Koh Lipe is a small island located off the southwest coast of Thailand and known for it’s white sand beaches, turquoise waters on the Andaman Sea. Also known as “The Maldivian island of Thailand” is an absolute tropical paradise.

We got dropped off at the Pattaya beach, it’s a busy jetty from where you will enter the island. A local taxi ride of 50 bhat per person will take you anywhere on the Island.

We reached our hotel “Andaman beach resort by Zodiac”. The property was right at the beach, it felt like a classic Island vibe. The restaurant was on the beach, you can sit any number of hours sitting and staring at this beautiful view.

I quickly went around to check with the dive shop for next day’s dive. There was one next to our resort(Forra divers). They explained the formalites, whattime i need to come next day. Visited a few more dive centers and finally signed up with Forra divers for next day’s dive.

We walked to the north point beach, zodiac seasun resto was an amazing place to spend your evening. Sun going down, raw setup with some woody structures, nice music and it was a relaxed place on the beach. You can sit there as long as you want,  doing nothing on the beach and music with a drink in hand.

Later that night, we explored the walking street. The cafes looked very boutique like…. It was a very beautiful lane to walk around, each restaurant/cafe looked so cool!

Amazing vibe! We sat at an open dinning restaurant over looking the street with a tiny little garden setup and artifical smoke fragrents lighting up the place with authentic Thai cusine to relish. We came back and crashed early as i had a long dive days coming up.

Early morning grabbed a coffee and waited for sunrise, had a quick breakfast before going to the dive shop next door. We got trasferred to their dive center and meet our dive buddies & dive master. Took our gears and got on to a small boat, that took us to a bigger boat.

After a short briefing about the boat, we had time to relax a bit. This is the first time, i’m on a boat that was super crowded. You can had to move from behind at times because the way was blocked. There were fun divers, divers doing their certification, DSD, bubble maker divers …. Met a lot of people…

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Now it’s time to get our gears ready, buddy check and get into the waters for our first dive. The dive site is called Koh Tarue, it was a very relaxing dive. A lot of yellow fin school, corals seemed a bit bleached. Nothing fancy in this dive but still a very good one. There was a bit of current through out this dive.

Back on the boat, during the surface interval had quick lunch, discussed about the next dive site called Talang steps. We reached the dive site, instructor said current is strong, so we have to alter the in and out location… Finally got into the water, felt the current instantly. We were asked to get down to the bottom and hold on to a piece of rock. Saw a jelly fish, swam with it and got back to the same place, held on to the rock. Instructor said crawl but a piece of rock came off so as my regulator from my mouth and by the time got everything back i was pushed a bit into the blue. Panicked but tried to get to the bottom and no one seemed to notice me. I kept kicking and got exhausted. Decided to go to the top and stop my dive. Went up, waved my hands to the boat captain and he came to pick me up. It was not a good experience at all. More than anything else the other divers had to stop their dive and come as a safety protocol of missing diver.  Except one French diver all others were angry on me. But anyways they went back again for a short dive, i was not happy… i disturbed their dive & experience.

Got back to the shore and just relaxed on the resort’s beach for couple of hours. And i wanted a shallow relaxing dive to just regain some confidence. I planned to do the night dive, started off just before the sunset. We reached the dive shop but my buddies weren’t happy, could see that. Waited for a bit and went to the dive boat, as the sunset we got our gears ready. Switched on the lights, started our dive. It was a simple dive didn’t see anything spectacular but was good. Eerls, small schools of fish, planktons and few more. All of us had one good chat before we left. I decided not to dive the next day.

Spent that evening in the walking street, had some amazing seafood, hopped a few restos and finally hit the bed late in the night.

Next day wanted to have a perfect beach day. Woke up for the sunrise, it was beautiful. Very calm, rested on one of the beach beds and slowly the sun rised…. Sipped freshly brewed, had a massage on the beach parlor…  Breakfast was amazing….

Sun was out full flow, people started to pile up on the beach to get sun tanned.. you can sit the whole day on the beach with a light music at the back and a chilled drink to beat the heat….. This place is definetly an Island paradise.