Paradise
Trip Start
Jan 31, 2010
1
3
16
Trip End
Jun 29, 2010
Koh Chang, Thailand
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
We booked a room at the Island lodge on White Sand Beach because it was cheap and had air-con. After climbing what seemed like a never-ending set of stairs we got to our room which was really spacious and had a balcony with the most amazing view of the rainforest and mountains that surrounded us. We were so hot and sweaty from the journey, so we chucked our stuff down and ran straight down to the beach and into the warm sea.
White Sand beach was really nice and we really liked the place we were staying, but there wasn't much of a social scene; it basically consisted of lots of really young drunk Thai barmaids getting chatted up by rich old pervy men. We had fun with rubber rings and lilos we hired out and ate really nice food at the restaurants on the beach, but we soon decided to move on down the coast to Lonely Beach. There had been signs everywhere advertising a massive Chinese new years party there on the 14th and it was also spose to have a lot more proper travellers down there.
Thanks to our Thailand Lonely Planet book, we found a great resort (Nature Beach resort), which had lots of little huts and was nice and cheap - just a fiver a day. We decided to stay for five nights and got a good deal. Emilee had drunk her first Chang Beer the night previously and felt a little under the weather, so she had a nap in the hut, while me, Jaye and Clarke went exploring the rock pools on our beach. We were highly unsuccessful and all I got for my efforts were a lot of cuts on my foot!
The next day we hired out kayaks and went to a little island we had been eyeing up in the distance. It was pretty cool, but the snorkelling was a bit dissapointing because the visibility was really bad, but we had fun trying to catch little fish and getting a nice tan on a quiet island with no one selling us anything for once! We played some volleyball when we got back - but I cut my elbow up straight away by trying to impress everyone with an overhead kick! We ate at our resort pretty much every day for breakfast lunch and dinner. The food was amazing and they had a cheap Thai food menu, which Clarke called the economy menu, and a more expensive Western food menu. It also had amazing ice-cream shakes which we (especially Emilee) got a bit addicted too.
Sunday night was Chinese New Years and the big party was being held in a cut-off space right next to our resort, which we hadn't planned, but were more than happy about. It went on from 6 p.m. until sunrise and it didn't fail to dissapoint. We met some people from Jersey who Emilee got excited about - but they didn't know of any Carres on their island. Clarke also acquainted himself with some random Finnish guys who knew about Heartbeat and Emmerdale which really excited him. Jaye met some crazy 40 year old lady from Thailand and she dragged everyone up onto the podium at the front where we were dancing in front of everyone.
We spent a lot of time chilling on the beach - getting a tan, then cooling ourselves down in the sea, then getting a bit more of a tan, then cooling ourselves down in the sea, then getting......it's a hard life!
We decided to go on a night fishing trip on our own private boat that was sposed to include a meal and the pictures were all of people catching massive fish, like barracudas and all sorts of fish that I've never seen before. It turned out to be a couple of guys who didn't speak a word of English taking us out. We had to catch our own bait first - Jaye and Emilee caught a squid each, Jaye's one squirted water in his face when he was bringing it up which nearly knocked him down! When we actually went fishing for proper, we didn't catch anything and just got bored, hungry and seasick. They eventually barbequed us some random fish, but I think I saw them cutting it up with the same knife they cut our bait with. I was the only one who ate it, because Jaye doesn't like fish, Emilee was seasick and Clarke thought it would probably make him sick.
So we're now back in Bangkok after a long journey back and are off to Chang Mai tomorrow for a 3 day trek, where we will be white-water rafting, swimming with elephants and a lot more. Koh Chang was amazing - it was just really nice to get down on the beach and felt like a proper holiday. Now for some hardwork trekking, but I'm sure it will be amazing too!
