“Mummy! There’s something wrong with the sea! I want to swim!”
Scarlett, shocked and outraged that the tide might dare to go out.
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Category Archives: Thailand
Moving On from Koh Chang
Our bungalow on its tall stilts
And already, after just four days, we’re packing up. It’s beautiful here on Koh Chang but it wouldn’t be island hopping without some hopping. So, tomorrow, we’re getting on a speedboat and heading off to Koh Phayam, just a few miles to the south of here.
It’s hard uprooting ourselves. Not least because within moments of arriving anywhere, our rucksacks are empty and our room is suddenly stuffed with clothes, sarongs, hats, a kettle, tea cups, tea (Earl Gray and redbush – thanks, Mum!), sun lotion, a medical bag, a wash bag, a dirty washing bag, packing cubes, games, cards, diaries, pens and pencils, school books, various electrical gizmos, cameras, a multitude of chargers for the gizmos and cameras, inflatable mattresses, sheets, snacks, bottled water and all the other paraphernalia apparently essential to travelling light. It’s surprisingly easy to unpack all that stuff. And surprisingly daunting to somehow fit it back into our bags.
Whenever we stay still too long in any place where there’s not much more to do than wander the same jungle paths or strip of beach, a Groundhog Day effect comes into play, each day blending with the one before. The later days offer diminishing returns of experience.
And, I’m pretty sure there’s something psychologically beneficial to moving on like this. It’s not the house that makes a family. And it’s comforting knowing that we can survive in relative comfort with just what we carry. Or maybe not. Maybe it makes us feel rootless and unconnected and we’ll return to the UK psychologically shattered. I don’t know.
Whatever. We’ve decided to island hop, so it’s time to move on.
Most importantly, though, even more so than the impending mega-pack and possible psychological implications of abandoning the comforting familiarity of our resort, I have a very practical reason for wanting to move on. Our bungalow is one of the most dramatically-located we’ve yet inhabited. It’s perched atop stilts over a rocky outcrop jutting out to sea, directly facing the amazing sunsets you get here. As you sit on the decking, the waves lap the rocks below, crabs shuffling among rock pools. It’s stunning.
But it also scares me. We’re just recovering from one disastrous five-metre fall, and the balcony rail here is so low that every time my girls stand near it I find myself tensing to sprung and catch them should they fall. Even with strict warnings about acting sensibly near the edge (together with constant reminders), I just cannot quite relax. The rocks below are sharp, and of course, very hard.
I really don’t want any more accidents. And Koh Phayam looks like it has very soft beaches.
Koh Chang is Beautiful
Black and white sand
Having shakes at Chang Tong Resortcafe
Our bungalow on stilts
Playing on the beach (can you spot us?)
Sunset at Koh Chang
by Evie
Koh Chang is beautiful. It has a big beach and a small beach with rocks in between. The beaches have a layer of white sand over the top of black sand and we like it because it’s soft. Mummy doesn’t like the sand because it’s sticky and a bit muddy. She had to wash our bikini bottoms seven times and it’s still not gone. We’re going back to the beach again today. Poor Mummy!
If you try to go in the sea, you get stings all over your body. We think this is because it’s too salty.
The sea has crabs in it as do the rocks and the flat sand. So watch where you’re going! The crabs have snippers but the ones on the flat sand are tiny. They get out of your way so Tettie is not scared of them any more.
From our balcony, I once saw two crabs running away from a larger crab. They went really fast. I don’t like crabs. I don’t even like pickled crabs or barbecued crabs. But worst of all are big, living crabs. They look scary.
We live at Koh Chang Resort which is on the rocks in between the two beaches. Our bungalow is in the sea when the tide is in but we don’t get wet because it is on stilts. You can hear the sea washing around underneath you. It makes me fall aslee… zzzzzz…
Island Life
It’s taken a while, but finally we’re here. We’ve travelled for well over a week from Laos to get to this island off the Andaman Coast (although admittedly with a few stop, first to get Scarlett’s cast removed, then to idle in Prachuap Khiri Khan), but now we’re ready to start our two month, 300-mile, island-hopping tour down to Malaysia. The island is Koh Chang, the northern-most island on the West coast (not to be confused with the more famous Koh Chang on the Gulf of Thailand).
