We caught a ferry from Langkawi to Tammalang in the Satun district of Thailand, the crossing took approx 1hr and cost 30MYR. On arrival there we were trying to figure out the best way to get to any of the islands but as it was classed as out of season many ferry services were no longer running from here. We thought a better bet would be to head to Pak Bara which had more options. After resisiting all the tours offered by touts we knew we could get there cheaper than the price they were offering which was 300Baht so we started walking, there were no rickshaws or even much traffic on the road but the first man who went past on a moped stopped and said he could go and get his rickshaw and give us a ride and then the next was a pick up truck that stopped after passing us and gave us a free ride to Satun town and dropped us off at the bus stop we needed for La-ngu. from there we caught a mini-bus which cost 60B and then a songthew (20B) to Pak Bara.

Arriving in Pak Bara we struggled to find accomodation, even though the town itself was deadly quiet all the accomodation was fully booked. We headed away from the jetty up the main street and found a nice place called Pakarand Resort, rooms were clean and spacious and had air conditioning and free bottled water all for 400B. Expensive for us but the other options were more expensive and certainly not the same standard.

We had wanted to vist and island called Ko Bulon Leh but being out of season all services to this island had finished, we were told that we could hire a long boat ourselves if we arranged a day for it to come back and get us and we would have had the island to ourselves, we were sorely tempted and still are but £70 for the return boat was too much. Instead we booked a round ticket to be used whenever from Pak Bara to Ko Lipe then to Tarantao and back again for 1000B.

The next day we set off on what we were told was a 2.5hr boat trip leaving at 12:30pm. The sea at the port looked like Blackpool in winter, brown and full of rubbish but we were confident that it would get better the further out we got. The sea was extremely rough and looking back the boat and its captain shouldn’t have taken a cargo full of tourists out that day as neither were up to the task. As we sat rocking back and forth getting no where we watched a beautiful sunset and finally arrived just before 9pm, tentions from the other passengers were high and when they found out that the boat didn’t go into a jetty but that we had to transfer into a local fishing boat just off the shore of Ko Lipe and then pay the fisherman 50B each just to take us into the beach. After much discussions and arguing we finally made it and booked into a beach hut at the Barracuda Resort on Pattaya beach (300B) by 11pm, it had been a long day but we were just glad to be there and looked forward to daylight to see the island properly.

We woke to a beautiful day yet again and went for a walk around the entire island which took about half a day. It is a pretty place with very clear water and some good snorkelling to be done and the island in general has a nice feel about it. Plenty of bars, restaurants, shops and accomodation but it doesn’t feel as if its been too ruined yet. We had a nice evening in Pooh’s bar one night with all the locals one was a lovely lady-man from the pizza place next door and another was called Nuon who Sam had to peel off the bar later when he had collapsed!

The next night we went and had really nice pizza next door and met up with them all again. The following afternoon we sat down to finish off our takeaway pizza only to discover that some of it was missing, strange as it had been hung from a nail in the wall. Personally I thought Sam had eaten it but it wasn’t until we noticed a hole chewed in the box that we thought maybe it was a rat and sure enough that evening as we lay under the mosquito net a little white ratty face was staring down at us. There was no pizza for him that night but the next morning we found that he had tried to make do with our soap bar instead!

With news from the Australian visa company that we may need to send Sam’s passport to them we started to talk about the possibility of making a trip home to get things sorted. After 4 nights on Ko Lipe we caught the ferry the next day heading for Tarantao.