Photo Gallery: Koh Libong, Thailand

Koh Libong isn’t like a lot of the other little tropical paradise islands in the Andaman Sea. Thanks to good fishing and rubber-tree plantations there are a few villages on the island. Very little of what goes on here is tourism. We rented a motorbike for the day and took a ride on the few roads that exist to see what we’d find on our Thailand island hopping trip.

It’s quite a green island with the usual thrusts of limestone sticking out of it. But we were surprised by some blossoming trees by the roadside. We found a group of girls there filling the baskets on their motorbikes with the blossoms.

Sunset. What more can you say? Sunset and a hammock. Even better.

The trees brought cooler air so it was quite nice to ride through the rubber-tree plantations even though the roads were terrible enough to make us bottom out from time to time if we were rolling too fast.

We stopped to watch a man process latex, the white plastic/liquid that the take from the rubber trees and process into things such as latex gloves. Or they vulcanize the stuff to make our tires and the soles of our shoes.

After mashing the bowl-shaped chips of latex into one long sheet and rinsing the whole mess, workers hang it out to dry once more. Workers make relatively good money doing this in season.

We stop in a fishing village where the houses are propped up above the mud during low tide. Everything is on stilts or cement columns.

A longtail boat comes into port by a waterway narrowed by the outgoing tide.

A shipload of timber awaits the return of the tide to lift it once again so it gain get out to open waters. Land is clear cut to make way for rubber trees. The jobs raise the standard of living and of course having trees around isn’t a bad thing. However, there is plenty of disagreement about whether the rubber tree industry is simply good or bad. Some say it can lead to a dangerous monoculture, while other sources, such as Michelin (surprise, surprise) disagree.

In the land of the clawless crabs, the one-claw crab is king. Like Lady Gaga, these crabs are born this way.

Photo by Preamtip Satasuk

The population is primarily Muslim on Koh Libong.

We came across of group of boys playing football / soccer (as you prefer) and I spent some time trying out the newish camera with high-speed bursts and the zoom lens. Fun. And the kids were giggly about it for a while before getting back into the match.

I liked the expressions on their faces when the ball went in the goal.

Kids playing on the nice beach outside Libong Beach Resort (where we stayed).

Like on Koh Kradan, the beach here was taken over by hermit crabs at night.

Photo by Preamtip Satasuk

And Peung did her best with her iPhone to make me feel foolish for spending all that money on a fancy schmancy camera. No fair – she had the golden hour light!

I laugh every time I see it. What exactly does this look say? It definitely says something. So serious. A bit of disapproval?

Three local girls riding around on a motorbike collecting blossoms.

And on the count of sam — neung, song, sam…

To see more photos and read about our trip through the islands of Trang in Southern Thailand, see our Thai island adventure posts on the Mad Traveler blog.