The journey to Thailand was a painful one on a bad road and with no sleep, but across the border we changed buses to a lovely air con one and had a smooth road so we caught some zzzs. We headed straight for Koh Chang a sizeable Island about 3 hours from the border. It's beautiful there. Completely mountainous except for right by the sea with thick jungle and waterfalls inland and lovely white palm lines beaches on the outside, it's also surrounded by many small islands to kayak around and explore.
We stayed on ‘lonely beach’ not so lonely any more though, Koh Chang is rapidly changing, I think we caught it just before it goes too far and becomes really naff. It's still very pretty there now if with a few too many resorts. We stayed in a place called ‘the treehouse’ which has been there for years. It has lovely bamboos huts, showers surrounded by palm trees out in the open and a huge deck on which to chill out in Hammocks and eat the fabulous food they make. Needless to say the laziness continued. We partyed at night and didn’t move from the hammock or the beach in the day, spending most of the time drinking fresh fruit shakes and eating the fab curries they made.
I did get out a bit though, kayaking around the islands, and we went on a brilliant boat trip and snorkeled which turned out much better this time. We saw octopi and flying fish and fed the fish fruit as they swarmed around us, wish I had and underwater camera to capture it all on, a brilliant day.
The most memorable part was all the great people we met. It’s the kind of place where everyone hangs out and talks to each other. I spent loads of time with an Aussie gut named after a character from ‘Wuthering Heights’, he was the only one who would go kayaking or night swimming to find the phosphorescence (which we did again I'm a junky now). We also met some great Aussie chicks and a girl from a reality TV show in England. Me and Mich thought we knew her from somewhere on our travels and she eventually put us out of our misery and told us we'd seen her on the TV. We spent loads of time hanging out with the cutest Thai girl who worked there. She worked hard in the day and played hard at night don't know how she kept it up. It was nice to chat to the average young Thai and find out what they’re about. She's not some authentic hill tribe person or monk but lets you know what it's like living in Thailand today.
Eventually a mass exodus left the Island in various states of disarray as we all headed to Bangkok and off in our different directions. We left the boys behind though which was v sad after traveling together for soo long.
We arrived back in Bangkok with a rather large crew from Koh Chang, and had a cool couple of days in Bangkok to finish our time on Asia. Much shopping was done despite managing to get my wallet stolen within about an hour of starting. Ah well that's what insurance is for and I wasn’t hurt so can't complain. Had a great last night in Thailand, we managed to meet up with the Aussie girls and Tim, my favorite physicist from Cambodia, and even a guy we had met on New Years Eve in Pnomh Penh. Many cheap cocktails were consumed and we woke up our entire floor in the guesthouse by bringing the party back there at 4 in the morning!
Needless to say we weren't feeling the best for our flight the next day. We had to run around doing last minute stuff before leaving for the airport and many goodbyes were said. We were knackered by the time we got on the plane but of course I can never sleep on these things so stayed up and watched films most of the time, an eight hour journey now seems like Childs play after the monsters we've been on.
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