By the way, first up a big cheers to Grant for updating this regularly, I've just been reading it all, nodding and bringing back the memories. We spent about ten days on an Island called Ko Chang, so I wanted to get down some details about the fun and games from that lovely place. First, a highly detailed ASCII map so you know where it is :
(THAILAND)
*Bangkok
__/------------\ /
\ /
\___ | (CAMBODIA)
This is the \ |
Sea........ \ |
\ /
/ \ \ /
\_/Ko Chang
The English translation is "Elephant Island", Ko, being Thai for Island, and Chang, being Elephant. It's not shaped like an Elephant as far as we can see, but there are Elephants on it. We were speculating that they were bought there by logging companies in the past, which is quite possible, but we have also learnt that Elephants can sometimes swim up to three kilometres!. Thus, they could have been there right from the start. (Insert irrelevant trivia here : One of the most famous "photo's" of the Loach Ness Monster apparently turned out to be an Elephant swimming, with it's trunk sticking out of the water, which makes it look like a sea serpent).
The trip there was by "Air Con" minibus, (read, the little Air Con that couldn't). It was dam cheap though, so definitely no complaints. The boat trip over was fun, and is definitely the most overflowing crowded little boat I have ever been on. Still, the weather was ok, and although I admit to being slightly nervous, it was reassuring to know this was normal for these trips, and the Thai's seemed to look confident [GR: confident enough for a group of thai lads to be nocking back tequila shots on the top of the boat - we relunctantly joined them for a round]. Once on the Island, they day was nearly at it's end, so we stopped at the first major looking beach, found a guest house, and settled into the evening. The food on this place is outrageous by the way, definitely and consistently the best dam Thai I've had here. Those real Thai Green and Red Curries, wow!!, real limes and leaves in them!. The Island also caters really well for vegetarians, and you could get tofu instead of meat at most placed.
Day two on the Island was time to explore. We rented some scooters for only 150 Baht for the whole day. Thats about seven or eight New Zealand dollars. I have actually never driven a scooter before, so struggled a bit. It didn't take too long to get used to it, however I was in Grants rear view mirror most of the time! We found a road kill Thai Style (a snake!), woohoo!. There's a Waterfall on the Island that the Thai's love, although the price for foreigners to see it is pretty steep, and we decided against it, especially as New Zealand has so many awesome waterfalls anyway. The spent the rest of the day trying to drive round the Island, but failed as the road doesn't go all the way round. It would probably take about an hour to circle Ko Chang if there was a complete road, just to give you an idea of the size. We had a look at a few other beach's, most of which had virtually no people. As it turns out, the SARS scare has really put a dent in tourism numbers for Thailand, and it's also the low season here. One other beach, known as "Lonely Beach" was quite popular though, and we had already met some people who recommended it, so we marked that on the agenda.
On the way back to our beach, we visited a small fishing village (really small) that was built on a wharf over the water. It's famous for it's seafood, and is cluttered with little seafood restaurants where you can play god with the creatures in the tanks and finger the one you want on your plate. One oddity, looking wildly out of place given the character of the place, was a huge pristine full size snooker table!.
I did also crash my scooter, just a little though. I thought I had the hang of it, and changed into first when going up a hill (the Hills here were really steep). I really was going dam slow, but I guess this maneuver on a scooter is a no no, as the scooter promptly did a big wheelie, and sent my and the scooter into the side of the road. Anyway, it was a pretty low speed crash, and the scooter and me survived unscathed, phew!. I think damaging a scooter may have landed me in some financial strife, as they were uninsured, and the no one would tell you how much they would cost if you destroyed one.
I can't really go day by day now for Ko Chang, as I simply can't remember sorry, but we ended up staying in White Sands beach (where we first stopped) for almost a week. It's a pretty addictive lifestyle there, with lazy days and exciting nights. The beach is scattered with bars along the beach, some having live music as well, and the bars are packed with games. Connect four is really popular, and most of the bars are staffed by beautiful Thai's who's connect four skills are nothing short of legendary!. (Grant did actually win a couple of games though, I think they must have been wowing him in gently...).
We particularly fell in love with a place called "Changs". For one thing, it was really close to our guest house, but the main highlight was just the way the staff looked after you so well. It kind of became our Ko Chang local, and you ended up getting to know the familiar faces there (staff and guests). There was a real Changs icon there from the UK who had overstayed his Thai Visa by two weeks by the time we left, just because he loved Ko Chang (and Changs) so much.
There were a number of people on that Island I won't forget in a hurry. A guy from Israel called Guy (Hi Guy!), who we hope to see again in India actually. Guy's always taking pictures of everything on his digital, pictures not just of people and places, but really creative pictures as well. We're hoping to get some off Guy as well. Some very memorable nights were spent hopping the bars and taking photo's with Guy, and discussing Hebrew, Israel and Palestine. I must say, I've met quite a few Israeli's so far on these travels, all of whom have been fantastic and open minded people. I just mention this, as I'd heard a lot of negative opinions about Israeli travellers on general before I left New Zealand.
The Ko Chang days were often pretty lazy, no complaints here. Perhaps the standard schedule was something like sleep in, wake up, remember your on holiday and don't have to go to work or anything, go back to sleep and dream a bit more, get up, shower, eat, go to the beach, lie in the sun, maybe play frisbee and have a swim, eat, lie in the sun more and read for a few hours, have dinner with a Chang or two to wash it down....... (Chang by the way, as well as being the name of the Island and our favorite bar on Ko Chang, is also the name of one of Thailand's most popular beers) etc.
