In paradise, it’s easy to rise at dawn
Tourism is in its infancy; many of the islands in view from ours are uninhabited or Burmese, and not developed at all. Each evening, the sun sets behind these islands on the near horizon and the dark, wooded hills of Burma-Myanmar beyond.
We refrain from taking sunset photos unless there is one of the picturesque ‘longtail’ boats in the foreground, and picturesque people unloading supplies for our ‘resort’ — natives and beach-clad foreigners wading out to lend a hand. There are no roads on the island, and no wheeled vehicles apart from a few motorcycles driven by locals.
The ‘resorts’ are groupings of rattan and hardwood huts, simple in the extreme, set amongst the trees that edge the beaches. Built on stilts, they are known as ‘bungalows’ — it goes with the ‘resort’, I suppose. Each has a veranda, with two hammocks, and an inside room with a raised pallet — part of the floor — upon which is laid a mattress (with sheets, etc) to make a bed. There is a tiled bathroom, with a toilet and cold-water shower. The cost is €9 per day.
Each resort has its restaurant, where seriously delicious and varied food is served, copious helping of fresh fruits, vegetables and fish or prawns straight from the sea. The Thais are marvellous cooks, experts at sauces and spices. Refinements such as Lipton’s tea (not Barry’s), coffee, yoghurt and beer are available. Dinner for two will cost €5, with large bottles of beers adding a few euros more.
On our 200 metre-long beach, there are twelve huts, some occupied a polyglot crew of perennial winter-dodgers from all over Europe and North America, and holiday-makers like ourselves. Longtail boats — narrow, wooden craft, with the propeller, doubling as a rudder at the end of a long shaft protruding from the stern — call twice a day, carrying a handful of visitors to and from the mainland and other islands.
We came here on a ‘longtail’ from an island to the south, a one hour trip.
We had reached there from Ranong, a fishing port and conduit to the islands, after a ten- hour bus ride (A/C, VIP!) from Bangkok. One can fly to Ranong, at a cost of about €50, but the bus was comfortable, and we slept until we arrived.
Open, longtail boats are the craft of choice for local journeys. Large fishing bloats can be seen on the near horizon, seemingly along the Myanmar coast but probably further out, in the Thai zone of the dividing waters. At night, we see them as ‘blobs’ of glaring white light — they are fishing quid, attracted to the lights. All day and night they fish, their lights marking their progress from darkness until dawn.
It is easy to rise at dawn on this island — electricity comes on at dusk and fades, like a curtain falling, before eleven o’clock. The polyglot crew sit around the open-fronted restaurant, some tables in the sand, chatting, drinking beer or playing cards. A companionable lot, many are inveterate travellers and have interesting stories to tell.
After ‘lights-out’, candles glow in the huts. We lie in our twin hammocks on the veranda and read by candlelight, the smoke from our mosquito coils pungent in the air. The surf breaks fifty yards away, a constant whisper of sound.
It is a pleasure to go walking early in the morning. Exploring a jungle path, I found a tree laden with ripe fruit and attended by a dozen species of colourful birds. Amongst them were hornbills. Watching the preening rituals of our adopted heron at home in West Cork is always fascinating but watching a hornbill preen is nail-biting stuff.
The skull and enormous bill is not much smaller than the horn of a rhinoceros. As they lean forward to reach the lower breast, one wonders if they will topple head-first off the branch.
Regarding the heron, it still attends our garden each day. A kind neighbour delivers it a few fish. Recently, it consumes only half the ration that sustained him as he grew. Now, he is hunting for himself, and visits us more out of habit than necessity.
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