Blogs from Ko Phayam, South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia
Part 2 - A gecko lullaby, the annihilation of a nation and Angkor What????
Published: December 23rd 2011Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Phayam
December 23rd 2011
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang After the trials of The Killing Fields (and possibly in Andy’s case Cambodian reality TV), he made the decision that the trip wasn’t matching his expectations and that he wasn’t getting anything from it. No disagreement from me there although I find it helps to try a little to get something back. It was actually a relief when he announced he was going to go home. I suggested that perhaps returning immediately to London might not be the most positive option (after all, I know exactly what it feels like to want to run away from feeling rubbish – remember my arrival in Bangkok?). I asked him if he’d rather ... read more
December 27th 2010
CHANGE OF PLAN. After speaking to someone who'd left the area further south where we'd planned to go we changed our plans. It's been raining there for weeks now and it seems there's no let up. The island we are on is beautiful and so we thought 'why leave? the weather is good here.' As someone said 'why go in search of paradise when you've already found it?' We changed accommodation as ours had been booked by someone for Christmas. I was a bit up set for a while but fortunately we found an even better one, large, with various items of furniture (most unusual here) and for less than ten pounds a day. It's right on a beautiful quiet stretch of the beach. We have lots of friendly people for neighbours mostly from Europe. The ... read more
simply Gorgeous + photos
Published: December 19th 2010Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Phayam
December 19th 2010
we have travelled south down the peninsular of Thailand and we're now on a small island off the West Andaman coast. This island is simply gorgeous, white sand crescent shaped bay with a scattering of bungalows but otherwise undeveloped. Everywhere you look butterflies flutter about. Hornbill birds sqwark from the treetops and crickets sing you to sleep. The only roads are just a metre wide meaning the only transport are mopeds. We've rented a superb bungalow up on the hillside overlooking the bay. We've had a few visitors namely a nine inch gecko, a frog who loves our toilet, and a homing snail who comes back every time I sweep it off the verandah! We've hired a moped for the duration, th and visited the next bay last night where we bumped into Avalina from Finland ... read more
December 8th 2010
It is said that an army marches on its stomach; well, we travel on ours. Without wishing to demystify the romance of life on the road for any armchair travellers browsing this page at the office, or at home with a nice cup of tea and Eastenders on the telly, often is the time that lunch ends up being the standout highlight of the day and, whilst happily digesting whatever tasty Thai treat we recently enjoyed, we often struggle to find sufficient motivation to fill the interminable hours that loom before us like a gaping chasm that separates the past pleasure of lunch from the future one of dinner. It can sometimes be a hard gap to bridge, especially when stuck on a small island suffering the 5th day of rain in a row. Which, for ... read more
Wie Ko Samui in den 80ern
Published: December 10th 2010Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Phayam
December 1st 2010
So wirbt zumindest die Broschüre eines Bungalow-Anbieters. Ich bezweifle, dass es auf Ko Samui vor 25 Jahren Internet, geschweige denn WLan gegeben hat, aber sonst könnte es durchaus hinkommen. Ko Payam liegt in der Nähe von Ranong einer Grenzstadt, die Westler oft nur auf der Durchreise besuchen, entweder auf dem Weg zu den nahegelegenen Inseln oder auf dem "Visa-Run" in das benachbarte Myanmar. Die meisten Touristen, die zu den Inseln wollen, fahren nach Ko Payam, nicht dass das besonders viele wären. Der Anteil deutschsprachiger Touristen ist dabei relativ hoch. Wenn man einen anderen Farang trifft, kann man ihn eigentlich gleich auf deutsch ansprechen. Die Chance, dass er das versteht ist recht hoch. Das mag damit zusammenhängen, dass Ko Payam im "Loose", der deutschen Traveller-Bibel, als Highlight bezeichnet wird, während es im Lonely Planet, jedenfalls der Ausgabe ... read more
May 10th 2010
Ranong is a small town which people seem to dash through either on route to the islands of Koh Chang and Koh Phayam, or before skipping across the water to Burma. And to be honest it didn't appear to be somewhere with much individual appeal. However before we sailed off for another slice of island life, we decided to visit Ranong's nearby geothermal springs. A popular spot with Thai tourists the scolding hot pools are said to have healing properties. Harri and I could hardly bare to dip our toes into the near boiling water and weren't convinced of it's power to heal. But Lewi the masochist loves hot water and so enjoyed the pain involved in soaking his feet in the scorching tub of water. But even he couldn't compete with the madwoman who was ... read more
December 8th 2009
We were back on the boat to travel to Chumpon then a coach journey over to Ragoon then a boat the following morning to get us to the island of Ko Phayam. This time the journey was thankfully calm! and the coach journey only took a couple of hours only we had missed the daily boat over to Ko Phayam by the time we arrived to Ragoon, therefore had to stay the night there to catch the morning boat. Ragoon is a strange place to say the least! the small town has very few vistiors (except for travellers like us who miss the boat over to local islands!) the whole palce smells very fishy, We did however get a luxuary (TV & hot water) suite for far less than we usually pay (not that we ever ... read more
Stage 3- Tour-de-Thailand
Published: November 30th 2009Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Phayam
November 29th 2009
So the top gear journey of the year begun. We left Puhket bright and early stood on the side of the road waiting for a bus. The fact that there was no bus stop or timetable didnt matter as we knew it would come but we hoped it would stop for us. The journey to Ko Pahyam would see us lug our bags onto the bus, a coach to Ranong where we were picked by Vijit (the guy who owned the accommdation) in his pick-up truck, then we got his speed boat to make the 30min trip to Ko Payham where we were greeted by a Utar truck that would carry our bags to the bungalows. One thing about Ko Payham is that there are no roads. Well actually there are roads but roads only big ... read more
November 19th 2009
Ko Phayam The journey from Phuket to Ko Phayam would prove to be a fairly easy one - a bus from Karon to Phuket Town & then a connecting bus from Phuket to Ranong, where we would then get a speed boat to the small & tranquil island of Ko Phayam. The bus from Phuket to Ranong took 6 hours, with one stop off at a smaller, official bus station, where we grabbed some cheap & not so nice food. Stretched legs & refreshments out of the way, we carried on the journey to Ranong, finally arriving at Ranong bus station at 16:00, where we were greeted & picked up by the owner of Vijit’s - the resort we had pre-booked to stay at. We somehow managed to tactically pile all 7 of our back packs ... read more
March 23rd 2009
The internet has eaten my last two entries and they were good ones. So, this is going to be short and sweet. I'll update this blog and finish up the trip report and all the lovely stories when I arrive back home with fast, reliable internet. For now, I'm on a beach with a bandage on my foot because I stepped on a sea urchin at low tide. It's not exactly the ending that I was looking for. Otherwise that small detail (that hurts like hell), life is grand.... read more
