Ban Phe - Off the Beaten Track

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Ban Phe

When we told our hosts on Koh Samed that we were staying in Ban Phe for a few days they thought it rather strange as most foreign visitors head out to the resorts some miles out of town. We had no doubts that a more Thai experience awaited us with our choice, the Huan Soontaree Resort, and we were definitely proved right even though we were the only gusts there for the duration of our stay. At least we had the pool to ourselves no matter what the heavens threw at us!

It’s the wet season and it made its presence very well known during our stay. It was a wet and bumpy ride on the boat to the mainland, and a soggy but short journey on the resort’s transport – a motorbike with a side-car type of appendage often used for selling goods rather than transporting passengers and their luggage. Our plans had to be very flexible.

We had wanted to visit the Rayong Provincial East Plant Centre to do some kayaking in the mangrove swamps. This can only be done in the morning and we never had a morning that looked good enough to risk it. Oh well, it’s something we can look at again in the future.

Instead we negotiated a pick-up taxi to take us out to Pricha Village, on the western side of Ban Phe. This was a chance of a bit of off-the-beaten-track Urbex (urban exploration!) that we couldn’t miss regardless of the weather. Thanks to fellow blogger Derek at theholidaze.com we knew there was an abandoned aircraft to be found close to Mae Rumphueng beach. Getting there wasn’t quite as easy as described by him as tracks have become rather overgrown since his visit and a fisherman’s village has occupied the beachfront access. We did go through their area but eventually we had to turn back as it felt increasingly insecure.

To get to the aircraft we walked through a more-or-less abandoned posh housing estate. One or two of the properties looked maintained and possibly lived in, but in general mother nature was in the process of taking over. At the far side of the estate we found HS-TRB, an ATR-72 once of Thai Airways abandoned in the colourful livery of Nok Air. Derek’s blog tells the full story and I’ll not repeat it all here, but they did have to build a special runway to fly the aircraft in so at some stage someone was going to do something special here. It was a great bit of exploration for us, but Russ smacked his shin on a hidden wooden post in the high grass and it drew blood. Luckily for him it wasn’t rusty metal or anything nasty like that.

On the shoreline near the aircraft is what was supposed to be a luxury holiday resort. Inside some of the rooms there are beds complete with very comfortable-looking mattresses still in their plastic covers. A dolphin and a ray act as guardians of a couple of accommodation blocks so clearly the plans were quite grand. It’s quite a sad sight as it illustrates perfectly the desperate situation that Covid left in its wake. Will tourism ever recover so that projects like this can come to fruition? Quite possibly not as they will probably need to knock it all down and start again.

We decided to walk a few kilometres along the seafront road back towards Ban Phe. The Mae Rumphueng beach road is separated from the sands by thick vegetation and rustic food shacks. When we got to the main “touristy” area we were amazed to find fish restaurants with tanks outside allowing self-selection of anything from fresh crab to red snapper. We were not hungry though and we managed to find a Bolt driver willing to collect us and take us back to our resort.

The next day left disappointment again with the weather but we took a pick-up taxi to the local Aquarium. With low expectations we were pleasantly surprised. Everything looked quite well maintained and the selection of fish, big and small, was mesmerising. There was even a walk-through shark tank but it was crowded as it seems to be the local selfie-spot! I think we were both surprised at how long we spent there. Not bad for 30 Baht (60p).

From there we walked (in the rain with our umbrellas up) for about an hour and a half all the way back to the resort, stopping for some provisions along the way. Multiple stalls sell the same selection of dried fish and fruit. It’s quite pungent in places! We found the Elephant Café for a fabulous frappé coffee and a croissant. Such a treat!!

On our final day we were resigned to not kayaking in mangrove swamps and instead persuaded a taxi driver to take us a few kilometres East to Chao Pho Tho Kong shrine. Again our knowledge of this was solely thanks to Derek at theholidaze.com . The shrine featured a childhood hero of Russ’s with a giant statue of the Monkey God! There was also a section dedicated to the Thai Navy in the shape of a ship. It was an intriguing area but felt a little run down. We then walked all the way back along the tree-lined seafront road. That took us through the arboretum but there was no real information about anything. Along the way we simply had to trust that the many dogs were docile and friendly, which they were!

We really enjoyed our time in Ban Phe and the lack of other tourists took nothing away from our stay. We found great places to eat in a shack-like restaurant opposite the pier, next to the municipal buildings. If you are ever in the area, the food is amazing and they do have a menu in English with pictures of everything. It was so good we went there twice. We would also have been return visitors to the restaurant at Relax Inn but they close on Monday nights so our one fabulous evening there was the only one! Close to there is Tara’s Café who serve a variety of schnitzel dishes. We had a chat with her on our walk back from the Naval shrine and promised to return in the evening. The torrential rain made it impossible to go any further than the local pizza place which was truly disappointing and the tables and chairs inside were not in use so we had to take it back to our room. Still, we had treated ourselves to a nice bottle of Australian wine to go with it. Our only disappointing culinary experience on this trip.

The time had come to say goodbye to this part of Thailand. A taxi took us through the industrial landscape of Rayong to Pattaya airport where we caught a flight down to Phuket. It’s a very low-key airport but it made for a very comfortable journey – except for having our water confiscated to go through security and then having nowhere to buy refreshments until the snack was served on the Bangkok Airways flight.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Off the Beaten Path
Sounds like you found a peaceful location to explore and avoid the throngs of tourist.