Bailan Bay is the least developed area on the west coast of Koh Chang, which is why we liked it so much when we first visited back in 2003. The lack of white powdery stuff on the beach then meant that there hadn’t been the usual mad dash to buy up land and build resorts. Things are changing and there are a growing number of small resorts in the area plus one 5 star, the Dusit Princess. Adjacent to the Dusit is Treetop Adventure Park, a ‘must visit’ if you or your kids enjoy a bit of exercise plus  some thrills up in the trees.

The resorts that did exist until recently were low key affairs, intended for travellers who valued a bit of peace and quiet and who had grown out of the urge to party till the early hours every night. This in turn meant that the road through Bailan hadn’t seen any real development and therefore the quiet hamlet still retained a laid back local vibe far removed from that of Lonely Beach, a 20 minute walk to the north.

All that is rapidly changing though. As you head south from Lonely Beach the first resort you reach is The Mangrove, a kind of designer hut resort with very simple, but nicely designed, huts hugging a hillside that leads down to an open kitchen / restaurant area and small beach. It’s one of those places that doesn’t do any advertising and attracts customers by word of mouth recommendations.

In the past 2-3 years half a dozen new backpacker bungalow resorts have sprung up along the shore and by the roadside. Most comprising of easily constructed, identikit wooden huts. But as this area doesn’t see many visitors and many of them are on limited budgets, you can find some good deals on rooms here and get far more for your money than you can on Lonely Beach.

On the beach, Bailan Hut, is a longstanding 300 Baht/night bet whilst for something a bit more upmarket, the grandly named Bailan Beach Resort has fan and AC bungalows by a small strip of sand for well under 1000 baht/night. On the roadside, Orchid Resort and Bailan Family Bungalows both have bungalows but with a few home conveniences such as hot water and satellite TV for a few hundred baht/night. Orchid even has a small swimming pool and the owners have done a nice job of creating a homely flashpacker resort. Directly opposite lies St Tropez, a handful of fan bungalows plus restaurant and Petanque pitch – Yep, the owner’s are French.

Following the side street in the middle of the village will bring you down to Jungle Hut and Green Cottages. The former being more very basic huts by the sea and the latter having AC and a small pool, big enough to cool off in but you wont be doing laps. No sandy beach here though. For that you have to move next door to The Whitehouse. This has pretty good bungalows and a very nice freeform pool right by the sea. There are cheaper rooms in a hotel block at the rear of the restaurant, these look out over the car park. But as the resort is usually quiet, you should be able to get a good deal on a bungalow even in high season. They have a small beach which seems to be formed from sand that has washed over from the Dusit Princess next door. .

The Dusit Princess is managed by the well-known Dusit Thani hotel group and rivals the Amari Emerald Cove an The Dewa as Koh Chang’s best hotel. The resort itself isn’t what you’d call attractive, it’s concrete and more concrete with not a lot of open space,other than the car park, or garden area. But guests can expect five star service, contemporary room design and, at high tide, a good beach.

In the past there was no real beach, just rock pools at low tide. However it’s amazing what a couple of breakwaters and several thousand tons of sand can do. As if by magic, the hotel has a nice little beach, but at low tide you’ll see the sludgy, rocky mess that still exists. Nice place if you want to relax by the pool, not so good if you want to swim in the sea.

Bailan bay itself is very beautiful, a kilometre wide crescent of shallow water. At low tide you can see locals and workers from the hotels wading out a couple of hundred metres to collect shellfish and crabs. The shore is still lined by mangrove in some places, although most resort owners have decided that their properties are more attractive to visitors if it’s cut down. Back in 2003, we met the guy who was supervising the land clearing in preparation for the construction of the Dusit. He had a small shack on the land and used to get up early in the rainy season to watch the dolphins that could be seen off the southern tip of the bay. Somehow I doubt they are still there nowadays

On the main road the centre of Bailan is one of those ‘blink and you miss it’ places, hard to tell when you are in the centre of the hamlet and by the time you realise you are, you are already heading up the hill and on towards Bangbao. There is a cluster of small restaurants and a couple of local families have also now turned their houses into small homestays and discovered that visiting backpackers would prefer cornflakes for breakfast rather than rice and Thai curry. A revelation made all the more pleasing by the fact that the profit margins on cornflakes, sandwiches and English teabags are far higher than those on a plate of ‘Pad kapow moo sap’ and a 10 baht bottle of Coke.

A couple of other places worth a mention are Bailan Herbal Sauna, the first herbal sauna on the island and the only ‘adobe’ style building. The original owners have now moved on but they still do all manner of herbal teas and massages to ensure you are well and truly ‘chillaxed’ prior to a night out. A hundred metres to the south Rock Inn has a restaurant and bungalows overlooking the Dusit Princess.

Adjacent to the Dusit Princess, on the cape is where you’ll find the Treetop Adventure Park, an example of an eco-fiendly attraction that provides fun, thrills with a unique way to see the island from way up in the jungle canopy.  Safety is obviously a concern, but the multitude of ziplines, rope climbs, bridges and obstacles way up in the trees have been put together by a French team that specialise in such things.  There are strict safety procedures and a mandatory training session before you are allowed to head off on your own.  A deservedly popular attraction and one where you can easily spend a day on different course.  There is also a course for young kids aged 5-9, so no need for to leave them locked in the hotel room whilst the rest of the family go out and have fun

Outside Bailan, in the no-mans land that lies between here and Bangbao a couple of kilometres to the south, the clifftop Nisa Cabana Resort offers 3-4 star bungalows, great views, tropical gardens and caters to guests who have no desire to walk to a beach, restaurant or shop i.e. Russian tour groups and elderly Americans.

Anyone looking for a place to stay long term, planning to dive or work at a dive school should consider Bailan as a place to base themselves. The simple reasons are that it offers a cheap, quiet place to stay whilst being only 5 minutes motorbike ride from the nightlife on Lonely Beach to the north and 5 minutes ride to the dive centres in Bangbao to the south. Despite the current development it’s still far less tacky and loud than Lonely Beach, making it a good spot to do nothing except enjoy a herbal sauna and read a book.

Details and Reviews of hotels and resorts in the Bailan area