on the beach, had good reviews and, crucially for us, was not too pricey! The raised beachside bungalows of Le Dugong were set within flower-strewn gardens and swaying palm trees. The room had a large comfy bed and private open air bathroom and shower. The room was fan only but the shaded windows and clever wooden design meant that it was always cool and airy inside. We had a little veranda with fantastic views over the beach and out across the sea. This unassuming beach hut, with its beautifully crafted wooden interior was one of our favourite accommodations we have stayed in so far.
Click here to book your stay at Le Dugong Hotel.
Le Dugong also has a restaurant that serves food throughout the day and evening. We only used this for breakfast, so can only report that they make very good scrambled eggs! Le Dugong is also one of the very few places on the island that serves beer. You would think that this would mean paying a premium price for a large bottle, but no, it was ironically our cheapest island beer from our whole Thai island adventures!
Jellie beer price index 1 x large bottle of Leo cost 100 baht (£2.35 or $2.94)
There are a couple more hotels on offer on this beach, one offers slightly cheaper rooms that are set a little distance back from the beach and another is considerably fancier (and more expensive) and has (we think) the only swimming pool on the island. As this was to be our last island on this leg of our Thailand trip, we chose the middle path. Beachfront, but not overly bougie, Le Dugong was the Goldilocks choice!
Have a look at the map below to check out the accommodation choices on the island.
What to Do on Koh Libong
Beaches
The number one recommendation we can give for Koh Libong is just to enjoy the beach. The south western beach of Lang Khao Beach (location), the one with the majority of the hotels on, is simply spectacular. The beach is blessed with perfect white sand and the clearest water we have ever seen. Seriously, when we were pulling into the island on our long tail boat, a couple of hundred metres offshore, we could see all the way to the bottom!
Adding to the white sand and the crystal waters, is the fact that you’re basically getting this beach to yourself. The beach must be over a km long and at its busiest, had five other people on it whilst we were there! It would be foolish not to spend your time here, when else in life are you presented with a postcard perfect, near deserted beach. Just don’t be like us and forget to pack your snorkel.
It is almost too perfect!
There are other beaches on the island as well, usually accessible by scooter. Further north from Lang Khao beach is Tung Yaka Beach (location), an even more secluded white sand paradise. Panyang Beach (location) is also meant to be lovely and very good for snorkelling (we didn’t manage to get there in our short stay). Tub Beach (location) lying on the east of the island, the beach is more for birdwatching than sunbathing as it’s a great spot to watch migratory birds (again we didn’t manage to get there so cannot comment).
Lang Khao Beach is home to armies of hermit crabs. During the day you’ll frequently see the small ones skittering back and forth across the sands. At night however is when the giants come out. Hordes of hermit crabs with shells of every shape and size crowd the beach. Le Dugong hotel puts out little plates of food for the crabs and these become a literal feeding frenzy of shunting, shuffling crustaceans!
Although we failed spectacularly in spotting much non-crabby wildlife, Koh Libong boasts fantastic biodiversity in the sea. Sea turtles frequent the island and the ubiquitous dugong is also a visitor to the island's sea grasses. An organised tour will give you better luck in spotting these elusive creatures than we had on our stay. Tours can be booked through your accommodation or from one of the shops on the islands.
Point Dugong - Viewpoint and Cave (location)
Point Dugong is, for some reason, listed as a theme park on Google Maps. There are no slides and roller coasters here but it is still well worth a visit. Located up a winding and very steep road, so steep in fact that we parked our scooter and walked the last stretch, lies the entrance counter for Point Dugong. It was at this point we almost turned around and left as the sign stated it would cost 400 baht per person to enter! Luckily for us it looks like this sign is a sign of things to come and not a current cost; the island looks like it is in the midst of developing Point Dugong and this will be the final entrance fee when it is done. In any case there wasn’t anyone to collect it from us and the only other bike in the car park was owned by a charming older gent from Germany who cheerfully reassured us that we didn’t need to pay anything. Trusting our new German friend we wandered past the entrance counter and up into the park.
Point Dugong is split into two sections, there is a viewpoint out across the bay accessed by the path that forks right from the entrance, and a cave accessible via the left hand path.
The viewpoint is lovely, the high vantage point giving great views out to sea. There is a large wooden platform under the shade of trees and whilst we were there a Thai family came up and had their lunch on this scenic spot. We wished we had thought of that! Below in the shallows you can see fishermen and rock pool hunters going about their business.
We didn’t see any dugongs (a recurring theme for us) and don’t know if it an especially good place to try and see them from, nevertheless, it was a great place to stop and admire the view.
The caves at Point Dugong are an entirely different experience, much more of an adventure!
