In a shock turn of events, today, for the first time since November, the sun went behind a cloud. As if that wasn’t surprising enough, shortly afterwards a light breeze started up! How are we supposed to cope with such unpredictable weather?
“Has anyone seen my pyjamas? Oh, yeah, I hid them to stop the monkeys nicking them…”
After having, in the last nearly six months of away, having travelled by long-haul plane, short-haul plane, tiny twin-prop plane, various classes of bus and coach, minibus, taxi, motor rickshaw, pedal rickshaw, horse drawn cart, Sherpa-back (kids only), bicycle, moped, night train, day train, underground train, baht bus, song tiaw, elephant, dug out canoe, Jeep, longtail, variously-sized ferries, rowing boat, sea canoe, and tuk-tuk, it’s very exciting to have set off on a three-day journey in what was once our most normal mode of transport: a car.
And good timing, too. Not only are we savouring the independence and thrill of actually steering ourselves around but it’s currently 38 degrees outside. And our car has aircon.
No more dashing into 7-11 to cool off for us. We have our own mobile, persona-sized fridge. Ahhh!
It’s a little while since we moved on from Koh Mook (which translates as Squid Island in Thai), but it we were all rather sad to leave it behind – until we got here to Koh Libong, it was definitely our favourite island.
We stayed on Had Farang, the same beach where Janet and I spent several weeks last time we were backpacking. At that time – in 2000 – the wide, curving, white-sand beach ended with a stack of boulders to the south and an impressive sea cliff to the north; behind, it was backed by a large, empty coconut plantation; and all the bungalows were hidden behind the tree line at the very edges. It really felt like a desert island. Apart from a single longtail that was generally moored in the harbour, you could easily imagine that you had the whole island to yourself.
This time around, although the beach remains the same, the coconut plantation has been cut down and replaced with the brash, new “Charlie’s Resort” with its swimming pool, beach umbrellas and a cocktail bar pumping out Ibiza dance hits. And there are now so many longtails at the water’s edge that a section has had to be cordoned off for swimming.
Yet, despite the changes, we all still loved Had Farang. Crowded as it is, the beach remains beautiful and is big enough to accommodate the increased numbers. The views re still stunning, the water still clear (and unlike Koh Jum, actually cooler than the air so it feels refreshing when you jump in after baking in the tropical sun). Watching the sunsets in the evenings at Chill Out Bar (far enough along not to hear Charlie’s cheesy music), it was easy to see why we’d loved it here before.
Plus there were new discoveries. We passed a small massage hut on the way to and from our little bungalows. In the day we would stop there to admire the grimacing faces of farangs on the painful end of a joint-wrenching Thai massage, and in the evenings, we would duck down underneath and marvel at the hundreds of hermit crabs which congregated there. They were charming, each with its different scavenged shell; clumsy, hairy legs protruding from underneath like Jim Henson glove puppets.
We also had several fun activity days. We wandered across the island through rubber plantations, touching and stretching the rubber as it oozed from the trunks. We hired sea canoes and explored the cliffs to the north. And, best of all, we hired a longtail and guide to take us into Emerald Cave, a hidden cove only reachable at low tide by swimming through pitch-black tunnels. Emerald Cave was only rediscovered using satellite imagery but had once been the home of pirates and smugglers. It was also one of the main inspirations for The Beach. Check out the girls’ reports of the trip here, here and here.
As I finished writing, I asked Evie what her opinion of the island was. Her reply was simple: “I absolutely loved Koh Mook!”
In no particular order, here are some of the things that have proved their worth time and time gain in the last (nearly) six months of backpacking round Asia with our kids.
So there you have it. Ten things that have proved themselves useful as we travelled. There are others, of course – gaffa tape, super glue, hand sanitizer, carabiners, buffs, Crocs for the kids, our collection of portable card and board games, our incredibly-light MacBook Air laptop – but these have definitely been the stars of the show.
Also, Evie points out that rucksacks should really be on this list, which is true… but you know that already, right?
