Slowboat to Luang Prabang (Part 1)

To get to Laos we booked a 3 day journey that entailed a day in a minivan from Chiang Mai to the Thai border town. Then two days on a slow boat before arriving in Luang Prabang in Laos.

The bus ride was pretty uneventful. Peach and Tess had spent our last night in Chiang Mai getting wasted at the reggae bar while I had an early one. They were in a world of pain for the entire bus ride. Ha Ha!

The Thai border town, Chiang Khong was just what you’d expect from a town that people only stop at because they have to – boring. So it was a fairly early night.

The next morning we caught a pick up a few hundred metres to the Thai Immigration point. After passing through we go a small boat across the river to Laos. At the Laos immigration point we filled out some forms and paid the officers a compulsory “overtime” charge for working on a Saturday. Next we hauled our gear up the street and and around the corner to a cafe where we were given some local currency to buy our boat tickets for the next two days. Next it was on to a pick-up truck and off to the pier where we signed in and bought our tickets before we finally got on the boat. The whole process took about an hour.

At the guesthouse in Chiang Khong they were selling cushions for use on the boat. We’d heard the seats weren’t that comfortable and this didn’t bode well. We got a cushion each – without a doubt once of the best investments of the trip. We should have got two.

The boat was jam packed full of people. There was probably 150-200 people on the boat – very much over capacity. There was no food on board but they sold beer. Everyone shared a single toilet. Hmmm lots of beer for sale, one toilet. I did the maths on that and resolved to stay sober. By the time we got on any chance of getting a seat was long gone. Luckily there was a flat wooden floored section up the front. I managed to get a spot there up against the side of the boat so I had a back rest too. By the time we were on our way there was hardly any room to move – but there was enough to make the odd adjustment and throughout the 8 hour journey it go roomier as people moved around the boat (although I’m not sure how it worked out this way).

Here’s a pic of the people on the boat.

Some people were bitching and moaning about the conditions on the boat but others were making the most of it. Plenty of people got stuck into the beers and a few others had guitars so there was plenty of merriment and singing. After a little while a party atmosphere developed and I ended up meeting loads of people that I’d see over and over during my time in Laos.

The first night in Laos we stopped at a town called Pak Beng. This was another town that didn’t really have anything going for it except that people passed through. There were plenty of locals ready to supply fresh tourists with dope and opium as well – not quiet the same fake designer gear I’d been used to in Thailand. I declined all offers. I noticed that some of those locals selling opium looked very pasty and clammy.

During dinner I had my first Beer Lao in Laos. I’d been looking forward to it since trying it in Cambodia a couple of years earlier. It’s a great beer but I actually have to rate Myanmar Draught higher. Plus Myanmar Draught was on tap whereas most other South-East Asian beers tend to be sold in bottles the vast majority of the time. Still I’m a huge fan of Beer Lao.

To be continued….

We’ve got Pai

Whilst Songkran was still on Peach & I decided to escape to the hills for a few days of rancho relaxo. We got to the bus station nice and early before the water onslaught started for the day. However just as our bus was leaving some kids through a couple of buckets of water through the open doors and it landed right on us. Point to them for stealth I’ve gotta say.

The doors on most public buses are always open in Thailand. This allows people to get on and off quickly and also provides natural air conditioning. Every now and again throughout the 3 or 4 hour bus ride water would come splashing though the door. Eventually the doors were closed but still some would get in.

Originally Peach was going to go to Pai by herself but I ended up tagging along. We have a deal when travelling that one person can go off and do their own thing when ever they like. That way no one has to compromise much on places we go. Early in the trip I was off by myself while the girls were on the Thai Gold Coast. Then at one point later on we were all in different places at once. This time I thought I’d give Peach some space so we stayed at different places. It didn’t really work out as planned though since we ended up spending most of the time together anyway.

In Pai I found a lovely place to stay – a set of very basic bamboo bungalows on the river bank. Just a matress, a mozzie net and a light are supplied. I had a hammock on my porch too which is always a winner. After a quick trip to a local store to buy some supplies I spent the rest of the day chilling out in my hammock or down by the river bank.

First impressions of Pai were very positive. It’s kind of a groovy little town with just a couple of main roads. There’s a very relaxed vibe. It’s the kind of place I can imagine Westerners would drop out and come to live.

On the first evening in Pai I bumped into Peach at an Indian restaurant. She’d scored a great place to stay, similar to mine but much more uber. She even had a computer in her bungalow with free internet access.

