Kai Bae Beach stretches for 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometres) from Klong Prao to Lonely Beach. Like most populated sections of the island, this one’s also located in a semicircular lowland between hill foothills. Only in Kai Bae’s case, the steep dividing hill and mountain pass are only located on the border with Lonely Beach.
Between Kai Bae and Klong Prao, this boundary is barely distinguishable—the areas lie on flat ground and practically merge together. Otherwise, Kai Bae is a classic tourist beach.
Beach Overview
The boat pier located in the beach’s centre roughly divides Kai Bae into two halves. Standing on this pier facing the sea, the left section is a standard beach with ordinary sand, whilst the shoreline is occupied by hotels positioned next to each other, adjacent to the sea.
On the right section, many low trees have grown that the sea has undermined and which aren’t very straight by nature. So on most of these crooked trees in this part of Kai Bae, swings are suspended. It’s quite surreal walking along the beach with swings everywhere and everyone taking selfies.
Swimming
The beach itself is very similar to Klong Prao—extremely shallow—and I don’t quite understand why people come here, yet there really are loads of them. At low tide, the beach width in Kai Bae’s right half reaches 200 feet (60 metres).
You can’t even swim on your back here. You can walk about 330 feet (100 metres) along the bottom, and the sea won’t rise above your knees. Even at high tide, you need to go far from shore or settle for waist-deep swimming.
Due to the seabed’s particular features, during high tide in the beach’s right section, water comes very close to shore, hiding all the sand and lapping right under the grass. Essentially, there’s no beach here during high tide.
However, all the swings end up over water and the romance percentage starts going through the roof—just remember to bring cocktails on the swings with you. There’s another inconvenience: due to this water level, you’ll have to enter hotel private property if you decide to move along the shore.
Sunbeds and Shade
The right half of the beach is decently provided with shade, and strangely enough, so is the left. Plus, several deckchairs are always set out on beach sections opposite resorts.
Trees throughout Kai Bae are low, their crowns provide good patches of shade, but only until 1 PM. Then the sun comes to Koh Chang’s western coast and makes everyone very hot.
Beach Photos
Amenities
Kai Bae’s infrastructure resembles Klong Prao: chain mini-markets, pharmacies, bank offices, cash machines, massages, shops, fruit stalls, loads of cafĂ©s—typical tourist infrastructure generally. Everything’s here and certainly not just one of each.
There’s a separate lane with bars for sex tourism enthusiasts, large warehouses for storing and repairing boats and speedboats, masses of buildings both residential and commercial. Roads cover 99% of the village territory—concrete ones.
Near the pier are two smelly little rivers.
The attraction here is impressive—an elephant camp. Here you can ride, feed, watch shows, and take photos, but the main highlight is swimming in the sea with elephants.
People come here in droves for this—they’re put on an elephant, led into the water—generally, you get a year’s worth of endorphins and exotic photos.
You can rent a kayak at the pier and zip over to neighbouring small islands. The trip takes about 30 minutes and generally makes for an active half-day excursion.
On the hill towards Lonely Beach, there’s an excellent viewpoint with spacious parking, overlooking the islands and sunset—a very popular spot.
Incidentally, if you don’t mind the effort and drive about 1,000 feet (300 metres) higher over the pass towards Lonely Beach, there’s The Lighthouse hotel with a multi-level tower on its grounds featuring seats and tables. Tell security you’re going to the restaurant, get inside, buy a couple of cocktails, and head up to grab the best spots.
Accommodation
Kai Bae is an exclusively tourist area of Koh Chang. There are all accommodation options here, so there’s no point listing exactly which ones. Loads of accommodation from cheap to expensive, from beachfront to the back (and development here has now extended 0.6 miles (1 kilometre) inland). Off the top of my head, here are some highly-rated hotels:
- Awa Resort
- Kai Bae Beach Resort
- Gajapuri Resort & Spa
How to Find the Beach
When driving along the road, you might not notice how Klong Prao transitioned into Kai Bae, because they’re separated by quite a gentle hill and rocky cape into the sea. There’s no steep mountain pass between them, and the road doesn’t indicate you’ve crossed district boundaries.
If you’re coming from Klong Prao, use the huge red antenna as a landmark—it’ll appear on the right, from the sea side; if you see it, you’re already in Kai Bae. Also, it’s not immediately obvious where there’s free beach access.
Everywhere there are private territories, fences, barriers, gates, and security. One passage exists near KB Resort, the second is a turn near 7-Eleven. There’s another at the very end of KB Resort, before the road turns away from it—there’s a landmark there: parking.
In the beach’s right section are expensive resorts with huge territories, and it’s unclear whether they’ll let you through or not—I didn’t try. I tried loads of turns into narrow alleys that end in dead ends with bungalows. Generally, your best bet in this case is simply asking locals for directions.
