When I was younger (so much younger than today...), I went to a little island called Twin Island. It only had one family owned resort on it called Twin Island Resort and I remember having the best grilled fish ever. If I remember correctly, we were the only people staying on the island, which incorporated a strip of sand connecting two tiny islands off the northern tip of Koh Chang, which itself is located near the Cambodian border. After doing a little bit of Googling, we found out that the island itself is called Koh Ngam and still has only one resort on it, albeit a newer one, called Analay Resort. A quick phone call later, we had booked ourselves three nights' stay.
From Bangkok, we got a bus from Suvarnabhumi Airport Bus Terminal on Thursday evening and arrived in Trat five hours later. Trat is the main town near the piers that ferry you to Koh Chang. As our boat was leaving early the next morning, we stayed the night at the affordable Residang Guest House. We highly recommend any budget watchers to stay here, it's clean, there's good service and it's not too far from the main centre.
We wandered around Trat the next morning, browsing through a couple of book stores and generally wasting a bit of time in this sleepy town. Not much seems to go on here but it's not a bad place to gather your thoughts (and toothpaste) before you head off to paradise. I got a call from one of the owners of Analay saying that their boat was in town stocking up on supplies and that we could hitch a ride with them for free if we fancied it. Never ones to let a free ride go by, we accepted and soon found ourselves sharing a tiny fishing boat with the driver and his mate. Halfway into our supposed one hour journey, the skies opened up and we were stuck in a bit of a storm. The driver's mate suddenly jumped into the ocean with a knife but we couldn't see what he was doing. He came back up onto the boat, which was by this time gathering some water, with a huge cut on his finger. Erika handed him a tissue to stop the flow of blood and we found out that he had to cut some rope that had tied itself around the propeller. The boat got going again, the skies cleared and we rounded the corner of our island. Only a little bit of drama considering that these shores were once rife with pirates...
That night the whole resort, which can only take up to 50 people, was literally ours. Dinner was cooked for us only and Neil Young, James Taylor and Kenny Rogers was playing on the stereo - this place hadn't changed since I was here in the 80's! The accommodation on the island consists of a few larger two storey houses with A/C and the rest are either fan or aircon double/twin bungalows. We were given a lovely little hut that looked right over the sea with a beautiful view.
We spent the day pretty much scouring the beach for shells and, with the quality of the ones we found washed up on the beach (now crowding our bathroom...thanks Erika...), we found that the coral out to sea is still pretty lively here. This was the most amount of coral we had seen and we weren't even snorkeling.
The day was slightly overcast and every now and then the rain would break through but who cares when you're having a beer and reading a book in the restaurant with the sea breeze keeping you company?
Nothing much more happened, which is pretty much what we want at the beach. We had dinner with the owners who told us about their other resorts which you can check out here: http://www.analay.com/. On Saturday the sun was out so we decided to hire one of the kayaks to explore the surrounding seas. We'd just walked along the edge of the rocks and loved the fact that we could just see the fish swimming around the coral from the surface, although we wanted to have a better look at the coral's ridge where the water was deeper. And, lo and behold, ten minutes in, as I was concentrating on keeping the kayak near the island, I saw some dark figures moving through the ocean. "DOLPHINS!!!!!" I shouted. We turned the kayak to get a better look and sure enough, there they were. Probably a pod of about five or six, not exactly leaping out of the water but simply coming up for air every now and then. TICK! Sorry readers, but we didn't take the camera with us (note to self: buy a cheap, water resistant camera).
We ate well too - we actually saw one of the staff catch our fish for dinner during the afternoon. The phad thai noodles were the best yet, as was the som tum (spicy papaya salad). One day I am going to simply tour all the beaches in Thailand and spend months just writing and eating seafood. Thailand knows how to do beaches.
The trip back to Bangkok was a joy as the owners (hello Vilasa, Salang and Songnam!) gave us a lift (thanks!). On the way they were kind enough to show us their fruit farm in the province of Trat which is famous for bearing tons of the stuff. We were lucky enough to be driving through the province during the annual fruit fair. Never seen so much fruit in all my life, from durian (the smelly one) to rambutan to banana to....well, the list goes on. The rambutan is the main crop the owners have and we can both now say that we are experienced at picking them...
Till next time, happy campers.
No comments:
Post a Comment