Koh Lipe, widely regarded as the little Maldives, saw many posts on Facebook saying how beautiful it is, white beaches, the sea are all in turquoise colour, and not to forget, the well known Thai hospitality. And so my family decided to go after hearing all the good words about this place and we went there on the 27th, 28th & 29th March, 2015.
We are from Kuala Lumpur, so we actually took a flight to Langkawi island on the 26th, spend a night there and the next morning, we took the ferry from Langkawi itself to Koh Lipe, it took about an hour for us to reach Koh Lipe. Haha, I won't focus much on the Langkawi because we, the Malaysian, know that Langkawi is good for the tax free, which mean the chocolate and any alcohol drinks and even tobacco, are cheaper compare to the other places in Malaysia. People who travel to Langkawi are usually come back with a bag full of chocolate, etc Ferrero Rocher, Pepero, or with a bottle or two of liquor and wine. The one day of me in Langkawi, are basically more about drink, drank, drunk. Haha.
 |
| Us, at KLIA 2, ready to depart to Langkawi island on our first day :) |
From Langkawi to Koh Lipe, we need to board the ferry at the place where a lot of yacht park at, I don't know the name for that place, but if you ever been to the cable car thingy in Langkawi, you will pass by a jetty where a lot of yacht park there, hmm, there's a Petronas petrol station there. The Thai immigration is also there, so we actually have to get our passport stamp before we board the jetty. Bear in mind, as for now, the ferry from Langkawi to Koh Lipe has only two times for a day, it is either 10am or 2pm, so is kinda limited, expect them to add in more in the future.
 |
| Chilling at the jetty, waiting for the right time to board |
The ferry don't stop you at the beach straight or either do they stop at another jetty and you have a walkway to walk to the beach, without getting wet. No no no. The ferry will actually stop you at a so call platform that is near to the Koh Lipe's beach, and from there, we need to take a smaller boat that is made out from wood, to the beach. The small boat will bring you and your luggage from the water platform to the beach. Little suggestion is try not to wear shoe and long pants because when you get out from the boat, you will actually step into the sea, the water level is between your ankle and your knee, so yea, wear your flip flop and short pants to stay dry.
 |
This is the water platform when you get out from the ferry
and wait for the smaller boat |
 |
| Welcome to Koh Lipe! |
Owh! Your passport will be taken care by the immigration people when you board the ferry, and they will give it back to you once you reach Koh Lipe. Therefore, the first thing you need to do after your feet can feel the sand of the beach, you need to get back your passport from the immigration officer before you check in to your accommodation respectively. I stayed in Mali Resort, everything is fine except for my aircond, it's just not working, I guess is just the luck thing and the resort were running full house at that period so I guess they can't change the room for me. There's no swimming pool in Mali Resort, yes, I guess people will think since you have this nice sea right in front of you, why do you need a pool? Well, how about I wanted to swim safely and peacefully during night time? A swimming pool will make sense by then. Some of other resort actually do have swimming pool though haha.
Is Thailand, and is an island, the weather can be really hot, you can get sunburn just by walking along the beaches, so my advice is to apply sunblock all the time especially you are a girl. There's this walking street in Koh Lipe, it can be really happening at night, not so in the day time because of the sun haha. Most of the tourist would dine in at the walking street area and not in their resort, and there too have a lot of massage parlour. There's even a 7-11, so it is really a great news for me as Thailand's 7-11 is so much better than the one we have in Malaysia, they offer more food! During my time at Koh Lipe, the best restaurant I had is actually a restaurant call Jayao Restaurant Koh, they serve good food, they are friendly and most importantly they speak English, so we don't need to play guessing game. I had 3 of my meals there, it's worth it. Jayao is located just few shop away from the 7-11. There's this restaurant in the walking street call "King Crab", their service is awfully bad, like really bad, they give you the face as if all of the customer owe them money, none of the employee has a smile on their face, they ignore you when you wanted to order, bill or you need something from them. The toilet has no light, so people have to use the torch light from their phone when they go in. I already feel sick for them even before the food has arrive my table. Even when I was writing this post, I google them on the internet, I saw all kinds of negative comment from the customer and I know, I am not the only one who had bad experience in this restaurant.
 |
| This is Jayao Restaurant that I recommended :) |
 |
| This is the restaurant that I think should have a NO ENTRY sign |
In Koh Lipe, there's nothing for you to do if you don't go for water activity, so we went for snorkeling. You can find a lot of snorkeling or diving agency along the beach or the walking street, just approach any one of them, compare their prices and you see which package suit you the most of course. Because they have too many snorkeling and diving spot to choose from and you are trying to fit everything into your schedule. There's really a lot of clown fish here in Koh Lipe, plenty of Nemo! and all the other fish that I can't name them. The type of boat that we take for snorkeling and the one who bring us from the water platform to the beaches are the same type, which look like this:
 |
| Tada! |
 |
This boat can only fit 8 passenger maximum
You will get wet even before you jump into the sea |
Basically, it can be really fun in Koh Lipe, very relaxing as well especially you are looking for a getaway. The food are good, I will share some of them later in this post, their famous pancake that look like our very own roti canai in Malaysia, then they have coconut ice cream, mango sticky rice, pineapple fried rice, tomyamkung, and seafood that is really fresh.
 |
| Chocolate Banana Pancake that taste really good! |
 |
| Coconut Ice Cream :) |
Is really fun to travel to Koh Lipe, white beach and turquoise colour sea. But I think it can be better, they can improve further by providing better service and it is still a new place, resort are all newly build and clean. Is a good choice of travel just that if I have to make a choice between Koh Lipe and Redang island, then Redang island for sure. Im glad that Redang is in Malaysia haha.
Here are some of the photo that we took during our time in Koh Lipe:
