The Beach

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Well, not the Beach because you can't stay there, but we've just got back from a fantastic week on our very own island paradise - Koh Jum.
We caught a ferry that goes from Krabi to Lanta. Halfway across, the ferry slows and a few longtail boats chase the ferry until it stops! One of those longtails was our way to the island, we climbed down to it from the ferry and left all the other poor suckers behind to go to Lanta (which is probably nice enough!).
We weren't disapointed with the view from the boat. The island is mostly jungle which gives way to small stretches of beach along the coast line. Once we had landed we were taken up to the reception where we had a nice cool glass of fresh orange juice while a kind Thai guy took our heavy rucksacks to our house.

It's pretty basic living on an island like Koh Jum. We only had electricity from sunset to around 3am, with a fan in the room and no hot water. We also had to flush the loo with a bucket, but hey it only costs 6 quid a night and the surroundings were beautiful, plus we had a balcony!

We mostly spent our days lazing around, reading books, doing puzzles, brain training, playing cards, backgammon & xiangqi and trying to stay in the shade. They had some nice chairs to sit on on the beach and also had great beach huts where it was always shady.

We were a bit surprised by the weather. We purposefully came to the West coast of Thailand to avoid the East coast monsoon, but it didn't seem like the rainy season had completely finished from where we were standing! Pretty much without fail we had a beautiful sunny morning with a slight breeze until around lunch time when the wind really picked up, it rained for a bit and then stayed a bit cloudy for the rest of the day with a nice cool breeze. It suited us really - not too hot but still nice to sit around on the beach.

Some days when it was clear we could see all the surrounding islands, including Phi Phi (where The Beach was filmed). We had agreat sunset one evening, with clear views of Phi Phi and gorgeous colours.

On our second day, it started to rain while we were sitting on the beach and as we were quickly packing our stuff up I noticed something moving up on the bank behind the beach. It was the most amazingly cool lizard! He was around 4-5ft long and had big stomping shoulders. We couldn't believe our luck at seeing such an amazing animal out in the wild. We took a couple of snaps of him before he hid from us & the rain.
We were really lucky again the next day. We we're sitting on our balcony waiting to go further down the beach for a spot of snorkling, when Chris heard the sound of breaking branches in the undergrowth behind our house. We're not sure if it was the same lizard or if a few live around the resort, but he posed for us for a long time. So very cool!

We saw a bit more good wildlife down on the beach in the way of crabs. You have to watch out for the little fellas as you walk along, and we were quite scared of the great big hermit crabs. It's quite odd to see a big conch shell walking along the beach!

We ate good food too (as long as we remebered to stick to Thai and steer clear of Western). The curries were scrummy - Mutsuman curry in particular was nice, and we had a spicy grilled White Snapper. We also thought it quite cool that we had fried barracuda.

We were just going to spend 4 days there, but at the end of the 4th day neither of us felt ready to leave so we stayed a couple more days. we think it was a family run place and they were all really friendly staff which made our stay even better.

Back in Ao Nang now where it's bloody hot! Going out on a dive boat tomorrow (Monday) to dive & snork around Phi Phi. Enjoy all the photos!