Firefly - Relaxing at Koh Phayam and Koh Chang

Today is Saturday 13th February 2016 and Firefly has spent a week in the very north of the west coast of Thailand, tucked right up by the Myanmar (Burma) border. Neither of the islands, Koh Phayam and Koh Chang feature in the SE Asia Pilot that we are using as our principle source of information. The suggestion from the other cruisers is that as the islands are both so chilled and relaxed that the authors (who are based in Thailand) are trying to keep a low number of yachts visiting. Phayam and Chang do both get a very positive mention in the Thai Lonely Planet and there is actually increasing levels of land based tourism on both, although its basic and probably like Phuket was in the 1970's.

We anchored in the very well protected Buffalo Bay on Koh Phayam. Its picture postcard perfect and there are only a few things that we would have changed; being relatively close to the river that is the border between Thailand and Burma, the sea here is full of sediment meaning poor visibility and snorkeling is not worthwhile, at night the various lazy dogs that hang around the low key beach resorts all get together for a good 'howling session' and over Chinese New Year, the Wreck Bar staged a party and added to the wailing of the dogs with techo music that went on until 5am!

There are no cars on the island but mopeds are available for hire and we had a couple of enjoyable days exploring. Ferries arrive from the mainland port of Ranong each day and bring in tourists that all use mopeds for transport too. The island is about 5 miles by 2 miles and has a network of narrow concrete roads. Overall the number of people and mopeds was quite low and the atmosphere very friendly. To the south of the island we found the quietest area with very little development amongst the plantations of cashew and rubber trees. A viewpoint overlooked a bluff covered in lush rainforest vegetation and here we sat and watched Sea Eagle and Andaman Kites soaring overhead and caught a brief glimpse of a Hornbill in the trees.

On route to the small bakery to collect our bread we came across a moped 'spill'. Off the side of the concrete road a couple were in the ditch still sitting astride their moped. Fearing the worst we stopped and joined the locals and other tourists trying to pull them out. Luckily all was fine, there were no injuires and a local was telling them they needed to go faster as apparently they had toppled off the road due to lack of speed. Having collected our large loaves of brown bread we stopped at the small central shop, a real hive of activity and managed to get all the fresh vegetables and fruit we needed in order to restock the dwindling supplies of 'greenery' on board Firefly.

The French couple we had met back in Surin had told us about a restaurant on the beach that was run by a Frenchman where the food was apparently excellent. There are quite a lot of options for eating out and it took a few days to locate 'Kong Kleng' having asked around to no avail - finally we had realised that we had the name written down. In most of the small beach resorts there is also a Thai massage hut and before dinner we both had an hour long massage as the sun set, Susie opting for the gentler aroma therapy option while Paul had the full Thai. The Thai massage is certainly quite intense with the masseuse using their full body weight on your various pressure points. We did manage to hobble up the steps the restaurant where the Thai food, served with 'french panache' was superb and as always the price was minimal.

Firefly is currently anchored off Koh Chang which is known to be 'retreat' with less development than Phayam. There are no tracks or mopeds but the lovely beach of Ao Yai does have a few low key beach resorts each with a restaurant and some small individual chalets. The place is still reasonably lively with both locals pottering about in their 'longtail' fishing boats and tourists ambling along the beach or swimming. Firefly is the only yacht here although it is only 5 miles from Koh Phayam. We are not far from the Myanmar border, lying a couple of miles west of the Island. At night we can large numbers of lit fishing boats, apparently working right along the border.

Yesterday, in order to relieve ourselves of the inevitable 'cabin fever' we had the afternoon ashore at the 'Long Beach' resort. Lying in their hammocks, drinking lovely mango lassi's, a combination of the fruit, yoghurt and crushed ice, the time passed by easily with a couple of swims needed to cool down. Paul found a copy of Bradley Wiggins' book, My Time, in the guest bookshelf and managed to complete it before leaving and our late lunch was a squid pad thai and a spicy papaya salad. The bill for everything came to 300 Thai Baht, about £6, which seemed like very good value having spent most of the day there.

Paul and Susie