The next day we hired a motorbike and headed towards some natural springs nearby. Unfortunately the admission price was a rip off so we found a resort up the road that charged 90% less and had pumped the same spring water into several pools in their grounds. The pools were bloody hot though so after a few minutes we had to sit with most of our bodies out of the water.

After a nice lunch at the resort we headed back into town to the tourist office and got directions to some waterfalls we’d heard about. Songkran was still on although not with as much force as it was in Chiang Mai. Still every few hundred metres we’d get water thrown at us and we progressively got wetter and wetter. It wasn’t a particularly warm day so with the wind from riding the motorbike and our wet clothes we were pretty cold as we zoomed along the road.

Peach was trying her hardest to put on a brave face eventually it got too much, she was freezing cold. We turned around and headed back to the bungalow to a hot shower – coping several more doses of cold water on the way. By this stage I was getting a bit over all the water throwing too but still gave a laugh whenever we got hit – after all it’s an important national festival and who am I to poo-poo the fun.

The next day was supposed to be the last day of Songkran and although most people went back to their normal routine there were still a few people getting into it. In response we slipped into a relaxing routine for the next couple of days. We’d potter around in the mornings doing our own thing then in the afternoon we’d head up to a local pool/gym/bar which had seen better days but was a fun place to hang out. It was run by an stunning English girl and her Thai husband. Peach loved the girl’s accent and declared her intentions to develop the same one once we got to the UK.

I decided to do a work out at the gym. It reminded me of the kind of place someone would train at in the movies – you know the kind: where some guy’s family gets killed so he goes off, finds a master to train him, lives in some remote place and buffs up before coming back at the end and taking revenge. Or did I just watch too many crap movies as a kid? Hmmm…

After 4 nights in Pai it was time to head back to Chiang Mai. The original plan was to head back to Chiang Mai, stay the night then head off on a 3 day bus/boat trip to Laos. When I called our travel agent mate, Tom, he couldn’t get us on to the boat until the day after meaning we’d have to spend another day in Chiang Mai. Not the best scenario since we’d already spent so much time there but it did give us a chance to knock a few things off the to-do list.

Songkran

Songkran is a water festival to celebrate the new year in Thailand. It’s basically where the whole country stops and has a full on water fight for 4 or so days. In Chiang Mai it’s apparently celebrated with more gusto than anywhere else in the country – so although there’s 4 big days of water fighting you can expect to get soaked for a few days leading up to that too.

Chiang Mai has an old moat around the inner part of the city that’s still got water in it. There are main roads on both sides of it. A typical day runs like this: People line either side of the the moat and the main streets armed with water pistols, super soakers, buckets and water else they can get their hands on. Then they proceed to drench anyone that walks, rides or drives past. No one is spared. Those on the moat side of the road If you aren’t on the side of the road use the moat to refill their ammunition, those on the other side have hoses coming out of shops, restaurants and bars constantly filling up large drums to give them ample water supplies.

Meanwhile those that are driving around in traffic aren’t to be out done. Pickup trucks are the main type of car on the road in these parts and these will usually have 5-12 people in the back along with a full drum of water and the necessary arms to dish out their own attacks.

Traffic crawls around the moat while everyone blasts each other with water – all with a smile and good spirits. The bars open early and pump music out onto the street and Thais and tourists dance, drink and get soaked together having a great time of it. It’s not just for kids either. There were entire families getting into it and plenty of people over 50 giving as good as they got. The more enterprising people were buying huge blocks of ice off the street and putting them in their drums. This made the water ice cold. I gotta tell you I’d prefer to be blasted with manky but warm moat water over a bucket of iced tap water any day. Especially when it was flying out of the back of a pickup and smacking into your back – that bloody hurts! Brrrr!

The water fights aren’t confined to the main streets. It doesn’t matter where you go you’re bound to get soaked from head to toe and stay that way until you go home to change. We were staying just inside the moated area about 100m from the main road. Kids lay in ambush all around. I was always soaked within seconds of leaving the guesthouse. The only time it’s safe to walk the streets is before 10am or after 6pm when the sun starts going down. Any other time and you’re a target. As a result I’ve got no photos since the camera would have been wrecked. Some brave souls had their cameras out anyway. Check their photos here.

