We made it to Koh Phayam.
And I found a great place to sit and write a blog post.
It was a spot that we had chosen as a maybe-place to stay for a couple of months, so we came down to check it out. The island sits in the Andaman Sea, just below the town of Ranong, on the border with Burma.
We picked this island in the hopes of washing off some of the madness of our recent European road trip, as there are no cars here, and not much infrastructure.
And there is even some mellow surf.
And sunsets.
So far, for the first three nights, the sunsets have been pretty wild.
We have already had a couple of evening surf sessions watching the blood red disc of our local star sink into the Andaman Sea as the sky exploded in color.
Koh Phayam is quiet. There is none of the pervasive traffic noise of Bangkok, or the crowded motorways of southwestern Europe. There are only motorbikes and a few tuk tuks puttering about on the narrow roads. The island is only seven kilometers by four kilometers, and the population is about five hundred people.
It feels slow when you get here, and that feels just right for the next couple of months.
And, having said that, we are doing the visa shuffle as we speak. Thailand used to be a simple ninety-day visa-on-arrival system, and we could do a couple of border runs to expand that to six months without any difficulty. Last month (right before we got here), they changed that to thirty days on arrival with one extension and one border run for a total of three months.
The process has become much more difficult, and we are needing to run all over the country to get the stamps we need. If we screw it up at any point during the process we will have to pack in a hurry and run for the airport to avoid any overstay penalties.
We will see…
Until then, we are going to enjoy unpacking our bags and settling into one place for a bit. We have been on the road, moving daily, and driving a ton for nearly nine months, so it will feel good to stop and settle down somewhere quiet and pretty (and with some occasional surf). If all goes well with the visa process, November and the first half of December we will be staying at the lovely and comfortable JJ’s Bungalows on the beach.
There is a pirate bar here. I am envisioning some tipsy Peter Pan evenings here…
We found some holes in some rocks on some completely deserted beaches. We have a bunch more exploring to do around here.
We hope we can find some way of navigating the visa system here to allow us to stay for a total of six months. We would love to do three months here and three months on the East side of Thailand for the upcoming kite season in February and March.
Fingers crossed…
