The Good, The Bad, & Kumiko’s Here!!!

This is Haley again. Hope you like it.

Over the past week I have found myself seeing things a lot from the perspective of good and bad.  Like there’s this great thing we are so lucky to see or do, but then there’s this downside.  Or there’s a sucky thing we have to deal with, but it has a shiny silver lining.

So we left off in Koh Tao which, despite the cranky locals and way-too-many tourists, ended up being a pretty awesome time.  We have very little to document it picture-wise given, as you know, I busted the camera.  But here are some pics that do the great place we stayed a little more justice than the last blog, and some proof that my claustrophobic, worry-wart self did in fact get certified as an open water scuba diver.

 

 

After Koh Tao, we moved on to Koh Phayam on the West coast via Ranong.  We found out that local crankiness did not make its way to Ranong yet as this town and its people – although there is little if not nothing to see – are completely delightful.  We were close to the only foreigners in town and our presence was greeted exclusively with smiles (me) and laughter (Gabe).

BAD:  For 30 minutes, I thought I had lost my Howard (to the majority of the human race, my “Howard” has a striking resemblance to an iPod Nano).  I almost lost my mind – 10,000 times worse than breaking the camera.  I was ready to have a 2-year old temper tantrum.  Seriously.  Haley without Howard is not a pretty sight.  After desperate (and I do mean desperate) calls to our driver and searching our stuff, we found it.

GOOD:  We both realized it takes very few (but very specific) things to make me happy.

BAD:  The ferry to Koh Tao was an over-air conditioned, overpriced, high-speed catamaran with (almost) nothing but tourists seated in its posh leather seats.  It left from a mile-long dock in the middle of nowhere.

GOOD: The Koh Phayam ferry was a rudimentary boat on which the captain clearly made his home. Its dock was right next to local fishing docks, right in town. There were 3 plastic chairs on the top deck, no AC, about 300 dozen eggs, a dozen Thais, and, well…us.  We sat at the bow the whole ride.

BAD:  The safety measures for this particular ferry might have been a bit below the standards to which we have become accustomed.

We arrived on the completely delightful, car-less, little touristed island of Koh Phayam and were so happy.  We rented a scooter and set out on the adventure of finding the perfect place to spend the week.  And we found it.  But not before, my carelessness struck again.

BAD:  The manual motorbikes in Thailand choose not to have safety guards for their hotter than heck tailpipes.   I accidentally touched my calf against ours for a nano-second.  I have a border-line 3rd degree burn the size of a tennis ball on my inner calf and never got to touch the ocean on Koh Phayam and still haven’t been able to get in the ocean yet.   My sister said it might be a few weeks before I can.

GOOD:  According to my silver-lining finding sister, scars – a huge one of which I will be sporting for the rest of my life – are evidence of living.  According to Bang, our Koh Phayam’s hotel owner, I join the ranks of many foreigners with a traditional Thai “tattoo”. Who’s jealous?

BAD:  There is virtually no medical care available on Koh Phayam. Medical supplies are severely limited.

GOOD:  The internet is really mind-blowing sometimes.  From Koh Phayam, I was able to gchat my sister’s iPhone in Santa Cruz.  She then sent a text to an ER doctor in San Jose who responded with how best to care for the burn – along with a smartass remark – which came back to me in g-chat via my sister’s iPhone.  So I had top-notch care AND an ER doctor’s attitude, all the way from California, despite being on an island in the middle of the Andaman Sea.

So as I said, we found THE perfect place to stay.  Here are some GOOD & BAD aspects of the rest of our time on Koh Phayam at Chomjan Resort.

GOOD:  They made a MEAN fresh coconut shake at our place (where we ate every single meal – and not because we had to.  The food was THAT good.)

BAD: They, like, go and cut the coconut right off the tree out front so you have to wait for your shake.

GOOD:  The kitten/puppy situation on Koh Phayam is out of control.  There were litters of 4 week old puppies everywhere you turned.  We had two puppies and a kitten at our bungalow.  Most people who read this blog know how happy puppies and kittens make me. Enough said.

BAD:  The kitten/puppy situation on Koh Phayam is out of control.  It appears that no animals are spayed or neutered and we were told that most of these litters of puppies and kittens will die in the wet season with the weather and with no one with means to care for them (less than 2,000 people live on the island).  This island needs a full time vet to spay and neuter and care for the animals.