If you can’t beat them join them. I stocked up with a 1.8 litre super soaker, a half litre hand gun and a small bucket and hit the streets. One of my favourite moments was when we were standing out the front of a nice hotel having a war with the people across the road next to the moat. This part of the street was blocked to traffic but a bus load of people had to get through to drop people at the hotel. At first we formed a blockade and soaked the bus. Then we let it through. It parked out the front of the hotel entrance and the poor bastards inside had a 20 metre dash from the bus door to the inside of the hotel where staff were waiting for them with fresh towels. Ha Ha!! We formed a guard of honour that the tourists could dash along. Those that couldn’t get right up close were perched in readiness wherever they could position them selves to get a good shot. Turns out the bus was full of westerners in their 50s and 60s. They had no idea what they’d gotten themselves into. As each one took it in turns to leave the bus the hundred or so people taking aim would unload on them so that they were absolutely drenched by the time they got inside. It was gold!

I wasn’t always on the attacking side though. One day Peach and I took a large tuk-tuk up a mountain nearby to check out a temple there. The one we got was lucky enough to have closed sides but unfortunately it had an open back. The traffic was a nightmare so we’d often be in gridlock when someone would run out behind the tuk-tuk and throw a bucket of water in at us. My attempts at defense with my super soaker where hopeless under such incursions. After artfully dodging a couple of buckets with minimal impact one got me front on. As expected I got soaked. From then on it was a no fear situation and I regularly hung out the back of the vehicle and unloaded on anyone within range.

Long live Songkran!

Thai Feast

The cooking course we signed up in Chiang Mai was heaps of fun. As was often the case we met some really cool people. The conversations were as good as the food. The food was frightfully quick to cook (admittedly some of it was pre-chopped for us) and it tasted awesome. I’m a curry man from way back but only cook Thai curry’s once it a while. Indian’s more my game. But I had a ball cooking up Thai food all day. Part of it was that the food was just so good, part of it was that I was happy to be out and about again after being sick on my arse for 3 days and the other part of it was that I hadn’t cooked since leaving Australia and I was bursting to get back into a kitchen.

First thing we did was head down to the local market and buy the ingredients.

There were two menus, of 5 courses each, that you could choose to cook. We chose one each – that way we got to sample everything on offer

I liked Peach’s panang curry and chicken with cashew nuts best so I’ve already started hinting that she’s welcome to take on more of the cooking duties. We’ll see on that one. In fact writing this reminds me to bring her up on it.

Here’s a pics of some of the dishes. Despite the threat of bird flu breaking out every dish we cooked had chicken in it. Bird flu? What bird flu?

Sick

Chiang Mai has the best markets of anywhere else in China. There’s only one market full of dodgey crap. The rest of it is the sort of stuff that I could be bothered carrying in my backpack I would have spent up big on. I spent my first two nights in Chiang Mai after our return from the trek wondering around markets. There was heaps of interesting snack foods around. Half the time I didn’t know what I was eating. Usually I’d just get one word descriptions such as ‘chicken’, ‘pork’ or ‘vegetable’. I didn’t mind. I was loving it. I was like a kind in a candy store going from one food stall to another buying little deep fried balls of something, then heading over to another stall for a leaf filled with something else, then a skewer with something else on it. It was all gold as far as I was concerned. Even the bugs – yes, the bugs. I’d tried these in BKK on my first night there and they’re actually a delicious snack. I liked grasshoppers and little frogs best. I don’t know what they put in that seasoning but it was yum. I didn’t think much of cockroaches or beetles though – too messy since you have to pry open the shell and scoop the goop out with your teeth. You could get a mixed bag of fried bugs for about a dollar – just like getting a bag of mixed lollies from the milk bar when I was a kid

A couple of days later I woke up feeling really average. I was sick. Boo! I reckon it was from a curry I ate late one night on the way home from the Reggae bar that had become a regular hang out but there’s every chance I ate something dodgey at the market. Noooo!! I struggled out of bed for an hour or two in the morning in an bold defiant effort. No good though. Soon I was back in bed and that’s pretty much where I stayed for the next three days.

