Marika and I arrived there a few days before Josh, since he was off on a diving trip, and we were thrilled to find our 150Baht/night beach bungalow, only to see it and realize why it was 150B (about $5/night). It was extremely cramped (fine, we've done cramped on this trip, we're on tight budget), without a fan (we didn't expect A/C but at least a fan!), the toilet was the not uncommon hole in the ground with an adjacent bucket of water which is used to flush, no sink, and dripping in to the bucket was a 2ft long thin rose-hued rubber hose that spent a good deal of time on the ground next to the toilet hole. We weren't sure if the hose was supposed to double as a shower (since there was no other source of water in the "bathroom", there were some old moldy looking shower heads laying near the door that may have served a purpose, but we were too hungry to figure anything out right away. We decided to wander up the beach and see what our other options were, and hunt for dinner.
We passed a nearby place which was double the price, but had a fan and a shower head that wasn't anywhere near the floor by the toilet. We were sold, and moved first thing in the morning (we were too hot and tired and hungry to move that night). The only thing was that it was a concrete triangular bungalow, not what either of us really wanted in terms of ambiance. The next morning we set out to move once again, in search of a better deal. We tried one more place on the 3rd night. It was a real bamboo bungalow, lots of island character, but got so hot at night (even with a fan) that Marika went and braved the mosquitos and slept in a hammock down by the beach for a few hours in the middle of the night.
In the meantime, during the day, we'd been lounging around the Ko Jum Villa property since they had the best food. We met one of the managers, Chris, and his lovely wife Severine (the other manager), and Od (the bartender). We're all so amazingly charming, and they were always so sad to see us leave each night, back to our dumpy digs, that they offered up some rooms to us in one of the unbelievably gorgeous villas. We were blown away by Chris and Severine and Od's kindness and are so grateful for their rescue! After hearing about some of their round-the-world adventure stories, I think they took pity on us and sympathized. We spent several nights here, spent the days kayaking to nearby islands, reading lazily in hammocks, playing with Od's 2year old son "little-Od," taking long walks on the beach, and snorkling in the sea.
One of the days we went out kayaking we left early enough in the morning so that the sea was incredibly calm, almost like a big lake. On the way out and back we saw a plethora of jelly fish. Some were simple brown mushroom-like ones (although supposedly these ones are the poisonous ones, with their tendrils that can reach 10 meters). Some were massive, pink, fluffy, cotton-candy-esque ones, undulating so elegantly right under the still sea surface. We tried to catch one, apparently some Chinese tourists were there and dried them out to eat, but weren't well equipped with just out kayak paddles.
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