Ko Chang - A holiday from travelling!!

From Ayuthaya we took the VIP bus south to the island of Ko Chang, mainly because it was the cheapest to get to, and the further west islands have been undergoing quite a lot of flooding recently. We headed for Lonely beach as guess what it was the cheapest! We stayed in some basic wooden huts at the Magic garden, not that it was very magical! The first day we took a motorbike out to explore the island as there wasn't much other way of getting about! Al had to finally give into his safety principles and get on the back of a bike driven by me and hold on for dear life! Its quite a hilly place so working breaks are essential!

We found a really quiet beach about 15km down the road, with some cheap huts that were much more salubrious than the magic garden. They were also sealed to keep the bloody Mosquitos out! It was a nice place to stay for a couple of days, to chill out and feel like we were on holiday - just for a change! However the night before we moved out to the new huts, we were celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary and after a few beers the happy hour siam bucket promotion seemed a very good idea! We ended up at a party full of lady boys, me having a kung foo fight with one, and Al with another crying on his shoulder, because he was "to big to be ladyboy"!!

Needless to say the next morning we were a bit hungover. The idea was I'd take all the bags on the bike then come back for Al, after having just said "I'm fine" got on the bike with 2 bags on and went crashing to the floor, then sending the next bike crashing in a domino effect, oops! The rental woman was in a bit of a flap, saying I'd scratched them, but luckily I had photographs of the bike from the day before, that showed every scratch she pointed out.....Al took a taxi!

We spent 2 days in the peace and quiet of Ko Klong beach having recovered from our anniversary! As nice as it was there it had no night life what so ever, so we ventured back to lonely beach for an evening and happened to bump into my old rugby mate Joan and her husband Al, who I knew were travelling but I had no idea they were even in Thailand. So after that we had to move back to Lonely beach for a proper piss up which ended with the bloody Thai whiskey buckets again, they really are the beginning of the end!

Highlight of Ko Chang was definitely taking a boat trip around the islands - very much worth the £10, as its a full day including food and snorkelling gear, and the reefs are quite lively. We were all so tired at the end of the day - could only manage 2 beers! We stayed in a beach hut at Lonely beach that was even cheaper then our previous record at just £4 a night! Although even more basic this time, meaning they were pretty much stapled together wooden huts, with nightly appearances of large geckos that sounded as if they were laughing as they crawled around your floor or in our case on the bed then shout "GECKO!". The nearby bar shows movies on a big screen every night, which is ideal if you want a quiet night off the buckets! They do some pretty decent bbq seafood too, and further up in the town area there's a restaurant named Joy, which is super friendly and does some of the best Thai food we've had.

A really fun day was taking a bike out to visit the islands many waterfalls, its only 200B (£4) for a pass to all of them, but we felt a bit cheated seeing thats how much our accommodation cost! Some are easy to climb to... others not so easy, and beware of 'river sharks' as Al calls them (tiny fish that give you a little nip, and make you scream like a girl!). Of course no day is complete without at least one mishap, which in this case was our bike getting a flat tyre. Luckily we found someone to fix it although he spoke no English and my Thai's not great, but after some improvised sign language he got the gist and repaired it for just £3. In the mean time we found an Irish pub down theroad that sold real guiness and unexpectedly stowford press cider, to my delight!

Then unfortunatley our Thai visa was up so we had to hop over to Cambodia for the next adventure.... Coming soon!