For the first day of being sick I lay in bed as the odd fever would come and go. Whenever the fever came I felt like vomitting but I hate puking and I’ve only done it once due to illness in my adult life and I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve done so from being drunk. I prefer to let the room spin than have a chunder. But every time this fever came on I knew my body wanted me to hurl. When I was alone I was able to focus and fight it off but later on in the evening Peach and Tess were in the room chatting in the middle of a fever attack. The noise of them talking was making me feel even sicker and I couldn’t concentrate at all. Next thing I knew I was dashing for the bin by the door and up it all came. Bugger! The room must have stunk cuz there was loads of it coming out. Always putting others first I unlocked the door and flung it open. Tess bolted out of the room. Peach stay to lend support before heading off to get a new bag for the bin. I’ve gotta brag here. My aim was spot on. There may have been one tiny splash on the floor and that was it. Immediately I felt better for a little while before the crapness started again. After another hurl later on and plenty of trips to the loo I was well and truly over it.

After 3 days I was sick (pardon the pun) of being couped up in the room so Peach and I signed up for a cooking course. I still hadn’t really eaten a proper solid meal and when we booked it the night before I was still pretty rough but I ended up pulling through ok.

Trekkin’

The people I met on my first night in Chiang Mai had invited me to a lake they were going to the next day. In the morning I was feeling the effects of the last couple of days being constantly on the move so decided not to join them. Instead I strolled around and got my bearings.

I bumped into Tom, the travel agent from the night before, who took me to his office and pitched a variety of treks and other things to me. He was a really nice guy so I didn’t mind that he was doing a sell job on me. By the end of the day I’d tracked down the girls and signed us all up to a trek starting the next day. Whilst we were gone I got Tom to organise our Laos visas – after the mission surrounding getting the Myanmar visas I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle this time around.

The trek was a two night three day affair. We had a really cool group. Everyone got on well and we had heaps of interesting conversations. We ended up hanging out with two of the guys, Ben & James, for most of the rest of our time in Chiang Mai.

On the first day we did some bamboo rafting. I though it would be boring but it was gold – especially since I was up front trying to steer the thing with 3 others hangin’ tough behind me. It got pretty intense when we hit the rapids. At one stage I didn’t steer us away from a rock in time and I went flying A over T into the water. Luckily I got away with a slightly bruised hand – not bad since I landed on a bed of rocks. No wucken furries.

The rest of the trek consisted mostly of walking though jungle or rice fields for a couple of hours then swimming near waterfalls for an hour then repeating it all again. Good stuff.

On the first evening we stayed in a bamboo shelter on the bank of a river. The next night we stayed with a hill tribe in their village. They cooked up a storm for us. Yummo! After seeing the kitchen they had to work with I won’t be complaining about any kitchen I have to deal with again.

Got to hand it to these tribes people for their inventiveness. Check out the dish rack.

After three days of soaking up nature’s beauty we headed back to Chiang Mai.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We arrived at Bangkok Airport without a problem. Having spent so much time in Bangkok previously I wasn’t keen on double dipping so we proceeded with a plan to go to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. We caught a taxi to the appropriate bus terminal, which was massive, and found that the next available bus to Chiang Mai was in an hour and a half. Plenty of time to grab a decent feed and reflect on the previous 22-odd hours of being on the road. Since we’d be getting to our destination quite late in the evening Peach had the foresight to pick a guesthouse out of the LP guide and ring ahead to reserve a room and arrange a transfer from the bus station. It was the first time I’d booked accommodation since the very first night in Bangkok at the start of the trip.

The bus trip was 10 hours. It was a pleasure to be on Thai buses and roads after the amusement ride-esque ones in Myanmar. There’s essentially one long straight highway from Bangers to Chiang Mai so it’s a lovely smoothe ride. On long-haul buses in Thailand are ace. The seats recline a mile, you get a foot rest, there’s a hostess who hands out treats, the air-con is pumping (too much), you get your own blanket, there’s a toilet on board and it’s pretty easy to get some sleep. Rancho Relaxo.

Unfortunately since it was about 1:30pm by the time the bus left my body clock had me wide awake, despite my lack of sleep the night before. Sleeping on the bus wasn’t an immediate option. Instead there was a Hollywood film dubbed in Thai on the onboard TV. Even though I can’t speak Thai I could still follow the story line. That either says a lot about my perception skills or a lot about Hollywood films. Hmmm. Anyway it was a Ray Liotta film. He was a bad arse who got sent to a tropical island that was actually a prison. The feds just dump you there and leave you to your own devices. They monitor the island around the clock and if any escape attempts are made they send in the choppers and blow up whatever shelter the prisoners have managed to build. Anyhow it was quite enjoyable – I’ll have to watch it again one day in English and see how it compares.

