Christmas destination reached at last!
23 December 2008 | Ko Luk Kamok, Thailand
Jay and I arrived at Ko Luk Kamok on sunset yesterday, the familiar Raku was at anchor and Ian and Michelle were already on the beach having sundowners. It's good to see our travelling buddies again although I indulged a little bit too much last night and am paying a little for it this morning. It's very windy where we are and a little bit rolly but there are no other boats around except the local fishermen. It felt a little strange this morning and then I realised that we were starting to become accustomed to the longtail boats full of tourists tearing past us every morning. It feels like we've been moving non-stop to catch up with Ian and Michelle for Christmas and it will be nice to wind down a little bit and relax for a while. There was supposed to be a couple of other boats here for Christmas according to Ian and Michelle but they have decided not to come because of the wind, we should meet them all at New Years when we head to another nearby island which apparently has a couple of Rasta bars on the beach that will be perfect for New Years.
The journey to here was interesting and I am looking forward to the return trip when we can spend a bit more time exploring. At the moment we are at the Northern end of Thailand not far from the Burmese border, we have heard it is well worth going into Burma for a look and we may look at doing that the next time we come into Thailand. We spent a little time in Phuket, mainly in order to check in at Chalong before moving on to Nai Harn where we shouted ourselves a couple of days of doing nothing, just eating, swimming and reading. Nai Harn has a very relaxed feel to it, there are some great restaurants on the beach but the place to go was a backpackers tucked away in the corner where you could pull up your inflatable and have a tasty yet cheap feed. It's where the backpackers and yachties tend to congregate and it is great for people watching. When we were there an American woman with long dreadlocks sat at the next table with a German friend and proceeded to loudly proclaim that she was a travel writer. She sat there sucking down her cigarettes and black coffee complaining about everything and talking about a couple of decent vegetarian restaurants she had found, (it's not hard to find good food here so I don't know what she was on about), while her friend sat and listened to her in awe. The German girl wanted to be a travel writer, she wanted to share her experiences of the culture, the people and the food, then the waitress approached and she ordered a cheese sandwich on white bread treating the waitress like an idiot as she did so. I don't think I'd want to read about her experiences, they sound like they'd be fairly dull to me! We can't wait to get back and spend some more time in Nai Harn, we'll hire a car and see what Phuket has to offer.
We left and headed towards Ban Thap Lamu where the Thai Navy has a base. The anchorage there was nice and flat and while it was busy in the morning and afternoon with all the dive boat traffic coming and going from the Surins we were far enough away for it not to affect us. We organised to get some water from the jetty there with the help of a Navy guy we met in a restaurant run by the Navy wives. He introduced himself as A as in the alphabet to which Jay replied that he was Jay as in the alphabet. He was very helpful, the water is supplied by the Navy and you have to pay 600 Baht per ton, that's around $3. We were also told that we would have to pay to tie up to the jetty but they weren't sure how much. We pulled into the jetty and found that a Dive boat was already filling up with water, the man in charge of the Dive boat stop filling to allow us to use the hose. We noticed he was arguing with the Navy guys who were standing nearby before he came over to chat with me while Jay was inside filling the tanks. He was amazed that the two of us had sailed from Australia alone and that there was only two of us on board such a large boat. He told me it was a family boat and I patted my stomach and said, 'No family yet!' to which he laughed. When the water tanks were full we returned the hose to him and asked who we pay. He replied that he would pay for our water, while we appreciated the gesture we politely declined and gave him the money. We found out that he had been arguing with the Navy guys about us having to pay and would not let them charge us for tying up to the jetty. He was basically telling them to leave us alone. This is something that we have found throughout Thailand so far, the people are really helpful. If you are standing on the side of the road looking confused someone will stop and ask if you need help AND they want nothing in return. As I've said before, we could learn a lot from them.