It was my first trip of the season to Koh Chang a couple months ago and I was at the right place, at the right time. It was the beginning of the rainy season so Chang Island wasn't raining daily yet and there wasn't the congested traffic of the high season. The conditions were perfect with the ideal small amount of rain every four days or so and most of the resorts had already closed for the rainy season.
Koh Chang is directly translated in English as Elephant Island but a fun fact is all the elephants on the island came from the Eastern part of Thailand, such as Surin, Thailand. The reason the island is named Elephant Island was due to its size. The island was big enough to shelter ships on both sides through monsoons and the islands rainy season hundreds of years ago. When the island became a heavy tourist attraction, they brought the elephants over to fit the name of the island and appeal to families.
The Fishing Village and the Feast
When you hear the words fishing village and island together, 9 out of 10 times, there's going to be a seafood feast around the corner. We managed to book our rooms at the Salakphet Restaurant and Resort to be closer to our goal. The goal was to reach the unnamed beach known to everyone as the Long Beach resort. It was already late afternoon so we decided to make it an early dinner full of seafood.
We sat down and started drinking a bit. The next thing I know, I was in a full seafood feast. We ordered steamed female crabs with the eggs and the seafood dip was made to perfection. The crabs were medium size but the crab meat was thick and had a sweet taste to it.
Another amazing crab dish was our deep fried crab hoi jor which in English is called deep fried crab meat roll. The plum sauce was mildly sweet, the ideal taste of the dip for a premium cooked crab hoi jor.
We moved on to fish because staying in a fishing village, it's already a must. I was in love with the fried grouper fish in garlic and chili sauce. I'm a grouper fan plus I love garlic so I didn't mind the sweet part of the sauce. It was perfectly blended with the garlic. There was this amazing scallop and ginger stir-fry dish that woke up my senses. I like taking big bites of ginger so that natural spiciness it delivers makes me inhale from the hotness.
The local sashima was sliced to perfection and seemed to melt in our mouths with the taste of wasabi exploding through our nostrils.
After dinner, we moved our drinking party of four to the resort's family room we were sharing. We set up our remaining food and beverages on the tables of our room's balcony.
The layout of the room made me imagine that a lot of their guests must be from tours and tourists with their families. The double king beds in most of the rooms were perfect for a family of 4 to 5.
The single rooms that were closest to the edge of the pier were perfect for honeymooners or young lovers running away from their problems together, for months at a time.
Every room had these adorable daybed nets that couples up to 150 kgs collectively, can lay on and cuddle the morning away. At first, there's that fear of falling through but then logic kicks in and the nets become quite comfortable.
I'm not much of a drinker so as my awesome party of 4 began enjoying themselves, I walked around the fishing village to enjoy the landscape that Salaphet had to offer.
I took several pictures of the landscape and came back to order more food before the kitchen closed.
They have a saying in Salakphet as far as feasts are concerned. Don't come to a fishing village and order chicken. We ate so many crabs I almost smelled like it in the morning.
The Paradise Beyond the Fishing Village
Across the Salakphet fishing village is a priceless unnamed bay of paradise that is known to the locals as Long Beach Resort. The reason for this is because they were the only resort ever opened there, and now the Long Beach Resort has been closed since 2013. There are rumors that they open the bar and the restaurant in the high season but by the looks of the cottages, they've been uninhabitable for a few years. We wanted to take our 2 Toyota Fortuners so we could pack our equipment and do some exploring. A better mode of transportation from the Salakphet Village would be to hire a boat to take you over there and back.
Salakphet Fishing Village is on the undeveloped side of the island so the road to Long Beach Resort wasn't a far drive but very complicated. The roads are very steep and worn through Ban Chek Bae with one road in and one road out. I've been there before on previous trips years ago, and some parts of the roads got better while the good parts on prior trips, got worse. When we arrived at the Long Beach Resort, I made sure to spray my whole party down with all natural insect repellent on our bodies and the chemical stuff on our paracord bracelets.
We walked down the unattended stairs to the beach and when we got to the sand, the entire ocean seemed to shine emerald green. It was a piece of paradise waiting to be rediscovered. We found a camping point next to a huge tree with a broken swing and rusty nails to put down our stuff. I couldn't help but quickly put down my things and run straight into the clear emerald waters of the Long Beach Resort.
I dove in and swam towards the currents and when I emerged from the water and looked back onto shore, it was like reliving moments of paradise. I knew at that point I wanted to experience more moments like these during my borrowed time on Earth.
I spent long moments in the clear emerald waters and when I was finished, I grabbed my phone and sat on the white sands. I began recording a hermit crab trying to sneak past me, and as I was recording, I felt some stinging on my back and thought it might be from the salt water. Nevertheless, I managed to get great footage of my new hermit crab friend in a green shell. We had spent several hours there exploring the beach and taking photos of the landscape. Our appetites were huge by this time so we all decided to head back to our rooms and have another feast.
The Price of Paradise
As I finished showering the ocean waters off me, I sat on our rooms fishing nets and was enjoying the view when my significant other cried out, "O.M.G." She reached out and rubbed a knot on my back and asked, "Does this itch?" Maybe it was mind over matter up to that point but as soon as she touched it, it started to drastically itch. All 28 of them did.
The stinging sensations I felt sitting on the beach were from sandflies biting me because I washed my insect repellent off in the ocean and my sprayed paracord bracelets were with my backpack closer to land. Heed my warning when I say, "Never underestimate Mother Nature on secluded beaches." We need her to survive and not the other way around. I found out that day that my carelessness in the field, resulted in learning how much the price of paradise can really be.
Authored & Photographed by:
@stewsak
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