Similan Islands, pictures from Heaven

When I arrived at Phuket, I used to work as a tour coordinator and visited all of the surrounding Phuket attractions, islands and places of interest.

Although one of the most magnificent islands in the area is Koh Similan. Actually, the Similan Islands is a group of islands, 11 islands, to be precise. Two of the islands (Island N 11 Koh Tachai and Island N 10 Koh Bon) were included in National Park in 1998. Similan means "nine" in Yawi language, so first 9 islands were called according to their number from South to North, but it seems some mistake happened and Island N9 was called Koh Ba-ngu, while island N8 was called Koh Similan.
Similan islands are located around 70 km away from the continent Thailand, so you have to spend at least 1.5-2 hours to get there by speedboat. A common excursion would include visiting islands N8(Koh Similan) and island N4( Koh Miang), lunch is served on both islands, depending on the company you choose.
Similan islands are inhabited by rare animals and birds, like Nicobar pigeon, flying fox, Mangrove monitor lizard and some others. Diving nearby is almost very popular due to a lot of stingrays and other sea animals. Islands are made of dried hardened lava - magma.
All other islands are closed for visiting, including Islands N10(Koh Bon) and Island N11(Koh Tachai) which were closed last year due to the negative influence of tour companies and tourists. Other islands have population of Green sea turtles, where they are secured and conserved by local marine rangers
If you will get there during sunny weather, which is most likely, because islands are closed for tourists for the rainy season, you probably won't be able to open your eyes, as the sun reflects from white sand, blinding everyone, who forgot to take sunglasses. The white sand is, as a matter of fact, parrot fish droppings. This kind of fish enjoys eating seaweed and polyps from the corals and sometimes gets small pieces of coral inside. Fish can't metabolize hard coral, so it comes out as some kind of grain, which is washed ashore with the currents. It's hard to believe, but around 70% of all sand on tropical islands is made by this colorful fish. Photo from Wikipedia

Every time coming to Similan Islands is like a magic trip to the land of virgin nature and amazing sceneries, you even can stay overnight, having a choice of a tent, a bungalow or a private room onboard a yacht.

So don't miss it if you are going to visit Thailand and follow me https://steemit.com/@irishabstainer/ for other beautiful sites (all pictures taken by me) around Thailand and South East Asia! Thank you!

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Similan_Islands
Fish Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrotfish#/media/