Quiet Koh Jum

It’s been a long time since our last post, we’ve spent the last 8 nights in quiet Koh Jum. Koh Jum is a small island between Krabi and Koh Lanta; no electricity, nothing to do really except go to the beach, snorkel, read, etc. We stayed at Andaman Resort which has rows of brightly painted a-frame houses along the beachfront.

It was an extremely lazy week, we had some great food (the best so far in Thailand) and met some great people during our stay; the locals were really nice and the foreigners we’d met had been coming to the island for a long time. One man from France has been coming to Koh Jum for the last 8 years, even during the Tsunami. The people from the island have given him some land to build a home and surprised him a few days back with a repaired long-tail boat; painted in yellow, red and green with ribbons on the bow.

The sunsets on Koh Jum were particularly beautiful, with the sun setting directly over the Phi Phi islands and different every night. We started an impressive shell collection along with sand-dollars. Excited on seeing the first one, as we continued walking we found one after the other.

We are now back in Krabi and staying in Noppharat Beach. The tide gets so low in the afternoon that you can walk to the nearby islands. We walked to a couple of islands yesterday; so many little crabs, starfish, snails and fish.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Khao Lak and the Similan Islands where Matt will be scuba diving. The pictures of the Similian Islands (check online) look amazing and the underwater life is said to be the best in Thailand (sea turtles, manta rays, reef sharks friendly, etc). Most dive trips are over night, so we’ll probably be on a boat for a few days. After that we make our journey to Koh Phangan and the Gulf of Thailand.

Koh Lipe to Ton Sai Bay

Our last days in Koh Lipe were great; Matt and Josh completed their open-water diving course and we brought in the New Year at the Karma Bar with friends that we met on the island. We arrived back in Ton Sai Bay on January 4 to hugs and smiles; knowing people here almost makes it feel like home.

We went kayaking for a day around the limestone rocks in Krabi; there are so many caves and tiny beaches around the rocks. In the middle of the day it just started pouring so we pulled in to a beach and just swam in the warm water as the rain poured down. After a few minutes the rain stopped and it was sunny skies again.

We chartered a fishing boat the next day, which meant waking up at 5am, taking a long-tail boat to Ao Nang and heading out to the Chicken Islands and Phi Phi returning around 7pm the same day. The guys on the boat didn’t speak much English but brought us out fresh fruit, drinks and thai food and took care of everything. We were trolling for barracuda and dorado but Josh was the only one to catch a fish… or bait :). When we returned to Ton Sai we all had sea legs. At dinner it felt like the whole restaurant was rocking back and forth.

We had to do a visa run yesterday; taking a minibus to the Malaysia border and then coming back to Krabi. We drove to Satun, walked over the Malaysia border, filled out a form, walked back into Thailand and filled out another form. We now have another 30 day visa for Thailand. Our next border run will be to Burma before we head to the Gulf of Thailand.

Today we are just lounging at the beach and taking it easy. Waking up early the past couple of mornings has been tough :).