Koh Phayam Island Discs

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Sabai Sabai = Take It Easy

We weren't supposed to be here. This wasn't part of the plan. We weren't even supposed to be talking! But as we'd made our escape from the silent meditation retreat, of course we were going to head to a nice beach. We may not have lasted the 10 days, but we'd earned this.

Said beach was to be on Koh Phayam, a small relatively un-touristed island off the west coast of Thailand, just south of Myanmar, which came highly recommended by Jo's friend Marta. After a brief stopover in Ranong, and a quick check on Tripadvisor, we jumped on a ferry and set our sights on Sabai Sabai Bungalows. This turned out to be a great choice... properly chilled beach front huts, but with enough going on around the bar at night to have a laugh and make some new friends. Sawadee Karp (that's hello in Thai) to Kevin, Fiana, Alan, Michael, Lawrence, Sharon, Travis and Miles... and James, Mr Sabai Sabai.

We ended up spending almost 2 weeks there. That certainly wasn't part of the plan! It did give us time to organise what we were going to do next though. And for me to put together this very basic mixtape of tunes that had been bouncing around my head...

We kept ourselves active with a 3 hour-athon Yoga class every other morning. And we also caught a couple of parties: one at the Hippy Bar, an incredible feat of driftwood engineering that sprawled from the beach into an array of pirate ships, decks, bars and pool rooms, and another hoe-down at our gaff for Songkran, Thailand's New Year water-fest celebrations.

 

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