As I write, I am lying in the Mexican hammock my dad bought me before my first backpacking trip in 1999, a brilliant present that proved invaluable to loafing around Thailand then and is just as seductively comfortable now as it was all those years ago (provided that three 8-year olds aren’t also trying to fit into it – fortunately they’re all now asleep). The day’s two-hours-per-day of electricity are over and, as the waves lap around three sides of our bungalow that hovers over the bay on stilts, I can either look across the sea to uninhabited, jungley Burmese islands, with fewer lights than any country I‘ve ever known, or up, to see more stars than are ever visible at home. This finally feels like being in the Tropics. This is the first time I’ve strung it in all the places we’ve visited this time. Finally I feel like I’m back to the Thailand I once knew.
I’d begun to think that this Thailand had vanished. In 1999, Janet and I backpacked for a year around Thailand. We never booked ahead. And we mostly paid £2-3 a night for flimsy bamboo bungalows, and maybe 30-40p for meals.
Even then the bamboo beach hits were fast disappearing in Koh Samui but it seems now that they are relics of a bygone age. And we find ourselves rarely spending less that £20 for a room nowadays (and nearer £2 each for food). Sure, we need spacier accommodation with 5 of us to squeeze in, but Thailand has moved on in 15 years. There are a lot more tourists, Thais are wealthier and the bungalow operations realise they can get a lot more for their beachfronts.
Still, the places we’ve visited have perhaps not been representative. Koh Samui, Koh Tao, Pattaya, Hua Hin: we’ve somehow made our first month and more a tour of the most developed resorts in the whole country. And, Koh Tao apart, these aren’t the kind of places we dreamt of revisiting.
But now… little Koh Chang. No bamboo beach huts, perhaps, but hammocks, lapping waves, sunsets, starlight, no electricity; just cheap food, warm seas and wonderful beaches. This is the Thailand I loved.
I hope the next two months can live up to its promise.
Evie, on realising we haven’t seen rain since early October
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“Mummy, what does rain look like? I can’t remember.”
Menu Poetry
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Who wouldn’t order “preserved egg freckles beautiful shrimp”? Did e e cummings once turn his hand to the culinary arts?
Not sure about the morning pork glory box, though.
Pratchuap Khiri Khan
Happy Days!
Ordering their chosen colour of candy floss
The night market just setting up
Shell & Stone Draughts
Shell collecting
Could we be in England? No, it’s too hot!
Scarlett enjoying the freedom of no cast on her leg!
What we really needed was a nice place where we could rest for a few days, allow Scarlett some time to learn to walk without her cast on, and hopefully not spend too much money.
We couldn’t have done better than roll into this lovely seaside town. We arrived by 3rd class train for the price of 68 bhat for all of us (about £1.20). OK, so the train was 3 hours late, but at that price who can complain?
After a bit of a hunt around, we have a HUGE (seriously, massive) hotel room with a sea view, spotlessly clean & much nicer than we can normally afford, for 1100 bhat/night (about £21)*. They have been so friendly to the children, giving them little cakes and treats, and there’s a lovely outdoor seating area with free tea, coffee and Ovaltine, so we’ve had a great time doing homeschool out there by the sea, making the most of the freebies.
The town is set in a beautiful horse-shoe bay, dotted with little islands, and has the unusual feature of a promenade, reminiscent of Scarborough or the East Coast of England. There’s also a large playground (which the children are totally hooked on, I have spent about 6 hours there in 2 days) and a brilliant night markets, with scores of little stalls selling everything you can imagine. Mostly we call it ‘funny stuff’ as we don’t know what it is, but it’s absolutely delicious and unbelievably cheap!
It’s so lovely to be in a real Thai town rather than a tourist town at last. In fact, we have just extended our hotel booking for a few more days. It’s hard to know how long to stay in each place; we have a 60 day visa and so many islands we want to see, what if we regret staying so long as we have to rush through other beautiful places? Or will we move on and sigh in regret that we didn’t stay there longer?
I say, if it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it. Enjoy it while it’s good, and be grateful that’s the biggest problem we’re facing right now. Happy days.
* Pratchuap Beach Hotel, about 500m south of the pier, if you are looking for it!
