Koh Phangan's 'Island Time

Island time is an adjustment we all make when we visit Koh Phangan for the first time. You slow down, you slow down rather quickly (pun intended) in fact!

You’re not at work, you’re on vacation, you are out of the bustling city, you have found your way down from the capitol of busy Bangkok and you can hear the calming sound of the waves close to the soft sandy beach, the air is clear and you can…. Relax.

There’s even a specific saying for the whole country ‘Thai Time’ as the locals are known for being much more relaxed than we are but that does not mean they are not punctual.

Island time is all well and good if you are here for travelling or a holiday, you can make plans last minute or no plans at all and let the winds of Phangan blow you in any direction they chose. However, maybe it’s just us but ‘island time’ seems to lose its charm once you are here on a more permanent basis trying to run businesses, arrange meetings, help others, you know, trying to sustain yourself and keep busy ha-ha.

It’s workable though, you get to know each and everyone’s very own ‘island time’ and you take this into consideration when organising or not organising things.

You know that when one person says they will be there soon that it actually means in an hour or two but then you also know that another person, when they say 4pm they actually mean it so you yourself have to be on time!

Are you the one who is properly on ‘island time’, you never make specific plans and turn up to the occasion 3 hours late or are you the one that surprises everyone because you are actually on time and the first one there?

There’s always inbetweeners as well, we’re not saying this is all true and most islanders probably just section up the day into ‘Morning’ or ‘Sunrise’ (if you are not sleeping from last night’s party), ‘Afternoon’, ‘Sunset Time’ and then ‘Nighttime’. It seems to fit more with this beautiful island, telling the time by the sun, moon, tide and nature.’

So if you’re here just for a little while enjoy ‘island time’ whilst it lasts and for those of you here for longer, you’ll figure it out...