The caves start out on a well maintained, new looking set of stairs. As you climb, the paths wind up and through some amazing caves. Every so often there will be a break in the rocks forming a window with views out across the sea and…the sheer drop below. Abruptly however, the well maintained path ends and you are left to continue upwards. Occasionally a section of the path will re-emerge with steps or a rope to help you up a steep portion of rocks but it definitely looks like this is an area they haven’t finished redeveloping yet.
Beware also there are a couple of forks in the path. Including one which looked like a cliff edge walk with a small rope and six inches of ledge being all that separated you and a long fall. We reasoned (correctly as it turned out) that this couldn’t be the way and continued on up. Eventually we reached a fantastic viewpoint near the top of the mountain, with jaw dropping views across the island and sea. A frayed rope up a near vertical rock indicated that it was possible to go higher but we decided this was quite high enough! After admiring the view and taking the obligatory selfie, we headed back down the mountain.
Point Dugong is well worth a visit, it is a scooter or taxi ride away from anything, but is a lovely viewpoint. The caves were exciting and fun to scramble around but we wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with small children or mobility issues!
Dugong Tower and Leekpai Pier (location)
In the village of Ban Ba Tu Pu Pe, to the north of Point Dugong is the Dugong Tower. The tower is set over the water at the end of the Leekpai Pier, confusingly called Leekpai Bridge on Google Maps. You can either scooter / taxi to the village and walk down the pier or you can scooter all the way across the water and park just underneath the tower. We parked up in the village and walked down the long hot pier. At low tide you can see lots of mudskippers and wading birds hunting or just generally flopping around on either side of the pier. As you get to the end you are treated to a brightly painted mural of dugongs on the pier itself and finally the viewing tower.
At the top of the tower, up a few sets of concrete steps, you can see out across the bay and to the towering limestone cliffs of Point Dugong.
Through the clear water we saw large shoals of fish and waving clumps of seagrass. We did not, however, see any dugongs. At this point, after staying on Koh Mook and now Koh Libong, after visiting at least 5 places with dugong in the name and still not catching a glimpse of these cute ocean grazers, we started to suspect that we are cursed.
The village at the base of the pier is also worth exploring.
Home to a couple of guesthouses and quite a few restaurants, street food vendors and shops, this little village was relaxed, friendly and great fun to wander around.
Stone Bridge (location)
At the far north of the island sits the stone bridge. To get to the stone bridge you drive (or are driven) all the way up and round the north of the island and park up next to a snack stall. From there you walk for a couple of minutes through a forest until you pop out into a cove. This small beach is littered with boulders and rocks along the shore line but on the left lies the main attraction. A large mass of black stone with a flat top sits squat on the shoreline, at low tide the receding water reveals the ‘bridge’, a curved archway carved into the rock by the ever changing tides. Below the bridge, the waves flow in and out of the opening. The bridge is a nice excuse to have a drive and explore the north of the island, it's not Durdle Door and is completely invisible at low tide but it is a cool thing to go and see.
Scootering About
We loved scootering around on Koh Libong, it has fantastic paved roads pretty much everywhere on the island and very little traffic.
We rented our scooter from the lovely lady at Star Coffee Bar and Restaurant (more on this later) for 200 baht rental for the whole day (£4.70 or $5.88). When we asked for helmets she looked confused, then reassured us that there were no police on the island…. We eventually convinced her that we wanted helmets, not because we feared legal repercussions but because we feared other road users, and two helmets were found for us.
We scooted around most of the above attractions in a day, stopping wherever we felt like it, taking pictures, grabbing drinks and generally having a wonderful time. Being Londoners, it never ceases to amaze us that you can just park your bike anywhere and leave it unattended and there is no worry of it being pinched!
If you are happy riding a scooter we cannot recommend it enough on Libong. For those who do not want to ride their own scooter there are tuk tuk taxi services available from the southern beach, where you can get an individual ride or hire them for a day’s sightseeing.
Next time we’re on Libong we will hire a scooter again and spend a day exploring the beaches we didn’t manage to get to this time.
Best Places to Eat on Koh Libong
One of the only criticisms we have seen online of Koh Libong is that there is a limited choice of dining options. We can see this maybe being an issue if you stayed there for a couple of weeks but for a shorter stay there are plenty of options to keep you interestingly fed.
Fisherman’s Kitchen (location)
For our first lunch on the island we had chicken noodle soups at the Fisherman’s Kitchen. These noodles were cheap, hearty and delicious with rich broths and roasted shredded chicken that was full of flavour. We later returned here for a healthy banana roti breakfast (cough cough), which was excellently crispy and sweet, just what you want in a banana pancake!
Mao-Nom Cafe (location)
Down the road from the Fisherman’s Kitchen, towards the sea, is a white wooden coffee shack. Busy with locals and tourists from the nearby hotels, this little shack puts out some great coffee and Thai teas.
These are all of the powdered variety so don’t go expecting some artisan small batch brew, but they were cheap and powerful and a great pick me up after a morning's lazing on the beach.
