Why Prachuap Khiri Khan is our new favorite town in Thailand. When planning our trip from Chiang Mai to Singapore, a few readers had mentioned the town of Prachuap Khiri Khan to us. With our last few stops being about temples, big cities, and partying, we figured a nice quiet beach town would be the perfect break. It ended up being exactly that — with impressive karst geography and lots of monkeys thrown in including a protected species. More on that below. Prachuap Khiri Khan is situated on a bay between two large limestone hills.
It has a long boardwalk that comes alive in the evenings. Days were too hot when we were here April but evening is when locals come out to walk or bike along the boardwalk. Very quiet and peaceful. You enter by Tuk Tuk is the best , have to sign in, and then drive through the base — and across a runway — to the beach. Our first time there we actually had to pause for 5 minutes because a plane was landing. Despite this the beach is very popular and has tons of little restaurants set up where you can sit down and enjoy some food, drink, and a day at the beach.
Also on the Wing 5 Base is a Langur preservation area. I wonder how much she would like it if I teased her with food. Dusky Langurs are only found in parts of Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar. Their numbers have been going down, the reason for the preservation area on the base.
You can see it drying at the beach, buy it fresh in the market, or sit down at a restaurant along the beach road and eat a variety of fish, squid or crustacean.
Very close to the Langur preservation area, Wing 5 Airbase has a section full of old planes. Right next to them is a beach full of fishing boats and views on the town. After being warned by a few people I decided not to go.
