Kayaking in the mangroves

8/3/25

It was hard to know for sure if Ko Phayam was a nice place to be or not. There were nice beaches, but we’d been to better. There wasn’t anything really to do on the island, but that makes it relaxing. It was a long walk to go anywhere, but that made it quiet and peaceful. In the end we decided it was for us, minus the scooters.

Staring out at the sea every morning was therapeutic. We didn’t feel the same impetus to rush out the door at sunrise and were fulfilled lazing about with a coffee and some overnight oats. So it was about 9am when we decided to walk towards the Mokken Village.

Hitting the main thoroughfare was an assault to our senses. Walking down the wide open concrete, occasionally cowering in fear of being hit by a scooter isn’t fun. We went the wrong way and ended up taking a pleasurable walk through the jungle, which turned into a little stomp in the mud.

Back on track, and in a very quiet part of the island, we saw the bridge that had recently been built across the river. Apparently, before it was concrete, it was a rickety unstable structure. There were some children playing on the bridge who seemed indifferent to our presence.

Down on the other side there was a bar where we could rent a kayak. We took a two seater, Frankie in the front, and set off under the bridge along the mangroves. It was a wide deep channel and we were flanked by the beautiful roots of the mangroves. It was low tide, and though this means all the roots are exposed, it also meant that a large sand bar blocked us from going too far upstream.

There were two side channels. The first one was rather narrow and we didn’t get far before it was blocked by a fallen tree. We returned to the sand bar and tried to go over it, getting out to drag the boat, but it was shallow water for quite a way. So we tried the second channel instead.

We had oodles of time. It’s pay by the hour and we’d used less than half an hour so far. After cautiously crossing over a submerged tree, we floated slowly. There was a brahminy kite sitting on a branch close by. Then a kingfisher that jumped down the river, keeping their distance from us.

We looked for a natural conclusion to our journey but there were no blockages, just a t-junction. We returned, much faster than we’d gone, passed three other people, and had some time to spare. The tide had been coming in so we started heading back against the waves. It would take a little more effort. We kept close to the edge of the river and saw a monkey fishing something out of the water.

After depositing the boat we were sticky with salt water. Jonathan had got out and his socks and shoes were drenched through, the bottom of the rucksack was completely sodden too. We headed through the Moken village. Part of a group of people that live a hunter gatherer lifestyle on the sea. There are about 800 islands that they inhabit.

On the way out of the village we saw some women on the ground chopping the sealed nuts off the cashew fruit. It was mind opening to see how much manual labour goes into processing cashew nuts. We trudged back along the path, wishing we were much closer to the hotel. It was at least 5 kilometres to get all the way back.

As the Sun started blasting we reached the main road. It was lined with restaurants and bars. One of which we wanted to try but it was too far from the hotel to make another trip and we wanted to be more comfortable when we ate. So we marched back over the hill.

We flopped in the ocean, showered and ate some fruit. The rest of the day we could do nothing. A cold drink here or there. Later we headed to dinner at Cha Chai again. It was the closest we’d found that would cater for us easily. On the way back we witnessed a fabled Thailand scooter crash. We ran over to help. Not that we could do much but pour water on the wounds. The sustained injuries looked misery inducing. We felt vindicated for having not entertained the idea.