Star Coffee Bar and Restaurant (location)
Further inland but still only a few minutes walk away from the beach hotels is the amazing Star Coffee Bar and Restaurant. Amazing not just for its food but also for the wonderful powerhouse of a lady running it. She cooks, she organises tours, she can arrange taxis, she runs a scooter rental and has a petrol pump! In short she is a one stop shop for all your touristy needs whilst on Koh Libong. Her scooter rental was significantly cheaper than our hotel's offer and the transfer she arranged to the mainland and onwards to the city of Trang was 400 baht cheaper than the nearest other offer we found! To add to all of this she was a funny and genuinely welcoming lady.
We ate at her restaurant twice whilst on Koh Libong . The first time we had crispy fried fish and little soft shell crabs and the second we had a gorgeous barbecued mackerel. Both times that we ate here, the food was fresh, delicious and surprisingly cheap. We absolutely loved this place. Please bear in mind it is all cooked by one person on a single wok so if it is busy there may be a little wait, but this is an island! Calm down, chill out and enjoy the laid back pace of it all!
Ja Nhai Seafood (location)
This one was special. We had been jealousy craving crab since our friends had ordered an amazing looking platter of it on Koh Yao Noi . We had done our research and decided that Ja Nhai Seafood of Koh Libong would be the place we would have our crab fix.
We took our scooter and drove there for a luxurious late lunch. The restaurant is set out within shaded wooden platforms looking out to sea. The menu is reassuringly short and the place reassuringly lively with Thai’s. Thai people really seem to know and respect a good seafood place so it is always a good sign when you find yourself dining alongside them!
We ordered a whole steamed fish with chilli and some yellow curry crab. To cut a long story short, it was one of the best meals of the trip so far! The fish was excellently balanced, super spicy whilst retaining the sweet perfectly cooked taste of the flesh. Steamed in a delicate ginger, lime and coriander sauce it was amazing, but when paired with the crab it was just next level. The crab was sweet and perfect, the rich sauce never overpowering the white meat. Pulling apart the crab shell and hunting out the delicious tender meat, we got super messy (is there any other way to eat crab?) but it was totally worth the yellow stained fingers. We now find ourselves daydreaming about this place and the wonderful meal we had there.
To top it all off, the meal was very reasonably priced. A whole steamed fish, crab for two and two soft drinks only set us back 535 baht (£12.57 or $15.74). If we were staying on the island for longer we would have come back here again and again.
Ban Ba Tu Pu Pe Village
If you’re after cheap eats and street food, there are a couple of vendors in the village of Ban Ba Tu Pu Pe offering roti, noodle soups etc.
Beer on the Beach - Sunset in Koh Libong
If you are staying in any of the hotels on the south western beach then you are in for a treat come sundown. The beach faces out to the west and so gets a fantastic view of sunset. The hotels are also some of the only places on the island where alcohol is available.
The two facts of - perfect sunset spot and available beer led to the obvious conclusion that this would be a perfect place to enjoy a sundowner drink. So we made our camp at the tiny Le Dugong Bar and popped open our Leo’s. What followed was nothing short of magical. The sun sank slowly and lit up the entire sky with vibrant oranges, then purples, whilst hundreds of small swallows zipped around us.
We were sat on driftwood furniture with these little birds flitting past us no further than a couple of feet away. We’ve had some incredible sunsets in our time in Thailand, but the ones we spent sipping beer on a deserted beach in Koh Libong are some of our most memorable.
Koh Libong is amazing. Empty beaches, friendly locals, good food and some of the most amazing sunsets we have ever seen. Half of us doesn’t want to publish this article and keep Koh Libong to ourselves as a special Thai getaway but that would be unfair and dumb. There is a small amount of development already on the island, with a new hotel and bar coming to the main beach area as well as the infrastructure and improvement of the tourist attractions. Koh Libong cannot stay a secluded paradise forever so go out and enjoy it now!
Quick Questions
Is Koh Libong Worth It?
Did you read the article? This island is phenomenal. The only time we could see it not being worth being included in your itinerary is if you’re strictly in Thailand for parties. It’s chilled out, beautiful, fun to drive around and all in all one of our favourite places we’ve been.
Can you tell we rather liked Koh Libong?
How Long to Spend on Koh Libong?
This is always a tricky one with islands as it depends on how many days you want to spend lounging on a beach. You can definitely see all the island's “attractions” within a day or two, but we would recommend spending more than the two nights we spent. We would have loved to have had another two nights here to really relax, explore some more beaches and just generally embrace the slow island life (also to eat some more crab!).
When to Visit Koh Libong?
The peak season for tourism in western Thailand runs from October to April. As there’s not a lot to do apart from beaches, make sure you head here then. As mentioned it was near deserted when we visited, but there is a limited amount of accommodation so if it did get busy it would fill up quickly. We’d recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
*Prices correct at time of visiting - March 2023
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