Today we decided we were going to walk the ‘Long Beach’. We started off the day with some muesli and yogurt then headed on our way. To get to the long beach we had to take the dirt road as far as the Aosi Resort, but couldn’t resist a stop for some ice-cream in a little shop along the road. When we saw a sign for Aosi resort we headed off the main road, down a narrow path into the jungle. The path slowly seemed to deteriorate and soon we found our selves in the thick of the jungle with no more signs to guide us. When we stopped for a rest we noticed several monkey’s only a few feet away from us, they saw us too and we were all deadlocked. But the millions of bugs dining on us, forced us to make the first move and continue down the path. After a few more minutes of fighting our way through jungle, spider webs and potential monkey attacks the path opened up onto the beach. A long beach.
We immediately left our stuff on the beach and hit the sea for a swim. While wading in the shallows we noticed a monkey strolling along the beach, “ah, how cute… wait a minute! he’s headed directly towards our stuff!!!” We slowly creeped towards him but he got there first, he stopped at our pile of clothes and bags, had a good long look and decided our stuff wasn’t good enough for him and continued on his way. Phew.
Soon we found ourselves at the Rock Bar. A bar built completely of driftwood in the middle of long beach away from most resorts. We had to stop for a beer and a chat with the bartender who knew Maat from ‘back in the day’ he told us that Maat use to be a very well known (professional?) thai kick boxer before he retired to the life of hosting. We finished our beers and continued our walk down long beach, keeping our eyes peeled for shells and shiva eyes. Our goal was to make it around the southern tip of the island but our tummy’s were detouring us to the nearest place to get food. We finally came upon Joy Resort and stopped in for a few smoothies and some veggie tempura.
On our way again, we detoured from the beach and headed down the old dirt road to Old Town, where we hand docked upon arrival. But only a few minutes down the road we came across another troop of monkey’s, as we got closer so did they until one was sitting in a tree directly above the road. It was a low hanging branch brining the monkey within a few feet of us and closer if we continued on the road, meanwhile the rest of the troop was closing in quickly. We needed to go before they all gathered. I slowly edged my way under the branch watching talk talking to the monkey softly, he didn’t like this and began to scream. But Rebecca was on her way as well and he hissed at her even louder letting us know we were in HIS way. As we hurried past, the rest of the monkey’s joined him on the branch and they all began to, I can only assume, yell profanities at us.
Old town was old and dusty. It had a few shops but not much more than a pit stop for supplies. We ordered a tuktuk to take us back to The Last Fisher but it could only take us half way as the roads were too bad to carry two passengers the full distance. He let us off on the dirt road were we walked the rest of the way back. After a quick dip in the sea and a shower, I kicked my feet up with a ‘bucket-o-rum” and my book in the hammock. Truly paradise!
A bit tipsy we headed over to the Trang Rai resort next door to reluctantly book the ferry off the island for the next morning. We ordered some smoothies (what else?) and split some fish cakes, while the mosquitoes dined on us. Back to The Last Fisher for dinner. I had Prawn Massaman (divine!) and Rebecca and Chicken Penang (spicy!) curry. We stuffed ourselves unable to finish all of it. We ordered more beer and headed down to the platform that overlooked the sea. We met our good friend hermie there who was already enjoying the evening stars.
We reminisced about the last few days and nearly shed a few tears with the thought of having to leave in the morning. At last we headed to bed, decided to get up early enough to continue enjoying the island life before catching the ferry out to Krabi.
Until next time Koh Jum!
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