See Monkey Travel: A Few Days in Paradise: Koh Ngai

After celebrating one day of the Thai New Year (Songkran) in the world's largest water fight, we went in the complete opposite direction of crowded chaos. We took a flight down to Krabi (one of my favorite places in Thailand due to its breathtaking limestone karst mountains and islands), spent the night and on the next day navigated our way even further south to the island of Koh Ngai.

Pit stop on the drive from Krabi to Trang.

From the initial conception of this trip, we realized something. We've already visited most of the places we had on our wish list in this region. We had to dig a lot deeper to find a place that interested us for this holiday. Of course there is an infinite amount of interesting places we have not yet traveled to, but keeping in mind travel time, cost, and tourist visa procedures, we settled on Koh Ngai: not too far, within country, Thai prices and no need for a visa. Added bonus - this place is QUIET.

Looking back from the pier in Trang.

Our resort was secluded from the other parts of the island except by some treks through the jungle which I wasn't suited for with my sprained ankle. We pretty fully experienced the private resort feeling except for the time a speedboat filled with Russian tourists came by for the afternoon.

Trang pier.

We took a longtail boat to a neighboring beach for a couple meals. This beach had several resorts/hotels and even a camping site. Still, the island probably had only a couple hundred tourists on it while we were there and it was delightful to be in such a relaxed environment without the crowds of Thailand's more famous islands that attract thousands upon thousands of us unruly foreigners.

On the ferry to Koh Ngai!

Highlights of the trip include an amazing steamed fish dinner, massage on the beach, snorkeling, finding a gorgeous viewpoint and sinking our kayak.

Just me, F. Scott Fitzgerald, a Leo beer and
some garbage for the boat ride.

Yes. We sunk our kayak while out for our snorkeling/viewpoint finding adventure that was two bays away and apparently too much for the boat to handle. Or we're just your average fat farang (foreigner in Thai). In any case, we were treated with some unexpected and lovely snorkeling (in retrospect) while swimming our kayak out to a Thai fishing boat. We then proceeded to very nearly flip said Thai fishing boat when they tried to bring our waterlogged kayak aboard. We ditched that idea and towed it behind instead. This was all fine and dandy until we got to our beach during the lowest tide and were met with a minefield of coral at the surface riddled with sea urchins.

A sampling of sea urchins.

It was like a real life video game. How fun! No, that's not what I was thinking at the time. But after a 60-minute adventure through what should have taken 5 minutes, I was able to see a brighter side to things. That still didn't stop my panic attack while swimming next to our broken boat in the open sea from triggering an episode of hives which I have only now (2 weeks later) gotten over thanks to some drugs from my favorite Thai doctor.

Scenes from the Andaman Sea.

So, we survived the sinking kayak. We spent several days in paradise. We read tons of books. I experienced a self-imposed separation from my 3G network. At the end, I felt so far removed from our regular life in Bangkok and was ready to get back to the luxuries of 7-11 and quit worrying about whether the seas would be too rough for us to return to the mainland for our flight home. Yes, my anxiety found it's way into paradise, too. But thanks to yoga and a new meditation practice, it doesn't stick around for long.