Koh Jum - The Simple Life

What’s all this business about the snow in England?! We’ve had a few photos from people and it looks crazy, it seems such a shame to be missing it. Meanwhile we’ve found a true tropical paradise! We’ve just spent a week on Koh Jum, a tiny tiny island in the Andaman sea. It must only be about 2 km in length and we managed to the tour of the entire island in about 1 hour. It consists of a beach, a mountain, two fishing villages and 15 or so sets of bungalows, and thats about it! Its so good being forced to relax, and being somewhere so unspoiled that all the tourists haven't found out about yet. Its unbelievably tranquil here, when we go swimming in the morning we are often the only people in the sea and its a bit strange having a km of beach all to yourself!

Sunset at Golden Pearl Beach

Koh Jum doesn't have electricity either which has been interesting. Most of the bars have generators that run from 6-11pm but other than that its paraffin lamps and head torches. After sunset its pitch black which makes the 20 minute walk through the woods into the village like something out of a horror film, you know the monkeys are watching you and the ground is full of creepy crawlies even though you cant see them! On the subject of animals, on our first night we realized we were sharing our bungalow with 2 frogs, numerous lizards, a mouse and a scorpion! Dan tried to kill the scorpion by drowning it in the sink, but amazingly two days later it was still alive! There’s also a few jellyfish in the sea (Dan got stung on the face – don't worry, he’s fine) so I think we’ve had our fair share of nature for now.

Reading by Paraffin Lamp

We don't have too much to tell you about as most of our time’s been spent reading, swimming and eating fresh fish. We did venture out of the hammocks for two day trips though – a snorkeling trip to nearby Bamboo Island (the fish were amazing, and tried to eat your legs) and a tour of the island on motorbikes that we rented. This was harder that it sounds as the inhabitants of Koh Jum use the word “road” very loosely and they are in fact rocky, steep, rollercoaster-like death tracks. Anyway, we were meant to get one each but I got too scared so Dan had to learn with me on the back. Luckily he picks things up quickly and all was fine, although we did average a speed of about 10mph.

Bamboo Island

Yesterday we arrived on Koh Lanta, the next island down which is a lot bigger and more developed but still pretty chilled out. They have electricity too so Dan is very pleased that he can play with all his gadgets again and I can use my hairdryer, bliss! It seems a shame though, on Koh Jum everything we ate was so fresh and healthy but here we’ve already found a 7/11 that sells packs of chocolate biscuits for 10p, we must resist!