Bali Beach on Lanta, also known as Klong Khong – the next major beach and area on my route for this trip. Third after Klong Dao and Long Beach. Between Long Beach and Klong Khong there are two more little beaches (Relax Bay and Secret Beach), but they’re tiny and you can ignore them really. So the third proper long beach on Lanta is Klong Khong.
Rather odd place, definitely an acquired taste in my view. I gather it’s not particularly popular with regular tourists who come for a beach holiday, and I can see why – it’s like Mars, not a beach. Nevertheless people do come, plus accommodation here seems cheaper, so Klong Khong will always get its customers.
Beach Overview
Klong Khong is about 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometres) long. Uneven shoreline where sometimes there’s a bay, sometimes a headland juts out, but overall it’s rather trippy with rocks everywhere. From small ones scattered underfoot to massive boulder formations.
The entire beachfront of Klong Khong is occupied by bungalow resorts, with bamboo-style cafés on the shore, which is traditional for Lanta.
If you stand facing the sea, the left part of the area is least swimmable, and if you’re going to stay on this beach, it makes sense to look at accommodation from the 7-Eleven minimart onwards to the right.
Everything to the left of it is more of a technical beach – piles of rocks here, and the beach widens into a huge flat field where even at high tide it’s practically impossible to swim.
The beach depth increases insignificantly, meaning serious shallow water – for a beach, this seabed relief is absolutely dreadful. Nothing looks particularly appealing, plus coarse yellow sand with rocks. I’d only call the right part of Klong Khong suitable for swimming, and even then – it’s an acquired taste. I didn’t call this post “fairytale” Bali on Lanta for nothing – the point isn’t that it’s fairytale-incredible, but fairytale-imaginary.
Swimming
What struck me as strange about Klong Khong was the seabed relief and… the quality of the surface, let’s say. Despite being swimmable in places, both at high and low tide the beach doesn’t look very appealing. Even with a good high tide setup, you can clearly see there’s a barrier of rocks running underwater along the beach.
Walking from shore towards the horizon, you navigate this barrier on the seabed, which looks like a layered cake: sand, sand with rocks, rocks, loads of rocks, sand again. If at high tide you can swim over this cake, then beyond it there’s clean sand and depth up to your waist, up to your neck.
At low tide you’ll have to pick your way barefoot through all these rocks, and only after about 130 feet (40 metres) will it be relatively deep. Anyway – check the photos, everything’s clearer there than in words.
Sunbeds and Shade
There are loungers near hotel territories and cafés, plus the beach has quite a few bamboo pavilions with palm leaf roofs (tropical convenience with a daybed and table). Brilliant shelter from the sun, but without ordering something from the menu, they won’t let you in for free.
I didn’t see any lounger and umbrella rental, and there’s more than enough natural shade here, though a west-facing beach will always be hot after midday, so umbrellas wouldn’t help much anyway.
Beach Photos
Amenities
Infrastructure on Klong Khong exists too, though it’s a bit sparse: everything main is concentrated around the 7-Eleven, and a bit further from it things get less dense. Loads of cafés, both on the shore and along the road. Style-wise they’re all quite rastafarian, bamboo-style, creating an atmosphere of carefree hippies, backpacker paradise.
This area has one 7-Eleven chain minimart, around which there’s maximum concentration of cafés, little shops and other tourist services, but basically all this exists throughout the area.
Accommodation
Despite the fairly high choice of accommodation on Klong Khong Beach, I’ll repeat my recommendation – stay in the right half of the beach and closer to the centre. There’s decent infrastructure nearby, and a relatively decent seabed for swimming. Before the trip I noted these three hotel options:
- Lanta Fa Rung Beach Resort
- Hana Lanta Resort
- New Coconut Bungalow
How to Find the Beach
The road runs 330 feet (100 metres) from the shore and you can reach the beach through some resort territory, or via adjacent sois (secondary roads of the settlement). Sois on Klong Khong are usually dirt rather than concrete, and there are always beach turn-off signs on the main road.
I turned at one such sign saying Bali Beach – possibly a café you’ll bump into on the shore. Maybe they position this beach as Balinese, but the café itself doesn’t have the word Bali in its name.
