White and sandy, please!
After our adventurous stay in Chiang Mai, Molly and I were ready for some beach time. We took a flight from Bangkok to Trat in the eastern most corner of Thailand. From there we took a very expensive taxi and a ferry to the island, Ko Chang.
We picked a guesthouse offering huts in an area of the island called, Lonely Beach [misnomer!]. The Sunflower not only offers easy access to all the local bars, it’s also nestled between the numerous tattoo parlors as well! Not our scene.
Despite feeling a bit disappointed with our location, we headed out to the beach. Unfortunately, on Molly’s first dash into the water something nasty down there sliced up her foot. This officially put us on a relaxation only schedule for the next few days. Which was harder than you might expect.
While poking around a bit, we noticed some signage for a guesthouse located in a more remote area of the island. Early the next morning we jumped into the tiny jump seats of a truck and headed out to Treehouse Long Beach.
Um… we didn’t exactly realize that this little stretch of the island is nearly impossible to reach. It took an hour (or more?) to reach our destination and some extreme 4×4 driving. The road was completely washed out in places… As we were driving in I was pretty puzzled as to how we’d ever get back out again… and in time to catch the ferry to catch our flight back to Bangkok. I can’t not think about these things!
Thankfully, this guesthouse turned out to be much more of the experience we were hoping to enjoy. A hut on the beach for 350 baht [35 dirham or less than $10] a night [split between two people], no electricity before 6pm, white sandy beach, no tourist traps… and um, no showers…
We spent our time reading on the beach, sleeping on the beach, and taking some forays into the tealy blue water.
Turns out… my worries as to how we would get back to civilization were founded. We needed to leave the guesthouse at 7am to make our ferry and flight. Our guesthouse taxi makes one run per day… at 8am. The other option was to pay them for a special run at four times the price… in addition to the taxi fee we’d already prepaid at the airport for our return trip. On a whim we decided to walk over to the only other guesthouse in the vacinity. The proprietor there agreed to let us tag along while he drove his kids to school. He’d take us to the ferry station for only double the price of our original ride in. Not a bad deal.
The ride wasn’t smooth [in the back of a pickup truck] but it deposited us at the ferry station with plenty of time to make our flight. Thank goodness!
Beautiful pictures, Jill. Great story!
Molly’s experience reminds me of your dad stepping on a sea urchin, which left four or five tooth pick sized projectiles in his big toe, when we were in Dominica. Luckily, it was the last stop of the cruise. But he was in a lot of pain for a while. (Owies and salt water are not a good combination!) Hope she healed quickly!
ooo pretty pictures
As for reading on the beach…that sounds delightful. And it’s nice having a travel companion who is a reader, too. Dani and I each brought a book on our Eurotrip and swapped when we were done