Southern · Thailand
Phang Nga · พังงา
James Bond Island, Khao Lak diving, Similan Islands ferry port.
- Region
- Southern
- Population
- 269,000
- Area
- 4,171 km²
- Stories filed
- 2
About Phang Nga
History
Phang Nga's history as a tin-mining province shaped a distinct Sino-Peranakan urban culture visible in the old town's shophouse facades, painted in the characteristic yellows and blues of Straits Chinese architecture. The Khao Lak coast, once a quiet fishing and rubber region, was the hardest-hit part of Thailand in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami; the International Tsunami Museum at Nam Khem, and the beached Royal Thai Police patrol boat at Bang Niang — swept a kilometre inland by the wave — are sober monuments. The province's limestone karst geography is among the most spectacular on earth.
Landscape & geography
The province divides into three distinct geographies: the Gulf-facing Phang Nga Bay on the east, with hundreds of limestone islands drowned in shallow turquoise water; the long, sandy Khao Lak coast facing the Andaman on the west; and the forested Khao Sok interior, whose ancient Permian limestone karsts shelter the oldest evergreen rainforest on the Asian mainland. Khao Sok's Cheow Lan Lake, impounded by the Ratchaprapha Dam in 1982, flooded a pristine valley to create a dramatic landscape of flooded forest and vertical karst towers.
Why visit
Phang Nga Bay sea-kayaking — through tidal sea caves that open at low water into hidden hongs of vertical limestone and mangrove — is the finest half-day activity on the Andaman coast. James Bond Island is photogenic but crowded; the Ko Panyee floating fishing village is a better use of the same boat tour. Khao Sok's Cheow Lan Lake raft-house nights, surrounded by karst towers and hornbills at dawn, are essential — book the early-morning jungle walk to see gibbons. Khao Lak's beaches and the Similan Islands liveaboard diving are among the Andaman's very best.
Stories from Phang Nga
Articles, reviews, and itineraries tagged to this province.
