My school gave me 6 weeks off this summer, so I boarded a plane to Thailand, grabbed the g/f in Bangers, and went down south for a month of sun. Some of the beaches I had already been to, and there were a few I wanted to check out for the first time.
Anyway, the first stop was Koh Phangan. We got off the boat and boarded a 4x4 truck headed to Thong Nai Pan Yai. The good news is that they've smoothed out the road to Thong Nai Pan. The bad news is that there are more people there now, and the beach is getting more crowded with boats - it's not like it was 2 years ago when we first went, but it's still great for swimming. We stayed here for about 2 weeks.
These were 600 a night. Hot water and right on the beach. The restaurant sucks, but walk a few steps behind the resort and there are a few good places, the best being a joint called Som's, which serves the best food on the island.
Now a few weeks later we went to the beach next to this one, Thong Nai Pan Noi. This beach is a bit smaller, but still great for swimming. The main restaurant here is fantastic, complete with fire shows, and they've got a few bars along the beach that serve up cheap draft beer. This place is a bit more upmarket than its sister beach. There's a huge bungalow operation under construction in the middle of the beach that looks to be completed in about a year, so it's a bit noisy at the moment.
The town at Noi is okay, especially if you don't want to be ripped off by the high prices the resorts charge at their restaurants. There's one joint that serves up their very own handsome sandwiches:
We went to Haad Rin once but it's a royal pain to get back. The taxi mafia wanted 800 baht, so we just took a longtail for 1000 instead which made the ride a lot nicer: