Ko Mook: The island that turned me into an island lover

[Thailand Explore]

Ko Mook: The island that turned me into an island lover

David Luekens, Thai Island Times

 

Right around dusk, the longtail ferry shoved off as the azure blue and indigo of the sky reflected on the Andaman Sea’s teal surface. It was one of the most calming scenes I’d ever been a part of — and we hadn’t even reached the island yet. After ten minutes or so, the engine began to sputter. We drifted to a stall.

 

For an hour, we sat in the boat and watched the driver wrestle with the engine. It chugged and cranked, but would not start. So a second boat came to tow us all the way to Ko Mook (or Muk), the “Pearl Island” of Trang province.

 

Seated on one of the benches that rim the wooden boat’s interior, I conversed with a young English teacher on a short getaway from Bangkok, and an elderly solo traveler from Germany taking her fifth visit to the island. Locals chatted, their sacks of onions and toys and rice piled among a few backpacks and suitcases.

 

Loading up the local ferry to Ko Mook at Kuan Thung Khu, the pier on mainland Trang province where my Thai island journey began nearly nine years ago.

 

I felt sorry for the boat driver, but thankful to be there. This was exactly the sort of open-ended slow travel that I’d spent the last several years working two bartending jobs to reach. I sat there on the orange bench, and soaked it in.

 

It was late October 2011. If you had asked me two months earlier, I would not have known about Ko Mook. I’d enjoyed a few days on Ko Samui during a previous trip, but most of my travels in Thailand up to that point had taken me upcountry. I was now heading to Ko Mook as part of my first-ever assignment for Travelfish. The first of many, as it would turn out.

 

Full story: https://thaiislandtimes.substack.com/p/ko-mook-the-island-that-turned-me