We were sad to put an end to possibly our nicest stay yet, Chiang Dao, by being driven by Mr. Veg to the Chiang Dao bus station. We had had a thrilling time there, and it really disappointed Samuel, Elliot and I when we discovered we were to leave. Mr. Veg had driven us to the bus station, as you know, and from there we caught a big bus equipped with fans to Chiang Mai, from were we took a red cab to the Chiang Mai airport, where Mama and Daddy had a coffee (us children had nothing). After that, we quickly passed through security (I must say Chiang Mai airport is the quickest airport I’ve ever passed through- we were through in two minutes!) , and boarded our plane, an A320-200 set for Surat Thani. On the plane, we were all in one row, unlike our other plane journeys where we were separated. I mostly read my then current book- Pride and Prejudice. On our arrival, we were picked up by the driver whom we had hired to take us on a three hour ride to Krabi. Everything was smooth- as soon as we stepped out of the airport we were picked up, our luggage was loaded into the car, and we set off. No waiting, no trouble with luggage, no quarrelling over space. The car was not really a car, but a rather large silver van, otherwise known as a shuttle bus or an airport shuttle in Thailand, capable of seating eleven people! It was pretty luxury inside. The journey was comfortable until the last 10km, when we all started to feel carsick. The reason for this was that the driver had a very peculiar way of driving- he would press down on the accelerator for a second then take it off and then put it down again for a second and so on. So the car would lurch forward then suddenly throw us back a bit then lurch again. We didn’t feel this at first because at the beginning of the journey, we were all chatting, playing or doing something to occupy ourselves, but as time passed by, we gradually died down and the driver’s style, now that we noticed it, made us feel much worse for wear.

Having arrived at Krabi, we got out of the van and were again picked up, this time by a man who direceted us immediately to a wooden boat with part of it under a shelter. The propulsion was created by a car engine on the end of the boat attached to a long shaft with a propeller on the end which was submerged in the water while going forwards. He took us in his long-tail boat across the sea to Koh Jum, an island off the coast of Thailand. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel seasick at all. It was a lovely boat ride. The sun was setting and the islands were glowing yellow and orange, with the hundreds of trees forming a green blanket over them. When we arrived at Koh Jum, we hesitated to get out of the boat because the sand was so wet and soggy that if we stepped in it we would sink in and get rather grubby. So the driver (who didn’t mind getting dirty) carried us to the dry sand. A pickup truck driver proposed to take us to our resort, and we agreed. The road to the resort being off-road, bumpy, steep, muddy and practically inaccessible to vehicles not made for handling dirt tracks, it was lucky our car was the one we were in. Here is a picture of one of the same type:

Ours was not the same color as the one in the photo, but it was the same type. After a long ride, we finally arrived at our destination- Oonlee.

The man got out of the truck and showed us to our rooms. Our room was a large, spacious one with two “small for a double bed double beds”  and two fans. I’m not going to say everything that happened, because I can’t actually remember what happened, so I’m just going to say the important bits.

Every day we would go down to the beach, Samuel, Elliot and I, and we would make huge fortresses in the sand. Oonlee was a lovely resort- though we don’t all have the same opinion. In the common room, where you could buy meals and where the kitchen was installed, there was also a book shelf with lots of french books (Tintin, Bill et Boule, ect…) which we devoured with great gusto.

 

 

 

Because Oonlee only had space for us for four nights, we (well Mama and Daddy) were constantly on the lookout for accommodation. While us brothers were building castles and digging ginormous holes, Mama and Daddy would walk off to check out other resorts. One day though, instead of going to dig as usual, we ALL headed towards the rocky part of the beach, which was covered in boulders and pebbles. We walked (well Mama, Daddy, Samuel and Elliot) for about an hour on the rocks, except me, because I love climbing and jumping and running over rocks, so I ran ahead and soon arrived onto the sandy on the other side of the rocks, which was our destination. The beach was covered with crab holes, which at the time I assumed to be giant lizard holes, as we had seen a lizard around a metre long while check out another resort. Because of this I didn’t very much like that beach.  Because Mama and Daddy and the rest were really far behind and weren’t arriving, I ran back on the rocks and got to them in two minutes. Apparently Samuel had fallen and they had stopped. I stayed with them or a while, then when they started to move on, I ran back to our destination. It was called North Beach.

