Khlong Ao Mae Mai

Still waking up too early & in fact my watch has informed me that I have had an average of just 3 hours 58 minutes sleep per night over the last week. Not nearly enough.

Today we planned to hire a scooter & explore the island of Ko Phayam. As I was getting my bag ready for the day, I found at the bottom of my rucksack my SD card reader. Hurrah, I could now upload photos from my camera.

Before breakfast, I had coffee on our veranda & chatted with our Thai neighbours who tipped me off that the island of Ko Chang was a good place to see lots of hornbills.

At 9.00am we went for breakfast, which was included in our reservation, and had omelettes, toast & coffee. Certainly nothing to write home about.

After breakfast, I visited the surly chunky transgender lady & enquired if she rented scooters. She did for 200 Baht per day. I knew that back in the town centre they were just 150 baht per day, but for speed & ease I decided to splash out on one of hers. As soon as I agreed, she rang the cheaper scooter company in town to deliver one of theirs to us. I had to wait 10 minutes for it to arrive and after I had paid the man, I saw him giving her a backhander of cash she stuffed into her tips jar. I was irritated, but then reminded myself it was just an extra £1 for this delivery service & they would also pick it up.

After filling up with a bottle of fuel, we hit the dusty tracks on our new metallic blue 125cc Moove Urbanion. Our 1st stop was Aow Ko Kyu beach, which we had to walk down numerous steep leaf strewn steps to a rather underwhelming beach. We took a couple of photos and climbed back up to the bike.

Next stop was the southern end of Aow Yai (Long Beach) which was a massive expanse of white sand. Despite there not being a single person on the beach, it had an inviting bar and restaurant. It was too soon after breakfast to imbibe but we vowed to return for a day. More photos were taken.

We then negotiated our way round to the northern end of Aow Yai beach, where we located approximately 10 assorted persons most of whom were involved with a surf school. The waves were sufficiently high for proper surfing. I took some more photos.

Next stop was Aow Kwang Peeb beach by accidentally taking a wrong turn. The road had come to an end, which required us to have to park up & walk the last 300 metres with monkeys crashing around in the treetops above. The beach was a cracker and appeared to be the private beach of Aow Kwang Peeb Resort which was deserted and apparently abandoned in a hurry. I went for a swim, whilst Jackie snooped around the derelict buildings including a bar with alcohol bottles on the shelves. She found paperwork including laundry receipts dating back to 1962. It made no sense to us. I took lots of photos of what truly felt like a ghost town.

It was now lunchtime, so we headed to the final beach on the island, Aow Khao-Kwai (Buffalo Beach). There were no obvious paths to the beach so I gambled on one & drove through a series of bungalows down a steep path. When the path came to an abrupt stop, we abandoned the scooter & walked to the beach only for a uniformed Thai man to start shouting at me to move the scooter. Whoops.

We continued to try to locate Buffalo Beach & came across an intriguing sign ‘Beautiful Rock by the Beach - Ko Phayam’s Top Attraction’. We followed it’s directions to the beach and encountered 2 tractors pulling trailers loaded with elderly Thai tourists. Luckily they were just coming away so again we had the beach to ourselves. The arches were nice (Not Arches National Park, Utah), but lent themselves as perfect frames for our photographs of each other.

With some classic photos in the can, we set off for lunch and before we knew it we were back at Aow Mea Mai, having completed a full circuit of the island. We found a more ‘rustic’ restaurant overlooking the sea and ordered a well earned beer. Jackie ordered crispy pork & rice, whilst I ordered a spicy 🌶 🥭 mango salad. I had visions of plump juicy orange mango flesh laced with a sprinkling of chilli, but what I received was a large bowl of thinly sliced green mango & some grey scraps scattered through it. I was suspicious of the grey scraps so I gave one to my taster to check if I could eat it or not. Jackie declared it was a cashew nut, so I popped one in my mouth & swallowed it. I immediately started to wretch, when I came to the realisation that it was actually dried fish skin. Jackie is now trying to poison me!

As a result we had to swap dinners. Jackie’s fried pork was very tasty if I didn’t look at it, because it was chunks of meat that were one third pork & two thirds fat! I think this was a step too ‘rustic’ for my sensitive palate!

We returned to Nitiporn Resort around 3.30pm to discover that we were now the only people staying at the resort & that our room hadn’t been made. Jackie marched off to remonstrate with surly chunky transgender lady, who said she would get it sorted without word of an apology. We spent the remainder of the afternoon dozing & reading around our very own private pool.

Whilst getting ready to go out to dinner, I attempted to upload my 51 fantastic photos taken that day from the camera SD card to my iPad. I selected them, then before I could stop myself I hit ‘delete’. After a lot of furious tapping on my iPad & ranting & swearing & googling, I had to resign myself to the fact that I had lost them for ever. Jackie didn’t mention it again that evening!

Dinner was back at our favourite ‘36’ for Thai green curry & Tom Yum soup.

Song of the Day: Ghost Town by The Specials
Wishing (If I had a Photograph of You) by A Flock of SeagullsRead more