Chilling out in Koh Chang, Thailand

Koh Chang, or "Elephant Island" in English, is thus called because it looks like an elephant from above (only if you squint, though). It's 170 miles South-East of busy Bangkok and is lined with sleepy tropical beaches and filled with dense rainforest. We went for a couple of days on the beach but ended up staying for a week and a half.

Getting there was a mite stressful as our minibus, which we believed was taking us all the way to Koh Chang, dropped us off in a nearby town called Trat just an hour before the last ferry was departing. A taxi was waiting for us and wanted a good chunk of our money to take us to the pier. As time was running out we allowed ourselves to be ripped off and then the heavens opened and slabs of water fell from the sky. This made for an ominous introduction to the island as, once thankfully on the ferry, we approached the fog coated monolithic land mass in a scene which felt unnervingly like the introduction to the movie Shutter Island.

Sitting at Cafe del Sunshine in Lonely Beach

The omens were false. We arrived at Lonely Beach with our rain macs and no reservations and were approached quickly with an offer for a cheap little private bungalow treehouse at "Easy House" where, if you like, you can stay one month or two; it doesn't matter. It's Easy. This quickly felt like home and when we weren't watching lizards catch insects from our hammock, we were relaxing with other travelers or semi-permanent residents who had still not got around to leaving. This led to a few guitar playing sessions and even some birthday barbeque action.

Wooden walkways to the bungalow at Easy House

After the day of rain there was over a week of glorious sunshine. The island looked completely lush from the rain and we explored it on a cheap as chips (literally) rented moped. There are many waterfalls and jungle walks on the island. Some we visited by ourselves and to one waterfall we went with Sergei, May and Faa from the guesthouse for a little swim (and a fall down some rocks).

Out on mopeds!

Although we stopped at Lonely Beach, which is peaceful if a bit trendy, there are various other beaches which are slightly more towered over by concrete resorts. Klong Koi in the South of the island, however, turns out to be ridiculously lovely. All views were postcard perfect making us feel weirdly guilty as if we weren't supposed to be there. A splash about in the warm sea and a mango shake made us feel better though. Until we got sunburn from inadequate use of sunscreen. That was silly.

Klong Koi - Ridiculous

Evenings at Lonely Beach involve seriously good food and some pretty decent entertainment. Loud dance beats go on until the early hours, but the bars Stone Free and Ting Tongs have live acoustic music and reggae bands respectively. Ting Tongs also has the worst pool table in the world which is more tape than table. The food is all incredibly fresh, especially the seafood; and it would be hard to recommend just one place to eat. I found that I particularly enjoy the Thai dish "Pad Ka Pao" (minced spicy pork with holy basil) and Kath got to liking lots of "Tom Kha" (spicy coconut milk soup with galangal).

Lonely Beach. It is nice.

We were getting lazy so, for thrills, we went to the Treetop Adventure Park; a series of high wire obstacles over a vertigo inducing drop with a view of the distant islands at sea. It was pretty hard work and for a heights wimp like me, the giant zip lines, terrifyingly unstable platforms and requirement to jump into the void trusting only your harness was definitely shocking. Some of the more fun obstacles included riding a high wires skateboard, bicycle and hammock. Great fun.

We left the island without tans (thanks to sunburn) and no wiser about Thai culture. It was a great holiday, though, and hopefully we'll get to go back before it's all concreted over.

- Jon

Thai style ice cream van!!