Getting Ready to Travel: How we got in to the Detox Center

When we left the mainland of Thailand our intent was to get to Koh Maak, the red push pin.

(The descrepency in spelling between the map and my text is not carelessness on my part. There are several translation services resulting in spelling differences. There is no commonly accepted translation so a billboard, brochure, road sign and map may each have unique spellings. I have seen Ko Mak, Koh Maak and Kohmaak.)

We couldn't find anyone who could tell us for sure how to get two people and two trikes to Koh Maak but most people thought if we took the ferry to Koh Chang and went to the other side of the island we could find a boat to Koh Maak. The ferry ride was the easiest of the various forms of transportation we used. Ride on and ride off. No disassembly/reassembly required.

As we exited the ferry we turned right as instructed and soon encountered the steepest hills of my trike riding experience. They tested the limits of our trike gearing choices. At an information stop we were told the worst hills were between us and where we needed to go. Koh Chang has some of the steepest auto roads I have ever seen. There are grades of 20% and the max I can do on an unloaded trike is maybe half that. The other bad news we got was the motels were also on the other side of the hills.

We made a hasty retreat back to the ferry landing and went left. There were hotels that way but were steeper (in price) than the hills in the other direction. Some were as much as 6 times the rate we had been paying. After all it is a very popular tourist destination. Each hotel was more expensive then the last. Ten miles stretched into fifteen and thankfully at mile 20 we found a place that by comparison seemed cheap but still the second highest of the trip.

The place turned out to be a center where rich Europeans go to detoxify their bodies. Any unused rooms are rented to the public. We got their last room. The food was excellent, slanted to European tastes the first non-Thai food on the trip and we finally had a room and in another beautiful setting. This was the view from the restaurant level deck.

These were the bungalows.

There were flowers everywhere.

Our transportation dilemma got solved as we were chatting with the main man at the main desk who spoke fluent English and knew the island. He said he could arrange for us and our trikes to be transported to the pier we needed in a van where we would be taken by high speed boat to Koh Maak and that we could pay him for everything. High fives and chest bumps.

The high speed boat was 30' long sporting twin 250 horsepower Mecury engines. The most notable part of the 45 minute ride was that everyone seated near the back was drenched with sea water each time the bow hit a wave just right. Steven and I were in the next to last row but hey, it was in the 80's and we dried off quickly once off the boat.

We assembled our bikes right where we were dropped off at the end of the 75 yard long pier and rode them directly into the village. The kind woman at the information desk steered us to the least expensive room on our trip. It proved to be quaint yet situated on a secluded, quite beach.

The view from the deck.