Ko Chang and Ko Phayam

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Hey Everyone,

Sorry about taking so long to post another blog ... its amazing how distracting traveling can be haha!! Anyways the next stop on our little journey was a pair of fairly unpopulated, well i guess anything might seem so after Bangkok, islands in the province of Ranong just off the Andaman Coast: Ko Chang and Ko Phayam

When we originally went to leave Bangkok we were looking at the larger, more well known 'Ko Chang Island' in the eastern part of the country and the lady who ran our hostel informed us that she and her husband also ran a beach hostel on "Ko Chang Island" called the Eden Bunglaow Resort. We decided to go there seeing as she kinda 'hooked us up' and it was only when we were boarding a bus to the south and not east did we realize where we were actually going. We decided not to worry about it and it turns out that it worked out pretty well. The smaller Ko Chang is very unpopulated: it only has a little village near the centre and an army reserve on top of a hill. Supplies are shipped in everyday by boat, which we had to take to get to the island. There is only one real beach which tourists can stay on, no electricity until the generators are turned on at night, and no phones unless you use a cell phone and stand on a specific rock facing a specific direction: it was great! We spent most or our days on the sand reading, in the ocean swimming, or walking up and down the beach taking pictures and collecting sea shells. Thats pretty much all we did. We met some nice people, mostly from Europe, and the Thais that helped run the 'bungalow resort' were great and really accommodating. After about eight days we decided it was time to move along.

We next headed to the island of Ko Phayam which is just south of Ko Chang. The island was a little larger and a little more populated but there were still no phones and no electricity until the generators were turned on at night. However, before we could hit the next island we had to get some more cash so we took the boats back to Ranong and then out to Ko Phayam where we stayed at the Vijit Bungalow Resort. Phayam has two major beaches that travellers stay on and a 'roadway' connecting the small port town to everything else - it was just large enough for scooters and small motorcycles to use ... no cars. We were fortunate enought to be on the island when they had there annual Ko Phayam Festival which included such activities as Kayak Racing and Beer Drinking. After expereincing as much of the festival as we desired we decided that we could walk back to our resort because it really wasn't that far and we could use the exercise (having spent days on the beach) however we failed to notice the quickly approaching storm clouds and ended up walking back in the rain ... still it really wasn't that far. A couple days later we decided we wanted to visit the other beach on the island and maybe pick up some more supplies (our resort didn't have toilet paper, go figure!?) so we rented a scooter and made it half way across the island before we got a flat tire ... so we turned around and walked the scooter all the way back to our bungalows; we got our workout in that day too! Eventually we made it to the other beach and it turns out it was a fairly large one with some pretty decent waves when the tide goes out. After having a quick meal at one of the resorts on that beach we hopped back on our scotter and rode back to our beach ... in the rain! Regardless of everything we actually had a really good time on Phayam: we spent most of our times in hammocks and the water ocean on our beach went WAY out so there was plenty of beach to explore and sand dollars to be found by Jenna!

After about 8 days on Phayam we decided that it was time to head back to the citites: we both had a fair amount of itchy mosquito bites and we were starting to get dangerously close to the epiration date on our 30 day visas!

Next up we are heading north to the cities of Chiang Mai, Chaing Rai, and the town of Chiang Saen.

Cheers,

Jenna and Jarret.

Oh yeah ... just a quick note on the political situation. For a while there it got pretty sketchy but we were never in any danger of any type. The reason for the occupation of the airports was along the lines of what follows: the government is currently a diplomatic one but the prime minister (who we will refer to as PMB) was a man who a fair amount of Thais did not trust because he is the brother in law of a former leader (whom we will call PMA) that was ousted in 2006 due to dirty politics including (and I may be wrong on this) rigged votes and the collection of too much power under himself. That man (PMA) fled the country and was banned from returning but it seemed as the current government was considering changing the constitution so that the he (PMA) could return. The people occupied the airports in order to keep the current prime minister (PMB) from returning to the capital city of Bangkok, he was away for some reason, and to also make there voices heard by literally bringing the tourist industry, which is HUGE in Thailand, to a halt. Over 100,000 people were stranded in the airports and the airlines lost up to 1.4 million dollars A DAY because of the occupation. The army refused to side with either the government of the people and if things did not resolve themselves the King of Thailand would have had to have been called in to make a decision. The government, however, was dissolved and a new one is currently being set back up, the occupation of the airports ended and things, apparently, are returning to normal. However, the tour agents and travel guides that we have been talking to informed us the business has become incredibly slow. Also, to convolute things even further, we were informed that the occupation of the airports may have been instigated by the Crown Prince of Thailand. Apparently, and Thais will not talk about this because they refuse to speak bad of the royal family ... especially to foreigners, the Crown Prince is not the greatest guy and many are afraid of what he may do when he takes over the thrown. So really, we don't know if things are on the ups or what, but the airports are open again and everything seems alright.

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