The difference between Phang Nga and Pha Ngan Thailand

When booking your travel to Thailand, double check your facts -- and your ticket -- if you're heading to Phang Nga or Pha Ngan.

They are NOT the same place. In fact, decidedly different ...

Phang Nga is a massive bay in the Andaman Sea on the south-west coast of Thailand, famous for its emerald waters and jutting upthrusting limestone karst islands. It was first brought to worldwide prominence by the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun and hence one of the islands here (actually Koh Ping-Gan) is only known as James Bond Island. Another famous spot here is Koh Panyee (Sea Gypsy Island) named for its nomadic seafaring locals.

Boat tours or kayaking tours are the best way to see the bay and its 42 entrancing islands (mostly uninhabited) and it is most easily accessed from Phuket by ferry.

Or, if you were here 10,000 years ago when the sea levels were lower, you could've walked here, jing jing.

Phangan (or Koh Pha Ngan to be exact) on the other hand is in the Gulf of Thailand, on the south-east of Amazing Thailand. About 15 km from Koh Samui. Phangan was put on the map by a little farewell party which proved quite popular. So it was staged again and grew into a regular thing each month. You may have heard of the Full Moon Party?

This is held at Haad Rin Bay. The island has developed greatly because of this, but is rather quiet comparatively during the month, and there are plans to make it more family friendly.

Phangan was featured prominently in Alex Garland's book The Beach, on which the movie was based. Having said that, the movie was filmed in the Phang Nga area. Go figure! Fans of the German band Ace of Base might want to get out their iPods and check out the song Vision in Blue. It's about Phangan ...

A vision in blue 
Forever young 
A token so true 
My Koh Phangan [4x]
I see you dancing in front of my face 
Your body is moving to the trace of the chase 
I'm flashing for you 
A bright light in the night for you

Aah, they don't write lyrics like that anymore. (But there again, they are German.)

So now you know the difference between Phang Nga and Pha Ngan. Are you in the right place after all? Or would you rather be at the OTHER place instead???

The happiness index in Amazing Thailand, the Land of Smiles.

Although it literally translates as 'Land of the Free', Amazing Thailand has long been known as 'The Land of Smiles' for the very good reason that it seems a smile is naturally not very far away from the lips of most Thais.

As any traveller will tell you, you usually receive excellent return on investment every time you offer a smile and a polite greeting to a Thai. (Compare this with trying to get a smile and a hello out of someone passing in the street on a grey winters day in, say, Frankfurt.)

But are Thais really happy people or is this just some sort of cultural defense mechanism?

I've done some rummaging about for you, and there are several answers ...

The Bangkok Post recently published an article that indicated that Thais have grown happier each year since 2008 according to the National Statistical Office who publish a 'Happiness Indicator' each year. The Happiness Index scores have risen nearly 6% since then.

Further, they found the happiest residents on average -- and presumably the largest Thailand smiles -- in Phang Nga (that's south near Phuket, not to be confused with Phangan where the smiles are more to do with mushrooms), followed by Trang (south, near Krabi), Maha Sarakham (no idea, look it up yourself), Narathiwat (deep south) and Tak (halfway between Bangkok and Chiang Mai, and deemed to be the starting point of Northern Thailand).

Now get this ...

In the Happy Planet Index 2009, Thailand ranked 41st of all countries. Hmmm, not very high satisfaction you might think. But look at some other results: UK - 74th! Australia 102nd! USA 114th!

Now any Americans reading this and questioning the methodology, etc, had better listen and listen good. Because here's a second opinion. And not just any opinion, but one from a North Korean Happiness Index report on the internet, so you know it's objective, reliable, impartial and accurate, jing jing.

North Korea ranks China as the happiest country in the world, followed by North Korea 2nd. Last place? The USA. So there you have it.

So look around you ... are people largely smiling or frowning? Now go for a walk down the street and smile at someone ... did you get a big sunny grin in return that threatened to split their cheeks -- or did they threaten to call the cops on you?

If it was the latter, perhaps it's time to travel to Thailand, the land of smiles.