Lying on my sacrificial altar, I wondered if it was entirely necessary for the masseuse to dislocate my toes, insert her fingers into my skull via my tear ducts, jam a foot into my groin and, even more incredibly, get me to jam my own foot into my groin, something I haven’t been able to do since I was about 12. At one point, she started punching me in the kidneys with a boiling-hot lemon-oil sponge.

Then something magical happened. As she tried to perform an appendectomy with her bare fingers, then stood on the backs of my legs as if they were waterskis, I began to enjoy it. I was lying beneath a thin palm roof that itself was being pummelled by a tropical rainstorm, with the thunder growling and grumbling back and forth across the bay. A light spray was falling on my shoulders, taking the edge off the steamy heat. I could finally feel my body loosening up. Before starting, it had been as supple as a sheet of uncooked lasagne. Now it was al dente, and smothered in hot lemon sauce.

It was the massage that gave me the strength to get over my resort fever. It is, after all, easy to slip into a mindset where the biggest decision of the day is what to drink at happy hour. But after the massage, I remembered that there was a world beyond the beach.

Ko Chang is a mountainous island, rising to 2,400ft. It is covered in dense jungle interspersed with rubber and fruit plantations, and is protected as a national park. I decided to play Doctor Livingstone, and took an elephant ride, or rather elephant rollercoaster, into the jungle.

Asian elephants are hairy, round-shouldered creatures whose one aim in life seems to be to graze on the soft grass growing under trees. If that means jamming their passengers between branches crawling with the kind of ants that leap onto bare flesh, stand on their front legs and start lunching, the elephants don’t care. And sometimes the elephant-driver takes a long time to find reverse. It was fun, though, bouncing past huts where fresh strips of latex had been hung out to dry and eating hunks of sweet local grapefruit picked while the ants weren’t looking. And, although some people got queasy, the rolling motion was no problem for me because I live in France, and an elephant ride is by no means as rough as the suspension on a 2CV.

In the southwest corner of the island, a half-hour drive in an open-backed taxi, lies what is described as the “picturesque fishing village on stilts” of Bang Bao. The stilts are still there, but nowadays it is as much a picturesque fishing village as Grimsby. This is where development on the island has been concentrated: every other building is a souvenir shop or diving centre. Practically everyone who comes to Ko Chang heads at some point to Bang Bao for a diving or snorkelling trip.

For the first time during the holiday, I felt like a herd animal. Our ex-fishing boat was slowly being loaded up with the day’s catch of Thais, Germans, French and Americans. The Thai captain turned on his radio and began humming to Bob Marley, and I wished I was back on my deserted beach.

()But I would have been wrong to jump ship, because the day’s snorkelling turned out to be the best part of the holiday. We headed due south, chugging for an hour past deserted green islands, and eventually moored off a tiny atoll. The water was so crowded with fish that I thought I’d landed in a roll of Nemo wallpaper. The multicoloured coral and swaying anemones were stocked with all the stars of the film except the sharks, from tiny angelfish to fat, goofy parrotfish, which were unecologically pecking at the reef.

During our day at sea, we stopped at three equally well-preserved atolls, and each time members of the crew took us on guided swims. And this is where the whole development question really hits home. The reef, like the rest of Ko Chang, is well preserved for the moment. But it is, as they say, “under pressure” — because we weren’t the only boat out there. At each atoll, there were at least two boats of equal size. Until I swam away from the throng, I occasionally felt as if I was taking part in a snorkellers’ riot. Harmless fun or the beginning of the end for the reef? A bit of both, I think.

Back at the resort, after a painful après-soleil creaming of all the crannies we hadn’t covered in factor 50, we went down to the beach to enjoy the moment when the sun disappears and, as if turned on by remote control, the frogs and insects start singing.

After a day sucking salt water through a snorkel, my cool sundown cocktail tasted especially good. I’d opted for a pure watermelon juice, a pinky-red mush that saves you the trouble of spitting out the pips.

“What a beautiful colour,” I said to the waiter. “It’s like drinking the pink clouds on the horizon.”

He smiled nervously, clearly trying to work out whether an Englishman really was stupid enough to ask him if melons grew in the sky.

Stephen Clarke is the author of Talk to the Snail (Bantam Press £9.99)

Travel brief

Getting there: the best option is to get a flight to Bangkok, then buy the domestic flight separately. British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com), Qantas (0845 774 7767, www.qantas.com), Thai Airways (0870 606 0911, www.thaiair.com) and Eva Air (020 7380 8300, www.evaair.com) all fly nonstop from Heathrow to Bangkok. Expect to pay about £600. Then fly from Bangkok to Trat with Bangkok Airways (01293 596626, www.bangkokair.com; from £70 return). The taxi to your resort on Ko Chang, including a ferry ride, should cost about £4pp.

Where to stay: you can book the Tropicana Resort & Spa (00 66 39 557122) through Asia Rooms (www.asiarooms.com), which has superior bungalows sleeping two for £43 per night, B&B.

What to do: elephant treks are available at the elephant camp right opposite the turn-off to the Tropicana; a one-hour ride in the woods costs £7pp. All resorts organise snorkelling trips with well-run operators. My all-day trip cost £10, including taxi transfers to and from the harbour, equipment hire, a fried noodle, fish and omelette lunch, half a ton of fruit and barbecued squid during the ride back to port.

FURTHER SOUTHEAST ASIA TRAVEL

For the latest news on the region, and a camping tour of Cambodia, visit www.timesonline.co.uk/southeastasia

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