Thailand Guide
The east coast
Lonely Beach (Hat Tha Nam)
Hat Tha Nam – dubbed LONELY BEACH before it became Ko Chang's top place to party – is small and lively, with a shorefront that's occupied by just four sets of increasingly expensive accommodation and a hinterland village, ten minutes' walk away, that's the most traveller-oriented on the island. It's here, overlooking the rocks immediately south of the beach, and along the sandy sois that run inland to the main road, that backpackers feel most at home, in little bungalows and guest houses squashed any old how beneath the remaining trees, with every other shop-shack offering tattoos or internet access.
Despite the creeping concrete, creatively-designed little wood and bamboo bar-restaurants abound, some of them offering chilled, low-key escapes from the loud dance music, all-night parties and B250 buckets of vodka Red Bull that the beachfront places are notorious for, others cranking it up just as hard and fast. The most intense partying mostly happens down on the beach, usually at Nature Beach, which anyway kicks off most high-season nights with seafood barbecues, live music and fire-juggling shows.
Day and (especially) night, you should be extremely careful when swimming off Lonely Beach, especially around Siam Beach at the northern end, as the steep shelf and dangerous current result in a sobering number of double-figure drownings every year, particularly during the monsoon season; do your swimming further south and don't go out at all when the waves are high. Also be careful with your belongings – many a drunken night sees cameras, phones and wallets pilfered unnoticed.