Koh Adang, a monkey business

After Malaysia we were again in the mood of spending a few days on an island in Thailand before going to Bangkok. The choice is tough, considering how many beautiful islands and beaches the country has. After a lot of research and discussion we ended up choosing the island of Koh Adang (in front of the more famous Koh Lipe), part of Tarutao National Park in the south west coast of Thailand. The idea of a barely developed island within a National Park seemed extremely appealing, and being more or less half way between KL and Bangkok it seemed to be a reasonable "stopover".

The night bus from KL to Thailand was really comfortable, as most buses in Malaysia. As usual I didn't sleep much but at least I could doze off for a few hours. Crossing the border was just a formality and we arrived at Hat Yai early in the morning. Unfortunately we soon found out that the bus had dropped us off at the wrong bus station. It took us some time to figure it out. In Thailand you can never trust anybody who is working in the tourist business, as they always try to steer you away from your original plan and sell you some of their services instead. Even official public employees may lie and push you towards some relative's business. We had to ask information to half a dozen people to really understand how to go to Pak Bara's pier. The tuk-tuk that drove us to the correct bus station left us right behind the minibus for our desired destination and pointed us to the ticket seller before going away.

A couple of hours later we arrived to the famous Pak Bara pier, where you can catch the ferry to the islands. That place is a hot and chaotic touristic trap, and a perfect example of the "tourism mafia" that I mentioned above. For example the minibus driver, instead of dropping us off at the main parking in front of the pier (the unofficial minibus station), stopped a few hundred meters before, right in front of a travel agency. Both he and the agency owner pushed us all to buy tickets and accommodation right there with a sequence of implausible lies. We didn't have much choice but to ignore them, grab our backpacks and walk the short distance to the National Park office. When we asked to book a bungalow on Koh Adang (it's rather difficult to book online) the guy in charge of it told us to go buy a boat ticket from a specific travel agency first. He made it pretty clear that he wouldn't start the booking process unless we would come back with the proper ticket. Albeit rather infuriated we did as instructed and we eventually got our bungalow. We also had to run to catch the boat in time, which meant that we didn't have time to grab some food for lunch and pack some provisions for the next days. Not the best choice when going to an island with only one, quite overpriced, restaurant.

The ride on the speedboat wasn't comfortable (they squeezed people in like sardines) and it took longer than expected, and it led to another step of the Koh Lipe tourist trap. For some made-up reason the speedboat doesn't take you to the island, but leaves you instead on a floating platform at quite some distance from the land. To actually reach the islands (both Koh Lipe and Koh Adang) you have no choice but to take a taxi-boat.

Overheated and hungry we eventually made it to the park at 2:45pm, and we discovered that the only restaurant is closed from 3pm to 5:30pm, but had decided to close earlier that day. Talking about good timing and luck! Fortunately we had a few cookies and some water, that helped us endure until dinner. At least our bungalow was perfect, with a large room, a private bathroom and a large front window overlooking the beach and Koh Lipe. We rented snorkeling gear and headed to beach right after a shower. The water is crystal clear and there is plenty of life to be observed underwater.

A small part of the camping's beach

Underwater fellas

 

The island is beautiful and the area surrounding the park headquarters is well equipped, with a bunch of nice bungalows, a camping area, toilets, showers, and a restaurant. The electricity works only in the evening, the showers have only cold water and there is no internet connection, but for the rest it feels like a normal camping, just a little isolated. The large number of older couples and families with young children makes it clear that this is not the adventurous Crusoe experience that we were expecting. It did put us off a little at the beginning, but we ended up liking the place a lot.

Part of the camping... so peaceful

After some snorkeling and some relax we were ready for an early dinner and a good sleep, to make us forget the long and exhausting trip of the last 24 hours. The next day we got up early to hike up the hill that rises behind the camping. The views from there are fantastic, but the most remarkable part was having to acknowledge our poor physical shape. We didn't even make it to the top, and we're talking about a 600m hill. The heat was unbearable, it's true, but we really need to get in a better shape if we want to do some hiking in the next months.

We made it...

... barely

In response to our dramatic lack of fitness we decided to take the easy way for the next days: forget any physically active plan and dedicate our days to leisure snorkeling, sunbathing, reading and relaxing.

Intense camping activity

What do you mean "you look ridiculous"?

Rapid heart-beat and short-breathing were nevertheless guaranteed by a little accident. The second afternoon on the island, while going back to the room we heard a high-pitched scream coming from next to our bungalow. When I reached the door we heard screams and something banged against the door from inside! K and I stared at each other, and we immediately understood: a group of macaques had forced the mosquito net of a window and entered our bungalow! The macaques are famous for stealing stuff and for being aggressive. We were scared of both traits. With extreme caution we opened the door and entered the room. The room stank but it was empty. Only a few things had been moved and thankfully most of our stuff (most importantly the passports and money) was untouched. The only thing missing was a small pack of cookies. While closing tightly all the windows we saw the macaques right behind our bungalow, and one of them was holding the pack of Oreos and munching what was left.

One of them is eating our cookies

Technically we didn't leave anything outside of the room

Scared but relieved that nothing serious had happened, we went back to the beach for a relaxing swim. Apparently the monkeys had moved to the bungalows next door to see if they could find something else, and some of them were blocking the path towards the beach. Have you ever tried to scare off a macaques on a sugar high? Don't, they may react aggressively and scare the hell out of you. Ask K if you don't believe me. We decided to give up and walked down a grassy slope, keeping our distance from those crazy animals. Lesson learned: real life monkeys are not as nice and cute as they look from a distance.

From that moment on we were afraid of monkeys coming into our place at night. Luckily we had to leave the bungalow and move to the camping area instead, where apparently it is much less common to see monkeys. Sleeping in a tent has its disadvantages though, especially if every single night dark clouds cover the sky and the wind starts blowing. One night we were awakened at 3am by thunders and watched a huge thunderstorm form right in front of our camp site but eventually passing it by and breaking over the neighbouring islands.

After all we really liked Koh Adang. It's perhaps relatively expensive, the food is overpriced and of poor quality, we had some monkey-related issues and we couldn't sleep well in the tent. K was even bitten by a fish! We wanted to leave after the first night, but finally we ended up staying almost a week and would have stayed even longer. It is relaxing, the snorkeling is good (when the sea is calm and fish don't bite) and the scenery is spectacular. We could see hornbills birds every day and a huge monitor lizard crossed our path one evening. If you like fishing this seems to be a pretty good place too. Yes, you could do much worse than this.

Underwater views

 

A small hornbill

Before going to Bangkok we have decided to visit Kanchanaburi, where the historical "bridge of the river Kwai" is located. With a bit of masochism we have decided to get there without intermediate stops, which means that we'll have to take another night bus and spend about twenty four hours on the road. Again.