It’s occurred to me that all the little islands we’ve been visiting on Thailand’s west coast are probably so much gobbledegook to most people, so I knocked up this map to illustrate our route. Hopefully it will make it easier to see where we are as we travel.
We started at the top of the Andaman Coast, arriving on Ko Chang on the 29th of January, and since then we’ve headed south, moving on every 4-5 days. If we stick to our itinerary, we should hit Langkawi (and Malaysia) on the 20th of March, for nearly 2 long, idle months of island life. Maybe it’ll even be long enough for Janet to start getting a tan.
I still had my eyes half closed as I stumbled back to bed from night time toilet trip, torch in one hand. I’d reached the mosquito net and was about to start searching for the opening when a thought finally forced it’s way past the haze of sleepiness fogging my brain. Something had been moving in the bathroom as I’d turned and closed the door.
Moving? Nothing should be moving, should it?
I tried to dismiss it as a fragment of dream. It was pitch dark on the island now the day’s electricity was done. I was half asleep. It was probably some combination of flashing torchlight, blurry vision and squinting creating an optical illusion.
No. It was definitely a snake.
Snake! Instantly, I was awake. I turned back to the door and, re-opening it slowly, scanned the wall with my torch.
I froze.
Yup. There it was. A thin, green snake squeezing itself out from a gap at the edge of the tiles around the wash basin, tongue flicking the air. Its body curved out about 30cm from the wall, like it was being charmed horizontally. Like, I thought dimly, the toy snakes made of plastic links that writhe slowly when you hold them by the tail. Except I could see this snake’s muscles contort as it pushed more of its body into the room.
Then it saw me.
It froze.
We gazed at one another for a while, our noses a mere metre apart, unsure of how to address the sudden appearance of this stranger into our night time wanderings. I cocked my head to the side. So, too, did the snake.
I shrugged and stepped back. My thoughts had strayed momentarily to the two sleeping kids in the bed behind me but apart from initiating some kind of midnight snake fight, there didn’t seem much to be done. In the bathroom, the snake seemed to reach a similar conclusion. Reversing its contortions, it started shrinking back into the wall.
I closed the door, covered the gap underneath with a heavy bag, and, getting back into bed with a yawn, made sure the mosquito net was tucked in very, very tight.
Another week, another island. This week: Koh Jum, our third island since we started island hopping down the Andaman Coast.
Our first two were at the north end of the coast (Koh Chang and Koh Payam), then after a stop on the mainland so I could go diving*, we missed out quite a lot of the coast to get where we are now. We’ve been to Samui and Pattaya and know for sure that it’s not overdeveloped resorts like Phuket and Koh Phi Phi we’re after.
It’s very relaxed here. Most of the farangs are older than us, and the pace of life is possibly the slowest of anywhere we’ve yet visited. There’s nothing to do but swim, walk up the 2km beach and eat. But, just as we’re settling in here, enjoying the stunning sunsets, friendly bungalows, huge, empty beach and bathtub-warm sea water, tomorrow we’re off again!
Sixty days on our visas doesn’t go far when there’s so many islands to visit. So tomorrow we head south again, getting up early to catch a longtail to a ferry, then a ferry to the Krabi on the mainland, a taxi into Krabi town, then a bus to Trang 100km down the road. We’ll spend the night there, stocking up on essentials like peanut M&Ms and red wine, before taking minibuses, ferries and longtails out to Koh Mook, one of our favourite places from our backpacking trip 13 years ago where we will slow right down for another five days.
All very exciting. But right now, sitting in a beach hut watching my girls play on the sand as the sun dips slowly towards the crystal seas, it all seems rather daunting. Island life has slowed me down so much that just walking to the sea to cool off or to the restaurant for a fruit shake can take half the day for me to muster enough energy.
Still, frenetic bursts of travelilng interspersing the lazy weeks of beach bumming makes this part of our trip seem like a series of one week Summer holidays, a new one starting every time the last one ends. And how can that be a bad thing?
* That implies I went diving on land, I didn’t. I just left Janet and the girls there and headed of to the Similan Islands.
Travels with Triplets 