Ko Jum

Update: Now with pictures. And improved content!!!

Ko Jum is an island off the west coast, just south of Krabi. We can watch the sun set over Ko Phi Phi and the Andaman Sea, with Phuket somewhere over the horizon. This is what we were looking for. A 2-km stretch of sandy beach, lined by offshore coral, just enough rock outcrops to make things interesting (Bouma sequences! trace fossils! large rip-up clasts in limestone clastics!), and the beach is all but abandoned.

Sunset from Ko Jum.

We shared a long-tail boat with a nice British couple, and did a one-day tour to Ko Phi Phi Lai (amazing swimming holes surrounded by 500 foot limestone cliffs), Ko Phi Phi Don (absolutely ruined by twin Tsunamis: the 2004 one, and uncontrolled tourist overdevelopment since 2004), and Bamboo Island (where the snorkeling about 1 km offshore was Jacques Cousteauesque).

Tig, at Ko Phi Phi Lai

Ko Jum has one small fishing village, still refreshingly Thai (no massage parlours yet!). Our walk to the village is along a 2-km path through jungle, seed palms, and an operating rubber plantation.

Actual village, where actual non t-shirt-selling people live.

Rubber trees!

Our choices are pretty simple right now: stay here forever, or move on. Tomorrow we should be in Satun, and the net day into Malaysia (guess we have to buy Tig a headscarf).

Tig chooses Joy over Freedom while reinforcing the concept that the two are mutually exclusive.

Happy New Year everyone. We raised a glass at 3:00pm (46 minutes ago) to celebrate Vancouver New Year. See you in 2009.

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Tig 'n Pat, January 1st, 3:00pm local time.