Tarutao island is situated on the Thai Malaysia border on the Thailand side. It is just 4 kilometres from Langkawi island. As the rich and famous staying at the Andaman or Datai Hotels stare out over the islands few realise that they are looking at an astonishing island with a rich history. Before World War Two Tarutao Island was a prison. It had only been open for three years before the war broke out with the air attack on Pearl harbour. It was home to 2800 rapists, murderers, and bad guys were there too. There were political prisoners housed at the South end of the island pack just three miles from our Pims sipping mega stars.

Langkawi receives around half a million tourists a year and not all of them can afford the more luxurious hotels. Tour providers however adapt their tours to ensure that they drain every Malaysian Ringitt from their guests. The sufferer is the natural Langkawi environment which is buckling under the strain of hundreds of mangrove trips a day, in hundreds of speedboats. Of course any self respecting mangrove viper, hairy nosed sea otter or kingfisher hates to be caught on camera and with all this noise around they do their best to stay hidden. The wash from the speedboats slowly erodes the mud banks and the habitat is receding at the rate of about a meter a year.

Just 3 miles away lies Tarutao. Tempting and alluring. It has a tourist population of only a few thousand a year. This is a drop in the Ocean - literally. Ko Lipe which is another island in the Butang group has closer to a a hundred thousand a year and packs them in thick. It has to – you can fit Lipe into Tarutao 10 times.

If you go to the mangrove river on Tarutao there are NO other speedboats. If you go fishing there are fish. The prison camp is still intact. Wild Boar is every where. The beaches are deserted.

The best way to get off the beaten track is by chartering your own sailing yacht. With around 150 islands in the Langkawi and Tarutao group there are plenty of deserted destinations to choose from. Every morning you get to look out your bedroom window and see a different spectacular vista. Yacht charter packages are often all inclusive, so if you add up the taxi fares you don't need and the crowded mangrove tours that are no longer necessary, and add up the hotel meals and the bar bill and the cost of the room and not to mention the excess luggage bill on the way home because the wooden, carved monitor lizard you bought actually weighs 4 kilos, then the yacht charter is starting to look pretty amazing value. After all the snorkeling tour boats have headed for home you are left with the sunset, a G $ T and complete solitude.

http://www.langkawiyachtcharter.com/tarutao-island.html