(A) Paradise found: Ko Payam (island)

Just spent a week on Ko Payam island, off the Andaman Coast of Thailand (where the 2004 tsunami hit) and only 13km from the Myanmar maritime border. As I don't possess the descriptive ability or superlatives to convey what paradise this island is, I'll attempt to give some impression of life here as a narrative of a few day's adventures and banter.
http://andaman-island-hopping.com/islands/phayam.htm

Sunday
After a muesli, watermelon, pineapple and honey breakast in a wooden shack resting on a talc-powder beach and 10m from the lapping and bath-warm aquamarine sea, my taekwondo accomplice Anna announced, "There's a nice walk a couple told me about. It's about 20 minutes along the beach, across the river, past the Burmese sea gypsy village, and through the forest to the 3km long beach." Sold! Swedish Anna and Eric, Anna, and I strolled off along 'our beach', watching the crabs scuttling to their burrows, and picking-up, inspecting, then tossing aside, wave-rounded chunks of colonial coral.

Our beach

Occasional stilted shacks peeped around the palm tree line, and there wasn't another soul in sight. At the beach end we unexpectedly met a mangrove forest/swamp, with tree trunks looking like they were balanced atop giant antique bird cages of roots, at this low tide. The mud was ultra-fine, squelchy, sticky, splodgey, stinking and graphite black with decaying biomatter. Vertical spikes of chopped choots were bloody sharp, yet it we all laughed at the ridicularity of the situation: bikini or shorts clad and 'wading' and sometimes slipping through this knee-deep ooze.
"Did they purposely forget to tell you about the swamp?"
"Are you OK?"
"Grand! This is my most exilarating mangrove swamp trek yet."
After crossing the river (up to our necks with cameras held aloft and paper money in mouth for safety, and at the nick of time as the incoming tide tugged at our legs) we strolled into the Burmese refugee village. Scrawny children and roosters shaded under bamboo huts beside piles of domestic refuse and scrap metal, whilst adults eyed us with more suspicion and without the smile typical of Thais. The Burmese refugees are a group of nomadic sea gypsies, one of many bands illegally inhabiting this area, who’d set up camp at the end of the beach until the 2004 tsunami destroyed their village. They were granted land and financial support to build a settlement by the Thai government and some Texas organisation on the condition they adopted a religion. Now a rickety bamboo hut church sits near the river, though I wonder if they have embraced the Bible’s teaching as they have their new land rights?
After receiving direction toward the path leading towards Aow Yai Beach, we wandered through areas of seemingly undamaged tropical forest, complete with Tarzan-style plaited creepers, a myriad of flowery fragrances and colours, and butterflies with the size, colour and flittish flightpaths of bats. Past acres of rubber, banana, coconut and cashew nut plantations I dreamily strolled, until Eric reminded me black snakes, like those he’d leapt back from 5 minutes previously, are more scared of stamping strides. I think I heard a monkey shriek, though the island has few monkeys now. The Burmese have eaten them, apparently. Why is a majority group so quick and keen to blame the minority for changes and problems?

Ko Payam forest

Finally, a well-earned breather at a shack bar for cashew nut milkshakes before the long walk along the golden arc of Aow Yai Bay. This isn’t as nice as our beach, with its motorbike tracks and half a dozen bathers on its 3km length. Interestingly, the sandball-making crabs here left them in spirally rather than the starry patterns littering our beach: cultural and industrial differences between the E and W-side crab populations. We only got a kilometre further before the need for iced ginger, lemongrass, lemon and honey tea. Back in the forest, away from the noise of scooters and electric generators was bliss, before a scarlet sunset on a wooden verandah and being bitten by red ants that didn’t let go until I tore them in half. At 6pm our generator starting filling the air with its resonance for the 5 hours electricity a day it allows us, and at 11pm gave us 5 seconds of flickery notice to grab the candles and matches before all was dark and starry and quiet.

Monday

Today's chosen new adventure sport was slalom kayaking, and where better to learn than your local mangrove forest/swamp.
Rob and I paddled a mile along shore to where the mangrove trees met the beach and waded ashore for a rest. It felt odd, stepping out of the sea and having to wear shoes due to the risk of snakes, spiders, biting ants and ankle-tunnelling parasites. Anglesey this is not! Paddling up the river, flanked by densely packed trees with roots above ground, as if the trees are perched atop antique bird cages of bare limbs, then lush green above high tide mark, was utterly silent.

The mangrove

Hawks and eagles spiralled above, and at the first river branch a tiny sandy beach was crawling with inch-long crabs, each with one claw the size of its body, the other normally proportioned. These 1000s of crabs were all waving their giant claws in slow and seemingly synchronised circular movements above their heads. Forking left and left and left up progressively narrower, shadier and stiller tributaries, the water changed from greeny blue to a murky treacle brown and seemed like it hadn't been disturbed for a long time. Finally I was unable to paddle without striking tree roots, and as we about-turned all was eerily silent. If it had been a film, here was the point the music and conversation stopped and the giant anaconda slid into the water in the out-of-focus background. Thankfully, it didn't get us and we returned to the open sea, tight-turning, ducking and weaving round and under partially submerged and mollusc-impregnated tree trunks and roots.

In the evening, I explored the rusling noise, that I presumed was rats in plastic bags the previous night, coming from under our stilted hut. What a surprise to see fist-sized hermit crabs arduously dragging their conch homes through the leaf litter and into their burrows.

Local nectar (hiding hermit crab for scale)

Making a birthday cake for Rob tomorrow....