Koh Phayam, faith restored

If Koh Phi Phi left the sour taste of overdevelopment, Koh Phayam brought the sweet relief that not everwhere is the same. We took the slow boat option from Ranong, cheaper than the speedboat a leisurely 2.5 hour trip cruised through unspoilt islands before docking in Phayam.

We decided to head to long beach, offering a range of bungalow options and the promise of some lazy hammock swinging days. The first mini adventure was getting there. The island is car free so the only viable option is a motorbike taxi. With bags perched between the legs of the driver and us perched perilously behind, our bikes took off at a fair lick causing a suitable degree of buttock clenching terror. My bike whipping past Em's and into the distance, low hanging branches causing some scary moments as my helmetless head sat clear above the drivers, however we made it in one piece and sought out suitable accomodation.

For 500 baht per night we secured a nice bungalow at Coconut resort with a suitable balcony for hammock stringing and set about relaxing! A Thai dye, geddit, hammock was procured from a local shop for this purpose.

We had also made a new friend on the boat, Astrid from Germany, who was cycling from Bangkok to Singapore. It was especially nice for Em to have some female company to chat womenly things with. Her tales of the journey to date making cycling sound a good option for a future trip.

Long beach offered what we'd been after, nice accomodation with a beach front location, and a nice balance of small local run restaurants and bars, which melted into the palm fringed shore rather than jutting too obstrusively onto the beach.

Other than 1 day of diving the majority of the time was spent swimming, snorkelling and kicking back. On the dive day I set out at 6am for the dive shop and a 4 hour boat road to the Surin Islands. After some deliberation on our part Em opted to spend the day with Astrid, cycling around the island, the diving option being very expensive due to the long boat trip, around £140. In Em's relatively newbie diver status this was a lot for another intro dive.

A real untouched tropical paradise the Surin islands offer some of Thailand's best diving. Our dive sites, either side of a tiny rocky island, proved excellent. The first dive offered me the highlight of a banded krait, sea snake, gently gliding through the corals. The second amongst a jumble of huge coral boulders, a large octopus changing colour amongst the rocks.

Meanwhile Em and Astrid completed a cycle tour of the island. Em's rickety bike proved interesting with iffy brakes on narrow roads and the odd steep descent. They explored the island's buddhist temples and shrines learning a bit about buddhist life along the way.

With a rendezvous with friends in Bangkok drawing near we donned packs and began our journey saying good bye to Astrid and the delightful Koh Phayam.