GOOD:  When staying at Chomjan, one can feed a kitten from the table with no repercussions.  That is, one will not end up with a spoiled, entitled cat for life if one chooses to do this (and that can be bad – ask my sister Megan as she is babysitting ours currently).

BAD:  I really couldn’t come up with a downside for this one.  Sorry.

BAD:  We got some rain on Koh Phayam.  It is the “green” season after all.

GOOD:  There is little cuter in this life than a kitten playing with an umbrella.  Plus the rain was short and refreshing.

 

GOOD:  The beach we stayed on on Koh Phayam was exquisite.  Golden sand, gently lapping seafoam green waves, our footprints were the only ones on the sand, saw one other person on it the whole week, etc.  Total paradise.

BAD: We were lucky to have caretakers that really maintained the beach in front of their property.  If you walked 100 meters in either direction toward resorts that were closed for the low season, the beach was covered in trash – like really.  The trash does not come from Koh Phayam. No one seems to know really where it comes from but there are massive amounts of it – mostly plastic.  We try to help a little by declining plastic bags and requesting water bottle refills – better than nothing.

BAD: Remember how I busted our camera 2 weeks before Kumiko was arriving with a new one?  Ummm, yeah.

GOOD:  My engineer husband is bad ass and he can fix ANYTHING.  Just watch.  In Ranong, Gabe put his world-famous patience to the test and went in search of a way to repair our camera.  He found someone with tools, took it apart, and was able to take the pics we took on the built-in camera (with a max of 28 super-duper small pictures – how we EVER survived with rolls of film I will never know) and move them over to the memory card.  This bought us only 28 more pictures until Kumiko arrived but better than nothing.  But then, he persevered, and sought out his own tool kit and took that sucker totally apart.  He poked and prodded and tested until he got it to work.

And no, you can’t have him.  He’s mine.

 

Gabe also turns out to be a good scooter driver.

GOOD:  There is couple at Chomjan from Myanmar (Burma) that basically runs the place for the owner.  A married couple in their early 30’s – Yaow and Yo.  They are about the nicest, happiest, most generous, most smiley, most delightful, most eager to please people you will ever come across in your life.  Yo cooks and sews and massages like nobody’s business. Yaow is the best waiter, masseuse, and caretaker ever and his English is really good.

BAD:  Yaow and Yo are from the North of Myanmar (Mandalay), days of travel from Koh Phayam.  There, their children, ages 5 and 9, live with his parents and go to school.  They work for what is surely a pittance on Koh Phayam without complaining, and they call their children every time they get paid – as we understand it, that is once every two months.  They don’t know when they will next see their children and they send most of their salary home to their families.  With people as peaceful and grateful and sweet and kind as these two, you have no option but to give yourself a long hard look in the mirror any time you feel a complaint coming on.

BAD:  They don’t have french toast on the menu at Chomjan.

GOOD:  If you order it anyway and explain to Yaow how to make it, Yo will cook up some of the meanest deep friend coconut french toast you could ever imagine.

BAD:  In the low season, Chomjan doesn’t serve seafood as it is not available on the island (go figure).

GOOD:  If you mention to Yaow that you might want fish for dinner, he’ll call the mainland and have a fresh fish delivered on the next day’s ferry for you.  He’ll pick it up personally and Yo will make a feast.

GOOD:  Yaow and Yo do killer in-room couple massages.

BAD:  You literally have to talk/cajole them into accepting payment for said service.  And then double the price they quote you.

BAD:   Koh Phayam is a very modest island, not very touristed, with very limited services.  As such, at most places, power is available by generator from 6pm to 10pm and internet is almost non-existent.

GOOD: Koh Phayam is a very modest island, not very touristed, with very limited services. As such, at most places, power is available by generator from 6pm to 10pm and internet is almost non-existent.

BAD:  We had to leave Koh Phayam yesterday.

GOOD:  Kumiko just arrived and it is already overwhelmingly fun to have her here….and we get her all to ourselves for the next 9 days.  Eat your hearts out!

We arrived on the island of Ko Lanta today where we are starting our time with Kumiko.  I am sure there are many adventures to come.  Talk soon.

Love,

Haley, Gabe, AND Kumiko!