Koh Libong

After a meager Christmas celebration in Bangkok, Sunny, Daylin, and I headed down south to a remote island in the Andaman Sea for the rest of our holiday. There are plenty of beaches in Thailand over-populated by foreigners on holiday—blonde, Swedish, twenty-somethings in bikinis, buff backpackers sleeping in hammocks—but we were looking for someplace a little more low key to bring in the New Year. Somewhere removed from the usual hullabaloo associated with the more touristy destinations.

And boy did we find it. Koh Libong is nestled amongst the other 98 islands in the Andaman Sea. The majority of the 2000 Thai citizens on the island are Muslim, evidenced by the thrice daily prayers that could be heard floating through the air from the nearby mosque as well as the women wrapped up in multi-colored head coverings. A very different feel from the largely Buddhist population here in Bangkok. There are two resorts on the island (and I use ‘resort’ loosely here) which did not have more than thirty guests at one time the whole nine days we were there. It took us sixteen hours on an overnight train, one hour in a mini bus, and forty five minutes in a boat to arrive to our destination.

Most of the island consists of untouched jungle. Our resort was located next to a small Thai village but the bigger village was located on the other side of the island, accessible by fifteen minutes on a motorbike or by boat. There were no ATM’s on the island, no 7-11’s, no Western Unions. In the village, there were little stores at the front end of people’s homes where you could get the basic necessities; of which I was surprised to see body-shaper underwear. I found this sadly funny. That even far far away from modern civilization, women still feel the need to suck in their tummies and minimize their rear end jiggle. Strange. There were also some large, flat screened televisions in some of the cement block homes; I imagine they caused quite a stir upon their arrival, comparable almost to the opening of Ame’s in West Point circa 1988.

The electricity for the bungalows was run on generator power which only came on at night. We ate at the same restaurant for the whole time we were there; fortunately, the place served up some tasty Thai food. The cheeseburger was another story though, especially since there was no beef on the island due to religious restrictions. It was an egg battered chicken sandwich. How do you get hamburger out of that? One day, I walked down to the other ‘resort’ and was greeted by a fairly large snake which scared the begeebies out of me. I guess with a tropical island, you get tropical wildlife as well.

The few tourists that were on Koh Libong were of a different breed than I am used to meeting in Thailand. More families and career oriented people, less kids on holiday with their parent’s credit card. General practitioners, dentists, psychologists, NGO’s and engineers traveling with their spouses and children. It made for a totally different atmosphere. Very mellow. Quiet. Perhaps a little too quite at times. And since there was nowhere to go, the daily routine settled into wake up, breakfast, read, nap, lunch, lounge on the beach, read, dinner, night cap and then bed. A real vacation.