Anyway, a week went by pretty quickly this way. I finished Depak Chopra's How to Know God, and Grants now reading it as well. One of the guest houses also had a library but mostly with books I wasn't too interested in (romantic novels, Stephen King best sellers etc.). I did find an Indian Novel book though (In English of course), and thought I'd give it a go to see if I could find out more about India, I think it was called Red Earth, Burning Rain, or something similar anyway. It was actually a really addictive read, but even though I think I read more the few days I had that book than almost ever, I still couldn't finish it, so will have to try and track it down one day in the future.
After White Sands, we spent a few days at Lonely Beach. White Sands is kind of half Thai and half backpackers, while Lonely Beach is almost all occupied by backpackers. The feeling is far more low key, and there were a lot of couple's relaxing there. I thought swimming was better at Lonely Beach as well, but it's kind of dangerous swimming anywhere on Ko Chang because of the rips (No worse than New Zealand though). Grant got himself a hammock to shift the lazy days a notch even further.
The main eating area at LB was this cosy looking wooden and bamboo construction that extends out over the ocean. It's got lots of little elevated platforms for eating and just lazing on, and feels like your living 1000 yours in the past. The area Grant stayed in was right beside this, and the whole place has no electricity, so light is provided by oil lanterns. The huts are spread out in an area of forest/jungle by the sea with little paths between them, and the whole place has ribbons and colour everywhere. Kind of had a Visions feel to it for me (Visions is a three day dance festival held in New Zealand over New Year), without the noise and dancing of course. We were lucky enough to meet some fantastic people from London, Wales, Canada and Switzerland.
There was one bar we went to called the Reggae Bar, but they played just as many classic hits as reggae music, but it was our travelling duty to investigate of course. The grand Swiss-New Zealand pool competition we had that evening was probably the slowest game of pool I've played in my life. I'd like to blame it all on the social excitement and talking to people in the bar that distracted us from our games, but fear a certain amount of beer helped ensure the balls continued to remain on the table as well...
Otherwise our days and nights at Lonely beach were pretty laid back. We spent one evening listening to Bill Hicks on diskman speakers with an English guy we met. Fortunately it was quite windy and the waves generated a lot of noise, as it could have been hard for anyone nearby trying to sleep over our giggling. Wish you were still with us Bill, your were a legand!.
After three days at Lonely Beach, we returned to White Sands to play catch up with people we had met and say goodbye to all the lovely staff at Changs. Luckily, we got a ride with some locals, but we foolishly got off at the wrong beach, not even halfway to White Sands. None the less, it turned out to be a great day, as the people at the little beach we were at looked after us well, and soon a couple of guys [GR: Mark & Dan from the UK] who had been living on Ko Chang a while arrived on their scooter. They had both spent some serious time in India, and were also chess enthusiasts! (so we played a game of doubles). This was a recipe for the afternoon to disappear and we just managed to catch the last truck back to White Sands. On a sidenote, our ongoing chess saga is now 5-6 with one stalemate!.
We ended up staying at Whitebeach an couple of days in the end, during which there was a power cut which killed the electricity in half the beach, including our rooms. Not that it was too necessary for an Island holiday anyway, but I missed my chilled water. On the last night we met a couple of West Coasters from New Zealand, Chris and Shaun. Our accent (the west coast of New Zealand be reasonably strong anyway) almost sounded odd to me... [Shaun is off to England in search of some kind of rare weed that he tried to explain to me was all upper and no downer, he dreames of getting a plot of land, building a house and cultivating it there the rest of his life. They also mentioned they ran into Dan and Mark back at LB, apparently they had had an accident on the way back from the bar where we played chess and were all cut up - not such a good idea to ride tandem on a wet road in Ko Chang after a few beers].
The trip back was probably the worst van ride I've ever had. The air con was worse that it would have been if the windows were just open, so we sweated like pigs, and probably smelt even worse. The driver had an argument with his contractors, so turned around and went back to sort it out, adding an extra couple of hours to the journey, and for some reason the seats caused pretty nasty back pain after a couple of hours. On the good side though, we met a wicked Australian couple (Simon and Jackie) who will be in the UK around the same time as us. We ended up meeting them again in Bangkok, which turned into an evening of Cocktails. The place was selling two for one (which meant about $2.60 each NZ, including things like long island ice teas), and we got to try heaps of colourful and exciting, (but not necessarily that nice dam it!) concoctions.
Well, this has turned out to be quite an essay sorry, but I just wanted to finish by quickly mentioning the insect and arachnoid life on Ko Chang. Ants are everywhere in Thailand, and Ko Chang is no exception of course (maybe the little buggers swim three km as well). My pack got completely invaded by ants one morning, and I think one crawled into my ear and bit me as well, but I can't help but love just watching them do their thing. I was also amazed by the fireflies, which we apparently have in New Zealand anyway??. Still, I've never seen one before, and it seems mad to me that they somehow "evolved" a fluro flashing arse. The butterflies are huge and colourful there as well, but not, of course, as huge and colourful as the spiders. We thought we had seen the big muma's in Brisbane, but these guys top even the Aussies. The worst part is that they a pointy, and mostly black, but with just enough bright yellow to say, don't touch!. The webs are so huge, and it always amazes me how spiders are able to make some of these webs, which stretch across huge distances. I used to think they would fly using the wind, using their webs as a kind of kite, but these guys are too big for that.
Well, sorry that was such a huge update. Since being back, I've had an Indian man experience as well, we went to the zoo, woo hoo, and Grants eaten seven chilli Somdtam, (Papaya Salad- and there is a photo, tee hee :-). More on that later though.
Love and happy grins to everyone!
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