Our trip to Koh Mook, Trang. We planned the trip to see the Emerald Cave which is Tham Lod in Thai, “Lod” means you have to go underneath to get inside (and you do!).
As I mentioned in the previous review about Koh Mook, the island is centrally located and easy to access the other islands or attraction from here. Especially during the high season, Nov – Apr when everything (all dive spots) are open. You can explore so many islands and also there are so many great spots for diving!
Unfortunately, our visit was during the Indonesia wild fires which blocked out the sun for a few days until the winds shifted and blew it out for our last day. This also closed the dive centers so we couldn’t dive.
We separated our adventures into 2 day trips, to Koh Kradan (half day), Emerald cave and snorkel around the cave for another day for half day.
Let’s start with our snorkeling to Koh Kradan.
Koh Kradan is about 25 mins away from Koh Mook by long tail boat. The island has nice flat white beaches which is why they are call this island “Kradan” (wooden board). This island has a couple of great resorts on it, like Ananta (looks good!) but I think I like to stay at Koh Mook because there is no local village on Koh Kradan (just the national park office and some resorts on this island).
We did snorkeling around the island for 30 minutes, it was nice under the water but everything was so grey because there was no sun (it’s Smokey everywhere from Indonesia, dang it!) But when I looked from the boat, it looked crystal clear!
The boat that we hired is so nice to let us take our time. So we walked along the beach on Koh Kradan Island, guess what? At the end of the beach, it’s the best spot for our snorkeling of the day!
Today, we paid for the boat ride (with the tour guide) 1000 baht (no lunch), it’s a good half day out. We asked for more trip but the boat owner had another booking already for the afternoon. So we came back to the resort – and spend the rest of the day on Koh Mook.
*Our local boat in Trang sea
I tried hard to keep the Emerald Cave to visit on the last day, hope that the smoke from Indonesia goes away… And yes! It seems like everything is getting better, we could see some sun today.
We will do snorkeling at a couple spots around the Emerald Cave. But because we had a really great tour guide, he loves snorkeling. So we snorkeled about 4 spots.
*Timur was showing who much he enjoyed the trip with me!!! LOL…
The main reason for changing place to place is the tour guide would like to show the different beautiful things under the water. There are so many Nemo’s but we were surprised to see the otter!!!!
When we were done snorkeling, it’s time to get inside the Emerald cave (our highlight for this trip!!!)
*Another big line of tourist during we were getting inside the Emerald Cave
Before getting in, there are the national officers collecting fees for the national park, if you are non-Thai, you have to pay 200 baht each.
*Great view inside the Emerald Beach
I think I like the way that we have the tour guide to take us to the cave, it’s a short distance to get thru the other side but it’s so dark.
I was a little panicked because I can’t see anything, and I was excited to see the light from the other side of cave. HERE WE ARE!!! OMG! It’s a great beach inside and it’s an open cave!!!
The cave was once a secret spot for pirates to keep their treasure in the past. But nowadays, it’s one of the amazing things to see in Thailand and you should come to visit once. And I’m really glad that I made it (even we had so many problems and we almost cancelled the trip because of the smoke!)
There are not many things to do inside the cave, but nice view and most of local tourists like to do a photo jump, and me too!
End of the tour today, we took about 6 hours and it cost us about 2000baht (with lunch and watermelon). But there is still time for a massage before we check out and head to the airport this evening.
The tour ended but we are still talking about Koh Mook and the Emerald cave. Honestly, if you have been to other islands or beaches in Thailand but not yet visited this one, DON’T miss out!
