We booked our ferry tickets on Ko Lanta through The Monkey Lanta Shop (same place as the snorkel tour) for 550 baht each. We were picked up at 8:45 am and driven to the Old Town dock where we boarded an almost full ferry. On this boat, everyone sits below deck, but water leaks in from the sides as the waves crash. Fortunately, our seats and bags didn’t get too wet. The ride was about two hours in total, with stops at Koh Ngai and Ko Kradan before reaching Koh Mook (where most people got off). We had booked three nights at the Koh Mook Nurse House, which was a 15-minute, uphill, hot walk from the pier. In hindsight, a tuk tuk may have been worth the cost. The Koh Mook Nurse House was so named for the husband (Bell) and wife who are both nurses. Bell’s mother (Mama) and father cook and clean for the homestay and his grandfather also helps occasionally. They previously operated a different homestay (now The Tropical) but bought this property when the other homestay’s owner wanted to sell. They started construction on the bungalows in June 2019 and opened in November 2019. The bungalows are huge (bathroom even has a large tub, but no hot water) with air conditioning. The family is very nice and accommodating. Mama cooks a large breakfast every morning (included in your stay), and we ate dinner at the place a couple nights as well. The food is very tasty! We paid about $50 per night to stay here. Unfortunately, they only had three nights available (otherwise we would have extended our stay!), so we had to move to a new hotel mid-way through our stay on Koh Mook.
After investigating a few other available homestays/hotels on the island, we selected the Sun Great Resort, which is located south of the main town on the “beach” (more mud-flat area than usable beach). The grounds at the hotel appear to be unfinished, with exposed piping and piles of dirt throughout the property, but the rooms themselves are plenty nice with air conditioning and a hot shower, plus a large pool with nice views! We stayed in the cheapest room for $63.35 per night (booked at the front desk, which was cheaper than online rates). This rate also included breakfast. The staff at the hotel were very nice and extremely helpful when we were trying to book a few nights in the National Park on Ko Adang (see that blog post for more information).
Koh Mook has a great mix of restaurants, beaches, and things to do while also having fewer crowds and tourists than Ko Lanta or Koh Lipe, making it a great spot for us. I’ve listed some of our favorites below!
Beaches
- Farang Beach (aka Charlie Beach): Located on the southwest side of the island. Beautiful swimming beach with nice, white sand. There are drink shacks set up on the beach that you can rent shaded seats from for the day. You can also rent kayaks here to explore and visit Emerald Cave (see below) or you can hire a longtail boat. We spent most of our beach days here, as we found it to be the best swimming beach on the island, and surprisingly, the cleanest. Note that this beach gets the name “Charlie Beach” because there used to be a resort here that was shut down and partially demolished. There are old bungalow foundations and walls still up along the back of the beach, but that sore sight didn’t affect our opinion of the beach overall!
- SaBay Beach: Located on the west side of the island. You can get here by hiking about an hour, hiring a longtail boat to take you here for a couple hours, or renting a kayak from Farang Beach (not sure how long this would take). A private small beach cove with great swimming water. Well worth the hike for the seclusion.
- Sivalai Beach: Located on the east side of the island along the narrow peninsula home to many resorts, including the Sivalai Beach Resort. This is a nice beach to lay out on, but there was a lot of broken glass and trash in the water, especially visible at low tide. We found shady spots right outside the Pawapi Resort restaurant. The water is not deep in these areas, so not great for swimming.
- Pool at Koh Mook Sun Great Resort: Not technically a beach, but a fantastic pool with views to the ocean out over the tidal flat. We spent many afternoons here to take advantage of some shaded pool seats.
Activities
- Kayak to Emerald Cave:
This was one of our favorite activities that we did in all the Thailand Islands. We woke up early and got to the beach around 7:30 am to rent a kayak (100 baht per hour, we needed about two hours for the Emerald Cave). It’s about a 30-minute paddle (at a relaxed pace) to reach the Emerald Cave entrance. The park rangers don’t arrive until around 9 am, so if you get there before then, you not only beat the crowds, but also can enjoy it for free! This is a popular spot for tourist boating day trips – the boats will park at the entrance and people swim into the cave to reach the “secret” cove. On the day we went, there were hoards of jellyfish, so we were very glad to be in our kayak (which you can take into the cove)! The cave is 80 meters long and gets very dark. We came prepared with our headlamps and followed the rope/buoys throughout (typically used for the swimmers). There was only one other couple and a family of four in the cove when we arrived. We even got about 10-minutes to ourselves after they left! The cave is the only way into the cove, which is absolutely amazing, especially when you stand there alone and just look at the tall rock walls surrounding you. We would highly recommend going by kayak in the morning or late afternoon to avoid the boats and crowds.
