Marooned in paradise

I made it to the tiny island of Ko Lipe in Thailand 3 days ago. I was going to spend a night on the mainland, but since you have to get up pretty early to make all the transit connections to the island, and I was already awake from my all night bus ride, I decided to just go for it.

After a 2 hour minibus ride through farmland, a smooth 3 hour ferry ride, a slightly tricky transfer to a longtail boat (the island has no harbor, so you have to get ashore with help from local fishermen and their little wooden boats), and a treck up the mountain, I arrived at The Mountain Resort. It's probably the nicest place on the island, but still pretty reasonable ($4-8/night). Like all the resorts on this little island, it's a collection of bungalows (little thatch huts), but I get my own shower and western toilet (bucket flush), and it's the only spot on the island that runs its generators 24 hours (no power company way out here).

The island itself is really small - a little over a mile long, and a half mile wide. Though it's beyond the national park that covers all the other islands around here, most of the island is still covered by tropical jungle, with tiny little trails connecting the various beaches, restaurants, bars, etc. The trails almost seem to disappear overnight, and I still manage to get myself lost once or twice a day. But it doesn't take long to fix your mistakes.

The only permanent settlement on the island is full of the Chao Lay people, sometimes known as Sea Gypsies. They don't really consider themselves Thai, and most of them here prefer speaking something closer to Malaysian. Until recently, they only ever came to shore during the worst of the monsoons, and lived the rest of their lives in little flotillas of handmade boats. However, Thailand, like most countries, had a hard time dealing with the idea of completely nomadic people crossing borders at will, and forced them to settle on islands like this one. They seem pretty friendly, but they aren't really sure what to make of foreigners (especially ones like me, who keep stumbling, lost, through their village).

I wish I couple upload some of the views from this island, but that'll have to wait until I hit the mainland. I can best describe it as the perfect combination of rugged beauty, covered with lush jungles. To get an idea, the movie The Beach was filmed a few islands north of here. The 5th season of Survivor was filmed on the island of Tarutao right next door (we get way better food). This island is surrounded by coral reefs and tiny rocky atols covered with trees.

The food is also fantastic here, especially the fish. Most of the locals are fishermen, so it's always fresh, BBQ'ed right on the beach. Almost everything is just a tiny bit too spicy, but I love that anyway, and it seems to have far fewer consequences than spicy Indian food did. The island's just full of cool little places to hang out, with hammocks strung between the trees right above the surf.

Today, I thought I was going to have to find a new place to stay. My resort warned me when I showed up that they were booked solid after 3 nights, so I'd made a reservation with one on the other side of the island after that. However, a big storm came up last night, with the wind tearing through the walls of my little hut and battering it with broken branches. The local expats said it was the worst storm they'd seen in a couple seasons of working here. Needless to say, they were no longer short on rooms. In fact, it was pretty much impossible to get to the other side of the island today (the local fishermen wouldn't go in the water on this windier side of the island, so water taxi was out, and climbing up and down the steep, muddy trails with my ~40lb pack didn't seem like much fun at all). So, I stayed put in my sturdy little hut.

The ferry from the mainland managed to make it out here this morning, but by then the water had turned too rough, and they're stranded on the leeward side of the island for the day too. Assuming things clear up, I'll probably head back to shore in a couple days. With luck, my laundry (which I had washed 2 days ago) might even be dry by then! That'll leave me with a couple days in Bangkok before my flight.

This is still a very cool spot to be stranded in any weather, and it already looks like the sun is about to poke through again.