In the end I did manage to squeeze a couple of hours sleep in on the bus and by the time we rolled into Chiang Mai at 11:30pm I was feeling quite refreshed. Unfortunately we told our guesthouse the wrong arrival time so they weren’t at the bus station to pick us up. So we caught a tuk-tuk instead. The guesthouse was all closed up when we arrived. We banged on the door and someone woke up. At first they tried to tell us they were full and then we convinced them that we’d booked a room so they couldn’t be and they let us in.

There was some reggae music blaring near our guesthouse and since I didn’t feel like sleeping I headed out to see where it was. I found it was a cool little bar with a mix of locals and backpackers. I met a local called Tom who rang a travel agent business. I also got talking to several Brits. It was a good night shooting the breeze and I didn’t end up in bed until about 2:30am. It’d been a long couple of days!

Visa Dance

After a few rancho relaxo days on Koh Phayam I had to head back to Bangers to meet up with Peach and sort out where to go next.

I got the overnight bus from Ranong and got to the guesthouse I assumed Peach would check into around 6am in the morning. She was flying in from Samui and by my reckoning should be there around 8:30am. After a refreshing shower and some breaky of street cart soup I waited in the guesthouse resourant. No sign of Peach and it was now after 9am and I needed to catch up on some sleep. So I hit the sack for a few hours.

When I woke up in the early arvo I checked email but still no word from Peach. So I hung out a while exploring the surrounding area. As I was heading back to my room a while later I bumped into Peach in the lobby. She was just about to email me.

It turns out she’d been on an all night bender the night before and had had a massive argument with Tess about whether to catch the flight pretty much straight from the bar or waiting and catching a later one. With out going into the details after a lot of taxis (to and from bars, bungalows and the airport), changing of flights, re-changing of flights and screaming at each other they ended up missing the flight they were suppose to catch and had to pay an upgrade to get the next one, otherwise they’d be stuck there for another few days. Luckily I missed all this drama. They eventually got to the guesthouse around 11am, apparently still drunk, and collapsed into a slumber as soon as they checked in. Obviously the girls were in no state to get a plan of attack together regarding travel plans so we took it easy until the next day.

It turned out that our Thai tourist visas were going to expire the following Monday and it was now a Thursday. The options were extend our Thai visas for a while and check out more of Thailand or leave the country for somewhere else.

Extending the Thai visas was going to cost 1900 baht (about $AU70) and one week was the maximum extension allowed. Given that this was going to be fairly restrictive regarding what we could squeeze into a week and that we thought it a rip off since we could probably fly out of the country for less and come back later and get another month long tourist visa we decided to head to Myanmar (Burma).

To get a visa to Burma via a travel agent was also going to cost a small fortune in Thai terms so we decided to head to the embassy ourselves and got there 10 minutes before they closed for the day at 3pm.

The visa office at the Myanmar embassy looked like a waiting room for peope that had died and were waiting to be reborn. (Think of that scene from Beetle Juice). It had the ambience of a herion shooting gallery. Regardless we were happy to discover that the price for getting a next day visa was more than half that offered by travel agents. The problem was that due to someone on staff being unavailable for reasons I couldn’t determine the quickest they could process our visas was two business days. Being a Thursday this meant we couldn’t get our visas until Monday – the same day our Thai visas expired.

What followed was a couple of hours huddled around a computer at an internet cafe canvassing options. It turns out the cheapest Air Asia flight to Myanmar on Monday left prior to the time we could get our passports. There were later flights but they were 3-4 times more expensive. The girls were pissed at the amount of money they’d sunk on Samui so a cheap option had to be found.

We could get a cheap flight the morning after our Thai visas expired but what would happen if we showed up at the airport with expired visas. We assumed we’d just pay a 500 baht fine and be on our way. That would be heaps cheaper than extending our visas, especially since we were only going to be 7 hours overdue when we left the country. A quick internet search showed multiple reports from other travellers that there was a very real likelihood we’d be arrested and detained. Regardless of what this meant legally it would also mean we’d miss our flight and eventually have to get another one. We decided to go ahead with the plan anyway and figure out the Thai visa stuff later.

So we piss farted around in Bangers for a few days but which felt like a few months and finally Monday came around. After collecting our passports from the Myanmar embassy I told the others I intended to go to Thai immigration and get an extension on my Thai visa. I didn’t want any hassles and I generally prefer to do the right thing. I don’t even jay walk. The girls had earlier decided to save the pennies, forget the extension and try their luck at the airport. By telling them my plans they started feeling guilty and freaking out about what might happen if the Thai authorities were having a bad day. My comments regarding paying for additional flights, paying fines, getting bags searched and the inevitable rubber glove treatment probably didn’t help.