Cast On, Cast Off
So, after a nearly 30-hour journey, and with the aid of one tuk-tuk, one songtiaw, one taxi, one night train, one day train, two long distance buses and a fair bit of walking (sometimes even in the right direction), we have made it from Savannakhet in Laos to Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand.
We got a 60 day visa for Thailand this time round and are planning to spend the next two months almost entirely on Southern Thailand’s beaches and islands, heading on to Malaysia in late March. But before that starts, we’ve stopped in Hua Hin for a very important hospital appointment: tomorrow Scarlett gets her cast off!
She broke her leg on November 13th and it’s been a long, hard 10 weeks. At first she couldn’t sleep, then she couldn’t walk, then she couldn’t play with her sisters at all, then she couldn’t keep up with them on her crutches, then she couldn’t swim, but through it all, she’s been ever-so brave, hardly complaining through not only all that us dragging her half way across Asia.
But tomorrow (fingers crossed) there will be no more cast, no more complicated waterproof cast covers, no more dreadful itching and blisters where the cast rubbed, no more sand or stones to extricate, and no more carrying her up stairs (when she’s tired) or across beaches (when she has no cast cover on).
She’ll be mobile again and able to make the most of her travels.
All of which I’m glad for. Although I will rather miss the carrying her around in my arms bit.
Travelling with Triplets
A surprised double take. Wide eyes. “Fet Sam?” (That’s “Three twins?” in Thai. There’s no special word for triplets. I guess they’re too rare.)
I smile proudly. “Fet sam.” (“Yes, three twins”)
A closer look, one girl at a time. Then awe-struck agreement. “Aaw! Fet sam.”
She looks around, wondering who else to tell. A thrilled whisper follows if there’s someone nearby but if the nearest person is over the street, a discovery like this is too exciting not to be shouted across. “Fet sam!”
And it starts again. The newly-engaged stranger widens their eyes. They double take. And, disbelieving: “Fet sam?”
“Fet sam,” the woman confirms.
They turn to me. “Fet sam?”
I confirm it, too. “Fet sam.”
Wonder! “Aaw! Fet sam!” And a look around for someone who hasn’t yet heard the news.
Another shout to another stranger. “Fet sam!”
Another double take. Another query, first to their informant, then the general public around them, then me.
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Fet sam?”
“Fet sam.”
“Aaw! Fet sam.”
There’s no need for conversation starters when travelling South-East Asia with triplets. Wherever we go, they’re a sensation. But somehow, it never feels intrusive. No one stops us if we’re in a hurry. The wonder is genuine.
And when you’ve come to stare at someone else’s country, it’s only fair that they look back, too.
Out of the Frying Pan and into Pattaya
It’s great to be escaping the crowds on Koh Tao. As lovely as it still is, the island is just too busy right now (at peak season, to be fair) and I was starting to resent the crowds and the lack of any Thai people, culture, or even Thai food. A particular low moment was Fergus proudly ordering our food in Thai, only to be told by the waiter, “Sorry, no speak Thai!” You know you’re in a tourist trap when…
However, before we can hit that traveller vibe again, we are off to two of the most touristy places in the whole of Thailand: a night in Khao San Road followed by 3 nights in Pattaya.
Khao San is the notorious hang out for backpackers that’s developed into a kind of hotbed of youth culture, with cheap clothing, knock-off CD’s and DVD’s (it was tapes last time we were there, I feel old) and huge number of bars, nightclubs and late night eateries.
Pattaya is the jewel in the crown of Thailand’s seedier beach resorts, with a propensity to attract middle-aged, overweight Western men. The beach is supposed to be fairly ropey, but the local tourist office has been trying to redevelop the town to attract older couples and families, so it will be interesting to see it.
Our motivation for making this 2 day journey? We are going to meet an old friend of Ferg’s who’s just got married here and is having a honeymoon in Pattaya. I can’t wait to meet him having heard so many stories from childhood, mostly about catching frogs under the school they went to in Malaysia. Khao San is a natural break in the journey; our bus drops us there at 9pm tonight, so we might as well stay there.
It’s not what we’d have planned to do, but it’s been a fun journey so far and I’m sure the kids will enjoy the experience, plus there’s a pool at our hotel in Pattaya, which guarantees good times for us.
Let the holiday continue!
Travels with Triplets 