Around the island

Since we now had a scooter at our disposal, we wanted to use it and take a little tour. Darshi had to have his glasses fixed and we both wanted to exchange money. We hoped to be able to do both in Thongsala and then continue on to Thong Nai Pan, a beach in the northeast of the island.

The optician was quickly found and the glasses were fixed just as quickly. The banking transactions were also quickly taken care of. Finding the road to Thong Nai Pan was the bigger challenge. It took some time until we found someone who could show us the way, there was simply no one on the road. However, we somehow managed to find the right direction and in the end, we actually found ourselves on the right path. To my surprise, we drove along the coast for quite a while before eventually turning into the mountains.

The less developed the area became, the more nature there was. It got greener and lusher, and eventually, we came across a massive tree towering into the sky in front of us.

We stopped at the pub across the street, refreshed ourselves with a coconut, and craned our necks up the trunk of the tree to its sprawling crown. Colorful cloths were tied around its trunk and a small altar was set up at its base. Apparently, the tree was highly revered.

In addition, we found several remains of beehives at its base, which had apparently been recently cut down from a high altitude. We were even able to locate the spots where they must have once hung.

Unfortunately, we couldn't decipher the inscriptions on a plaque, only that it was apparently a Giant Yang Na Tree, which we had never heard of, so we continued on our journey.

We were now steeply ascending into the mountains, and our scooter was clearly struggling to carry both of us uphill. The road carried us further up curve after curve. Sometimes the incline leveled out and the scooter could recover and pick up speed again, only to collapse again on the next ascent. Before every turn, I thought, this must be the last one, but it kept going higher and higher. Eventually, we reached a viewpoint where a café was built into the hillside on one side, offering a fantastic view of the dense forest down to the sea. On the other side was a small elephant park, where 3 elephants and their keepers were waiting for tourists. They were allowed to feed and pet the animals, but apparently not take photos, as prohibition signs were everywhere.

After giving our exhausted scooter a short break, we started our next attempt to climb the mountain. We barely made it up the final ascent to the summit at walking pace, Darshi almost had to get off and walk or push. Actually, the road wasn't that steep, other scooters simply passed us by. Our machine was just a bit weak and already a bit old. Therefore, we decided to do a good deed for the poor thing and forego the rest of the journey. Although it was now downhill towards the beach, we would have had to ride up the same mountain from the other side on the way back, and that was too risky for us. We had been lucky so far that the scooter had made it this far, it was uncertain whether it would make it back on the return journey, so we started our way back here.

That shouldn't have been a problem, because now it was downhill, but good brakes were now required, which unfortunately the scooter did not have, as became apparent after a very short time. I didn't tell Darshi about our problem, he would have freaked out or wet his pants, neither of which would have been very helpful in such a situation. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic and suddenly there was a pickup truck in the middle of the road. The brakes were constantly being applied but hardly had any effect, stopping was impossible. Fortunately, the car made way just in time and we were able to pass it just barely on the side. Luckily, there were no more close calls, and eventually, we arrived safely on the flat ground.

Since we still had enough time before we had to return the scooter, we decided to drive across the island to Chaloklum in the north and have dinner there.

When we arrived, we unfortunately found out that the café we both loved, which had been run by a Russian couple with great passion, no longer existed. The store that had opened there now had been completely renovated, air-conditioned, and anonymized - no personal touch anymore, cold and standardized. Of course, it was again Westerners with prices that the Thai population could not afford and we did not want to afford. The beautiful white platform with the equally white-painted tree, which is practically the cover image of this blog, was decaying unloved in its corner. It no longer fits into this cool ambiance.

Disappointed, we found another restaurant and ate on a swinging wooden terrace floating above the local beach with a magnificent view of the bay.

It was slowly time to return the scooter, so we unfortunately didn't have any more room to leisurely stroll through the Sunday market that had been set up in the street and at the pier. Here, only the local population sells, no dolled-up and overpriced Westerners. We will come back on another Sunday with more time.