At Thai immigration we were told that there’d be no arrests and all we’d have to do was pay the fine which as he pointed out was a better option than paying for the extension. His exact words were “One day overstay no problem Thailand. Pay fine is better.”. Happy with this development we headed to the airport the next morning. After all the messing about imagine my disappointment when I pointed out to the customs official that my visa had expired and she told me that since it was less than 1 day over there was no fine to pay!

The neutral zone

On Phayam I spent a lot of time just absorbing the goings on around me. When you’re in the Neutral Zone it’s recommended that, if you can afford the time, you take a few days out, go somewhere on your own with no books or television or other distractions. You should spent your time doing nothing in particular just paying attention to your surroundings and taking it all in. It’s recommended that you keep a diary of your experiences for later reflection. I learnt about the Neutral Zone concept during a change management subject at uni and it really resonated with me. Hence the name of this blog! For more information on the Neutral Zone look up Bill Bridges on the web or check out some of his books.

So what did i notice while just paying attention to my surroundings. Heaps! It’s amazing how much goes on around us that we don’t realise. Here’s a couple of examples of the types of things I noticed.

I was lying in my hammock in the late afternoon when I noticed a lizard climb part way up a nearby cashew tree. It would climb half a metre then stop for a few minutes and move its head up and down in a jerking motion whilst keeping its eyes fixed ahead on something I couldn’t see. Sometimes it would stop moving its head for a while and remain still but at other times it would jerk constantly. Eventually after several minuites it disappeared out of sight.

While I was watching the lizard I heard a loud buzzing noise above me. I thought it must be an insect flying around but I couldn’t see one. Then I saw it. I was an insect but it was hovering in mid-air a couple of metres above me near a branch on the tree. It seemed to be holding itself there for no reason I could tell. I spent a while glancing back and forward between the lizard and the insect. Then the insect suddenly charged forward and must have hit another insect since they both came falling rapidly towards me. Startled I tried to move out of the way but both insects managed to change course and missed me. I didn’t see them again after that. I presumed I’d witnessed one insect trying to kill another or some kind of mating ritual.

Paradise on Koh Phayam

On March 17 I left Ranong for Koh Phayam. The boat leaves at 9 in the morning. I had no interest in hanging around Ranong any longer than I had to so I got to the pier about 7:30am, got some breaky and waited.

I’ve been getting up pretty early for most of the trip so far. It’s still quite cool then and you can pack so much more into your day. By 11am it feels like I’ve spent a whole day wondering about and there’s still most of the day to go. Bonza!

It was a couple of hours or so on the slow boat to Koh Phayam. I’d been hanging out to get to this island since I left home since it came on very high recommendation from a couple of friends at home and it didn’t disappoint. Cheers Matt & Liv!

After we’d docked I thought I’d try my chances with a tout at the pier rather than walking around finding a place myself. One of the touts was a lovely young girl called Wan, who spoke good English and had a great smile. Sold.

Here’s a pic of Wan.

The bungalow I stayed in was on the sand just back from the beach. It also had a hammock which always wins me over. Here’s a pic:

I spent the next few days riding around the island on a motorbike. There’s a great 3km+ long beach on the west side of the island that has decent shore breaks so I did a bit of body surfing. The island is very underdeveloped. There’s a few bungalows tastefully spread out along the long beach and a very tiny village based around the pier but besides that it’s pretty empty. There’s no cars on the island and the few laid roads that exist are only wide enough for a couple of motorbikes. Most of the roads are sandy tracks. There weren’t many foreigners around although I would usually pass a handful, often playing volleyball, as I walked along the beach. The place I stayed has 24 hour electricity because they had solar panels but most places only power up for a couple of hours at night. The emptiness and tranquility of Koh Phayam is exactly what I was looking for.

One of the first things you notice on Phayam is the smell of rotting fruit. The main industry on the island is cashew farming. And there’s loads of the fruits that fall to the ground and rot. But the smell is actually quite nice and I’ve been wanting to smell it again since I left. Apparently the fruit is no good for eating but the nut is inside a shell which is actually the stem of the fruit. I’d never seen a cashew tree before so this was all very fascinating for me.