Tag: #folksytravel

I contacted the dive company in early morning and they explained they would be able to pick me up from the island at about 10:30 to board the boat. So I had to get moving and get down to the pier at one of the hotels.

On this trip back to Koh Chang I only wanted to do a little bit of swimming with my mask and snorkel along with some free diving and that was plenty for this trip back.  On the boat there were people from many different countries and kids going to the international schools in Bangkok. All of the kids were really very intelligent and were asking a lot of questions and providing some interesting comments about world affairs. I think my red hair may have attracted them, thinking maybe I was not a typical adult type person, maybe someone easy to talk to. Everyone was having great fun and it was a very enjoyable trip back to Koh CHANG. 

A short day today. I slept 14 hours, waking up to go get some fried noodles. On the way out of the restaurant the owner asked me how long I plan to stay on Koh Mak. I replied I did not know how long I would stay. She wanted to mention she can make also different kinds of spaghetti and some German food.

Then I walked to the beach and took a few sunset photos but I should’ve gone to the sunset side of the island because as you can see from the next photo the whole end of the world looked like it was on fire. I caught just a part of it through the trees.

Tomorrow, day 5

Today was a typical day on Koh Mak for most people but an unexpectedly fun day for me. Luca invited me to watch him paint the inside of a house belonging to a friend. His friend works for the government and today being Saturday she had the day off to manage the snacks and refreshments for Luca. She came to Koh Mak 10 years ago from another place in Trat province and fell in love with the island. 

Her goal is to fix up the house to live in. While we were watching Luca work more friends dropped by. One Thai friend wants to set up a restaurant in the future. Richard, a young fellow from a town near Düsseldorf, arrived in March this year and is planning a long stay so looking for nice, comfortable but “natural” long term accommodations. 

Then arrived the family of dogs followed by Mango, maybe from Germany, who decided to open his bar tonight so everyone immediately volunteered to occupy seats this evening. I will report later how that went. 

Then I went for a swim at a beach, not the best one at low tide; too much coral close to shore and a long way to swim to deep water. But it was refreshing after sitting around and sweating in the humid heat. 

So the evening at Mango’s bar was actually a cover for a birthday party for Luca’s wife. It was very enjoyable, together with new acquaintances, Kim who spent 17 years in Germany and speaks at least 3 languages fluently, Kat who loves cats, and others who came to celebrate or just heard the bar is open. There was a lot of drinking (of course, remember it is a bar), some surprise, very delicious chicken with potatoes and a birthday cake tasting like gingerbread, extremely hard to stop eating, with some hemp leaves (legal) on top. All in all it was a very fun and memorable evening. And of course some young fellows came to understand the effects of tequila shots. Everyone was fun and congenital. 

Tomorrow, day 4. 

Koh Mak is a very small island, transverseable in about 30 minutes. There are numerous fine beaches that can be great in high tide but some of them are a little difficult in low tide if you want to go snorkeling since the water level can be pretty close to the top of the coral, giving you very little space to snorkel and clear the coral.

So far I’ve stopped at two restaurants and had really excellent food. This may not be exemplary of restaurants throughout the island but I have taken up the challenge to visit other restaurants to see how they fare.

Banana Sunset Restaurant and bar

One interesting scene, repeated throughout the island, is agriculture and especially rubber trees. Below you can see rows of rubber trees, rubber coming out of the tree itself into little balls and also the rubber mats getting ready for transport.

The roads are made of cement and are generally very good but very narrow and so very slow speeds are recommended. But it doesn’t take very long to get from one place to another.

Tomorrow I will do some swimming and maybe some snorkeling though the title levels are so low during the daytime that it takes some walking to get to depth.  High tide now is about 7 PM. The low tide is very very low.

I decided to stay a few more nights in the Sea View Resort. It is one of the least expensive places to stay but I have found the facilities to be remarkably well-maintained and the quality of fixtures and service is really extremely good.  The couple managing the Resort bungalows is Luca and his wife. Luca has traveled the world, extensively in South America, and has very interesting perspectives on travel and quality lifestyles.  Being Italian, of course, he has very excellent perspective and taste in food so I follow his recommendations on where to eat.

https://seaviewresortkohmak.wordpress.com/

Tomorrow, day 3. 

There are very few boats now going even from the mainland to Koh Mak and a private speedboat from Koh Chang to Koh Mak is very expensive so I decided to go diving with BB Divers on their trip to Koh Mak with the proviso they drop me off at a hotel pier.

The Koh Mak Cococabana was in need of maintenance as are almost all tourist hotels in Thailand since there are almost no tourists and no money coming in to do the maintenance. It was a pleasant place and the food was OK but it was not inexpensive.  

I booked this hotel because it has a drop off pier for the dive boat skiff and I knew I would be fairly tired from the amount of time in the sun and rain and the two dives. The diving was fairly good and the coral is in fairly good shape and lots of fish.  

I booked the less expensive room knowing it was in front of a large pond. My experience is these ponds, especially when there are not an abundance of fish in the pond, tend to be mosquito breeding grounds. My concerns were well-founded but I was prepared for this and spent the evening resting inside the room and enjoying a movie, the French Exit.  

One dog was very clean and friendly and the other dog, the black one, was not very clean and was too shy to approach me.  And all I saw of customers was one couple.  It’s impossible to run a business with this little amount of tourist traffic. It’s a very sad situation for most of the tourist business here in Thailand during the Covid crisis.  

The next morning the hotel provided free transport to my next bungalow, the Sea View Resort, but I gave a tip to the driver knowing the difficult financial situation everyone faces. Then begins my second day on Koh Mak.