I forgot about this video. I took it at the same time, April 2015, as the other videos showing the road around the island by scooter. But never got round to uploading it.
But better late than never.
From Salakkok Bay we’re heading south, along the eastern side of Salakphet Bay. This is a good road with no traffic, you probably won;t see many people either. the road passes through a small village called Jek Bae. There are a few resorts in this area and they have frontage onto Salakphet Bay. However, they don’t have a beach.
The majority of these are throwbacks to the time before car ferries and a road being built down the west of the island, when Thai tour groups were brought in to stay on wooden passenger boats ( converted fishing boats ) and guests would have a couple of nights by the sea, some locally caught seafood and then take a snorkelling trip before heading home. Nowadays, people arrive on the car ferry and it’s much easier to drive round to the west coast beaches
There’s one posh resort that you’ll pass – Parama – which is worth stopping at. Nice spot to take a break and have a coffee as the restaurant has great views across the bay and is surrounded by an aquarium – allowing you to see some marine life – including turtles – close up.
From Jek Bae the road leads up on the hillside and then winds along a very scenic abandoned road to Long Beach and Hat Yuthanavy in the far southeastern tip of the island. As you’ll see the first 3Km or so are along a paved road that is damaged, overgrown and subsiding in places but is easy to ride on. then the road ends and the fun begins. You’ll need ot take care on the stony section. This isn’t a place where you want to get a puncture, it’s a long walk back to Jek Bae.
The bridge that you see in the video has been repaired and rebuilt ( as of April 2016 ) But if it gets washed away again, there there is a detour which enables you to get down to Long Beach. This route goes through Karang Resort by the shore of the bay and is shown in this video .
Expect The Treehouse to be closed apart from a few months between December – April each year. That’s been the pattern in the past couple of years. You can get cold drinks and expensive gasoline as the ranger station by the viewpoint around 2.5Km from the start of the road. Also some great views into Salakphet Bay and, on a clear day all the way south to Koh Kood.
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