Two Sore Backs

We wanted to find a nice, relaxing, non-touristy island with nice beaches, so I asked Chat GPT for suggestions. The response?  Koh Libong.

The morning flight from Bangkok was uneventful until we got to the Trang airport exit. We were wondering where our bus to the Hat Yao Pier would be.

As we exited the baggage area, a distinguished looking gentleman was holding up a sign:  Patrick McGuire. I felt like a celebrity. That’s the kind of service we got all the way to the resort.

At the pier we were shown to a shady spot to wait for our long tail.

Then we were helped onto the boat.

The Tuk Tuk to the resort was fun. The driver was a very nice, impeccably dressed, Muslim woman who spoke virtually no English.

The road was very good – brick pavers – until we got to the resort driveway which was a long and fairly hilly dirt road. The Tuk Tuk was basically a motorbike sidecar, and the driver would motion for me to move forward for the uphills and back for the down. It was a fun ride.

Settling into our bungalow at Le Dugong Resort, we couldn’t help but notice the similarity to our family cabin at Savary Island.

“Dugong” is Malay for “Manatee”. They are very endangered, but there are still some spots on Koh Libong where it’s possible to see them.

There are several “must see” places on the island. I’m slightly ashamed to say we saw none of them. This was by far the laziest stretch of vacation we’ve had, ever.

We did work up the courage to tackle the 10 minute beach walk to the small fisherman’s village. We ate at a nice spot called FC Libong. The name isn’t a reference to a local football club – I’m sure there is no local football club.  “FC” are the initials of the owner.

Here she is proudly showing us the fish that her son has caught. Moments before she was apologizing for slow service because her son, who usually helps her, was away fishing.

Back at the resort, the similarities to Savary continue. At low tide, the beach is very rocky, and also like Savary, rocks have been cleared to help boats come in at a middling tide.

The resort food was good but we shared the wealth and had a couple dinners in the village. One of these became our dinner. Delicious.

I did manage an hour or so of physical activity, kayaking out to the island. You can walk to it at low tide, but this is better.

On one of our walks to the village, a little girl came up to me with big eyes and a sad face. I was working my courage up to say “no” when she said, in perfect English, “Can you help me find my way home?”.

We didn’t recognize her from our resort, so we decided to take her to the next one down the beach. We were asking her questions – Do you know where you are staying? Was your mom with you? Etc.

She was answering “Mommy go that way”, pointing in one direction, “Daddy go that way.”, pointing in the other.

It didn’t take long for me to recognize that look of mischief that all kids get when they have adults firmly in their control. Fortunately, I turned and looked back along the beach towards our resort and saw a woman running towards us.

We later learned that the little girl’s name was Lula. I asked Lula, “Is that your mom?”. She squinted as she looked towards the woman running in the distance. Then she rubbed her eyes and looked again, still squinting?  She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. The hint of a smile crossed her face. Haha busted!

That’s how we were introduced to Lila’s mom Ricki, joined shortly by Tom, her dad.

I taught Lula a new word that day: scallywag.

This reminds me. We need to send our thanks to Ricki and Tom. They are travel agents based in Luang Prabang, Laos, where we had been a few weeks prior, and they gave us some awesome travel advice. They were very positive about Ipoh, which is a historic mining town south of Penang. We added it to our itinerary and it was awesome. We’ll talk about it in a future post. Tom also suggested Tioman Island off the east coast of Malaysia. We couldn’t fit that in. Maybe next time!

Our only splurge of the visit  was dinner at Andalay Beach, the fancy resort between ours and the village.

Before we knew it our beach vacation was drawing to a close and we were travelling again. This part of the ride to the dock was too steep for the Tuk Tuk – we had to hike it. Not easy in the heat of the day!

It took a while for the speed boat to show up so both Val and I needed to use the toilet at the dock. No big deal for me, but when Val was trying to find a garbage for the toilet paper, her right foot went through the floor and she wound up stuck. I wasn’t there to witness it, but I gather it required a few locals to extricate her.  Ouch. 

Off we were to Koh Lipe and more boating adventures.