7 Reasons I’m Over Living on Koh Phangan

Full-time, anyways.

There’s only so much you can do at the beach…

Given that we make a living building people’s dream homes on Koh Phangan, this may seem a counter-intuitive article. But you come to this blog for my authenticity, and if I didn’t share this with you, my dear readers, then I would be leading you astray. I have no regrets about moving to Koh Phangan 13 years ago. What I have realised over the years, though, is that this is not a full-time island. It’s a great place to build a villa that you live in a few months of the year, and you can make a fabulous passive income renting it out when you live somewhere else. That’s how to live on Koh Phangan. And maybe for some, the full-time life here is just what they need. But read on to find out why full-time life here just isn’t working for me…

(PS. This is a paid article, though I’ve left the opening for free. Upgrade your membership to get to the juicy bits!)

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I was sitting poolside, cackling over a cold glass of white wine yesterday with a girlfriend. Our kids were splashing away in the pool of a beach resort in an attempt to escape the sizzle of the afternoon heat.

Sounds like a dream scenario, right?

Wrong.

See, we were laughing at the irony of the fact that, there we were in a tropical paradise, having spent the last hour talking about how shockingly difficult our lives have become on this island.

(Normally I stay away from booze during the week. But on this sweaty Tuesday where I felt more miserable than other days, it felt like a necessary accessory to my afternoon.)

The fact is, it's never been super easy to live down here in the Gulf of Thailand. Living on a remote tropical island in a foreign country has its obvious limitations. And as more and more people converge here from all different corners of the planet, it really is becoming harder and harder to live here.

Just ask my foot, which I slammed into a wall last week when I lost the plot. I was only on crutches for a few days, thankfully.

I can't say it was just Koh Phangan living that pushed me over the edge. But it was a big factor.

So, what's the big deal with long-term living on Koh Phangan?

Welp, here's the first 7 things that come instantly to mind...

1. We're constantly sick

In the last 6 months, I've had dengue twice, influenza, A, rotavirus, zika virus, countless colds and flus, and probably a bunch of other ailments that I'm not even remembering right now because they've all blended into one. Fraser and Hudson have had most of them as well, with some others thrown in for good measure.

Now, I'd like to qualify this by saying that — other than a few drinks at the weekend and the occasional cigarette — I really couldn't be much healthier.

I start off every day with an early morning wake up, followed by meditation and yoga, and a ginger and turmeric tea. 

I then follow that up with my lemon drink, made of a full lemon blended up — seeds and all — with a teaspoon of ghee, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, some raw local honey, and mineral water. Then I down a handful of supplements. Plus I follow a low sugar plant-based diet (though I'm still waiting for a decent cheese substitute to come out before I can give up dairy).

And yet, my immune system is being pummelled. And it's not just me and my family — everyone on the island that I know is constantly sick too. All of these various viruses and ailments that I've had? Most of them have had them too.

Now, it’s not always been like this. Most of my years here have been relatively illness-free — and those healthy years were when I was abusing my body with partying. I had dengue one time in a decade of living here — and then twice in less than a year. Something’s up.

Most people I talk to seem to think it’s all the different people coming here from all different parts of the world, bringing new bacterias and foreign viruses to the island. It seems to be the only theory that sticks, but hey, I’m no doctor.