6/16/10 – 6/19/10 (langkawi)

Langkawi – Satun, Thailand – Trang – Koh Ngai (Hai)

Whenever someone has given us a recommendation to visit a place we have usually taken their advice and we have always enjoyed it. Mark from Pondok Keladi visits Thailand on a regular basis and suggested we check out Koh Ngai (known and pronounced as Koh Hai). He said it’s a very small and remote island so it’s not touristy like Phuket. We took a taxi to the port in Kedah, an hour ferry to Satun, Thailand, and then a 20-minute songthaew (open-air truck) ride to a bus station, and finally a 2-3 hour bus ride to Trang. Of course when we got to Trang we didn’t know how to get to Koh Ngai and didn’t have any reservations.

Jon was instrumental in lining up a hotel in Trang for the night at $20/night (with a/c, hot water, and internet) and booking two nights at Koh Ngai Resort for the following days. The lady warned us it was very quiet at the resort since it was low season but we said we enjoyed the peace and quiet. A van from the resort came to pick us the next day to take us to the port where we took an hour boat ride to the island. It was indeed very quiet on the island since most of the hotels were closed during the low season. The resort was also secluded from the other ones since it had its own private docking pier and you had to climb over a hill to reach the other hotels. There were only two other couples staying at the resort so it felt as if we had the whole place to ourselves.

When we arrived at the resort the most massive lizard greeted us as it crawled along the rooftop of the reception building and it was a sign of more of them to come. We saw geckos with really big heads all over the place and I named the small gecko staying with us in our room Bobby. Bobby was very quiet and stayed in his corner of the room near the door.

Since there were so few people there we were upgraded to the beachfront cottage when we paid only $50 for the most basic room. I guess it was a very slow and low season on the island. The downside of a low season is that they turn off the electricity during the day since the resort is run on generators so normally there is no power from 10am to 4pm.

I can’t write much about what we did over the next three days since we didn’t leave the resort and it mainly consisted of three things: snorkeling, Scrabble, and naps. It was great.