Squid Island

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Fergus

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!”

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Island Life

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Fergus

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.

Reliving Our Youth

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Janet

It’s our last night on Koh Tao, where we’ve been for a week over New Year. We visited 13 years ago in our ‘youth’; the island’s much busier and built up now, it’s gone from ‘backpacker’ to ‘flashpacker’ with budget accommodation very hard to come by. Yet the natural beauty is largely intact, the waters are still crystal clear and turquoise, and we’ve had a great time. It feels a bit like we’ve had a package holiday away from our backpacking lifestyle!

For the most part, this visit has been a very different experience to last time around. Up early, out on the beach trying to catch children and apply sun cream before they get in the sea, blowing up lilos, fetching various goggles, snorkels and other swimming paraphernalia to and from our beach bungalow, sweeping endless sand out of said beach bungalow (I don’t remember that every being a problem pre-children) and playing hours and hours of swimming games and card games to keep everyone happy.

It’s a stark contrast to the lie-ins, the afternoon sleeps on the sand, and the bar-hopping and late night drinking of last time around. Actually, now I come to think about it, I’m not sure what we did all day without children. But that applies to life both at home, too.

We had a nice opportunity to reminisce last night after Fergus finished his PADI diving course. It’s been 3 full days of him off diving and me entertaining the troops, so to celebrate his new status as a qualified scuba diver we stayed up late, sitting on our verandah, and drank a Thai classic cocktail from back in the day – Sang Som rum, M150 and Coke. It felt good to have come full circle.