Once we were all on the beach, we settled at the back of the beach, where lay the last remaining bit of shade, and the most uncomfortable sand. Samuel, Elliot and I quickly started to build sand castles, but we had to keep moving further and further back because  the shade was retreating quickly. when there was nearly no shade left, we moved on, in search of accommodation and lunch. We checked out many bungalows, and usually Mama and Daddy went inside and Samuel, Elliot and I played in the sea or on the beach. This was the first time I went into the sea since Varkala, though I waded in only up to my waist to help Elliot and Samuel find the stones I had thrown in. During this game, just after I had skimmed a piece of china, Elliot got stung by a sand-fly. The owner of the resort Mama and Daddy were checking out brought us to a hose pipe where we washed our feet off and put some on Elliot’s arm, where his sting was. After that we checked out a bunch more resorts, and Elliot’s arm gradually got better up to the point where he was playing in the water again. Unluckily, Samuel then got stung by a jellyfish. We walked up to the next resort, and showed the owner the welt. He confirmed it as a jellyfish sting and gave us some ice to put on it. We ordered lunch at that resort- three baguette sandwiches which took ages to arrive. Unfortunately they had only two so we had to satisfy ourselves with two. We waited about an hour for our food, then when it was finished, we called a taxi to take us back, as the tide was too far up for us to pass by the way we came. When it arrived, the taxi (a motorbike with a large sidecar) driver, an old man, demanded 300 baht for the ride, because on the road you have to go the long way round the mountain. We settled it down to 200 baht. Soon after, we were back at Oonlee.

Down on the beach near Oonlee, there were giant ropes hanging from the trees. These I loved swinging on and I would pull it all the way to the back of the beach, climb onto a fairly large rock, and then jump onto the rope and swing! It was really fun. It was just as I prepared to jump once, that Samuel put his hand on my shoulder to tell me something, and that made me miss the rope, and I got dragged along the rocks below. Luckily I came out with only a few small cuts on my knee and shoulder.

Every day for breakfast, we would either take some bread and jam we had brought from the shops and cut up some mango and eat that or go down the each a bit to a little restaurant where we usually had our dinner and have a rather fat but small pancake each with some mango. We would usually have more than one. At that restaurant, we met a nice family from Belgium. The mother spoke french, so we could interact with them. They left the island a few hours before us.

When we didn’t have dinner at Oonlee or the restaurant down on the beach, we would walk a few kilometres or so to the village. Our first time, it was after a little search for accommodation. We walked from the bungalow we had just checked out onto the road. We then wandered to the village and got some ice-cream and supplies. Because Mama had broken her flip-flops, and Daddy had lost Elliot’s sunglasses in a river at Chiang Dao, we were planning to go to the shops and get new ones. But then a taxi stopped by us, and asked us if we wanted to go somewhere, but we said we’d walk, but he kept putting the price lower and lower so we finally agreed. But first, as we were right by two shops, we bought some vegetables and some fruit. Then, he took us to another village where we bought Elliot a pair of orange sunglasses. Then, while he waited with our bags, we went for a little walk around the village. But soon we headed home. On the way back, Elliot dropped his hat, so we had to stop and pick it up. Then we got home to Oonlee, and dropped off all our fruits and our vegetables. But before he dropped us off, he had told us he knew where we could eat dinner. So, he picked us up again, and took us to the restaurant which was really nice. Then, we walked back.

We went to that restaurant a couple of times during our four day stay at at Oonlee. All in all, Oonlee was alright, but there were quite a few downsides to it- even though you had mosquito nets on you bed you’d wake up with your bed crawling with ants and mosquitoes, and the food was reeeaaally expensive, and the Oonlee people were quite rude. The evening before the day we left, the taxi driver (He was actually a moto-taxi driver) told us that he’d pick us up at a certain time, and we agreed. But on the day we left Oonlee, the taxi driver still hadn’t arrived two hours after the agreed time. So Mama and Daddy sat and thought, and then they said that since he wasn’t coming, AND it’s a bit of a walk to the road where he waits, AND we have bags, AND they weren’t sure if the motorbike could support all five of us plus our bags, AND it was easier and cheaper to catch the boat, to make a long story short, we caught the boat. And, apparently, the moto-taxi driver was REALLY angry. And so were the Oonlee people. And in case you were wondering, no, we did not take the boat to get off the island, we just went down the coast a bit, to our next resort, Woodland Lodge.

But that is another story…

P.S. I can’t believe it took me five months to write this! Please understand that I’ve been very busy.