- Hike to the Viewpoint and Sabay Beach:
We were told this was about a 30-minute easy hike, which was not the case. However, it was totally worth it! It took about 25-minutes to reach the Viewpoint, which, as indicated in its name, offers great views of the east and west coasts of the island. Then, we headed down to the beach. The path is not well maintained, so be prepared for getting scraped by branches and bit by mosquitos. It also might be wise to do the hike in sneakers or sturdy shoes; we did it in our chacos and managed but would wear different shoes next time. It took another 35-40-minutes to reach the beach. We were incredibly sweaty and hot after the hike and were looking forward to jumping in; unfortunately, the jellyfish were here, so we sadly couldn’t swim. However, the beach is amazing (see above) and well-worth the hike! If you’re not into hiking, you can hire a longtail boat to take you here for a couple hours. To our luck, we were the only ones on the beach for the first hour, except for a friendly dog companion, who even hiked out with us!
- Private Fishing Trip:
We booked a private fishing day trip on a longtail boat through a tourist booth/office right across from Thai Kitchen Koh Mook for 3500 baht (only about $100 USD!). What a steal! It was just Patrick and I and the boat driver/fish captain. We were picked up by a tuk tuk at 6:15 am and dropped off at the pier. The longtail boat picked us up at 6:30 am on the dot, just in time to see the sunrise on the boat. Our first stop to catch small bait fish was about an hour and a half boat ride away, so we settled in with our donuts and coffee (provided by our captain). When we arrived at the first spot, our captain prepared a rod for both of us, which we jigged near the bottom. It was like shooting fish in a barrel; we were pulling up three to four fish at a time! I’ll note that it doesn’t seem like there are any catch size limits that we needed to be concerned with from a regulation perspective. Once we had enough small fish for the day, we drove a short distance to the next fishing spot for the larger fish. Our captain started with two rods and live bait off the back of the boat as we drove around slowly. Patrick also took a rod with live bait to cast out. Within a few minutes, Patrick had a fish on! It was a large snakehead that he reeled in expertly – great for soup according to our captain. Over the course of the day, we caught several large fish. Each time the captain got something on his line, he would hand it to one of us to reel in. Patrick caught a one-kilogram dorado (or mahi-mahi), so on the smaller side, and a two-kilogram king mackerel. Both great catches! I was able to reel in (with the help of a belt) a two-kilogram dorado. There was a bit of miscommunication due to our language barrier as I brought him to the boat – I think the captain wanted spear him, but I just pulled him up onto the boat. I was very proud of myself! We ended up spending about 9 hours on the boat. We were provided donuts and coffee for breakfast and chicken fried rice for lunch (which was very tasty). Plus, we got to keep whichever fish we wanted from the days’ catch! We only had one night left on the island, so we took the king mackerel, which our hotel kindly cooked up for us. They cooked it three ways – garlic fried, a fried sweet chili dish, and a green curry. It was a great day on the water and such a great deal for the price!
Restaurants
- Koh Mook Nurse House: We ate breakfast (included with our stay) and dinner here several times. Mama cooks up a delicious meal! It’s just her though, so sometimes you can wait a bit for your food. Patrick enjoyed different curries and my favorite dish was the Tom Yum Seafood Soup.
- Hilltop Restaurant: Located near Farang Beach. We ate here several times for lunch and dinner and highly recommend! However, it is a very popular place and since it is a mother/daughter cooking team, wait times can be a while. But that’s no problem when you can wait with a beer in hand! Patrick tried several curry dishes (massaman, penang, green, and yellow), with his favorite being the massaman, and my favorite dish was the Tom Yum Noodle Soup (with the thick noodles).
- Koh Mook City Center: Located in town on the main street. There are several restaurants that offer great BBQ deals, and we ended up picking this one because the fish looked good and fresh. We ordered one giant shrimp (closer to the size of a lobster!) and king mackerel with corn, baked potatoes, and salad. It was a pricy treat at almost 900 baht, but well enjoyed.
- Koh Mook Sun Great Hotel: The restaurant offered to cook our freshly caught fish from our fishing trip (see above). They didn’t charge us for the fish, only the preparation and accoutrements – very nice of them! We preferred our garlic fried dish of our king mackerel.
- Thai Kitchen Koh Mook: Located just outside the main street area. Food was only okay, but the smoothies were delicious!
- Sa-Bay Restaurant and Bar: Food was reasonably priced, but not very flavorful. We ordered a curry and fried noodle dish with a roti for dessert for 300 baht.
- Happy Restaurant: Food was reasonably priced and decent. There are nice views out to the north side of the island.
Our canine companion as we hiked to Sabay Beach 
A bird that hit the window at Koh Mook Nurse House (it later flew away!)
