We left Bangkok on Tuesday morning early, well 8am. A chap arrived at our hostel and ourselves with another few people were escorted in the way of a human walking bus around a few other hostels collecting people on the way to our pickup point to be collected for real. We then headed off by air con bus to the ferry point at Laem Ngop, which took about 6 hours with two break stops inbetween.

We then took the ferry (took about half hour) to Ao Sapparot on Ko Chang. The crossing was plain sailing, to be met at the other side by taxi (Sawngthaew) which is basically a pickup truck with benches in the back to fit 12 people. Now the fun and games. We had provisionally booked at a place called Magic Garden in Lonely Beach and so rucksacks piled on the roof headed in that direction, with 10 other people of all nationalities. We got dropped off at Magic Resort, to the surprise of the reception, not on the list but hey this is Thailand and they duly found us a bunglow near the beach, great, at 400 baht each that's 8 pound a night, obviously to a Yorkshire man and tight accountant that is a bargain!!!Well the place is best described as a shoe box with water bucket and resident lizard but hey no worries . So once settled in we headed off over to the restaurant for a bite to eat on the beach. Bliss, our eighth red curry with rice which is gorgeous. Ann had Thai salad which burnt her mouth but we love Thai food…we then walked down to the beach and found ourselves a drink with added entertainment of fire show/flame throwers (See photos).

Now the realisation, after referring to the Lonely Planet we had gone to the wrong Magic resort……we are in Klong Prao not Lonely Beach!!! Klong Prao is 15 minutes north of LB!! Oh well, we have made the most of it, relaxing on the beach using the 3 & 5 star hotels faciliies next door, with a large amount of Russians and Germans. Ann thinks we are the only Brits in this place and I have to agree.

We got chatting to a Swedish couple whilst sunbathing in the hotel next door who informed us that they are paying 2200 baht a night (the cost of our room for the full week) Well I guess you get what you pay for….

The last few days we have just sunbathed, swum in the lovely warm sea and eaten and drank at the various beach bars, restaurants, beach huts and other hotels. We've booked ourselves on a tree climb experience and should've gone today (Friday) but during the night we had a lot of high winds which has blown one of the trees down, so we've now had to rearrange for Saturday morning (fingers crossed!!)…

Well we did the tree experience, various zip wires, climbing nets, flying skateboards, tarzan swings etc, it was a good morning, Ann felt a little nervous but she managed to finish the first course. On the second course which was a lot higher (30metres), her arms gave up and she decided to give the tarzan swing a miss but managed the 150 metre zip line.

We booked the tree experience after trying to book a boat trip to various islands off Koh Chang , but due to the high winds at sea they advised people not to go out, so we never got to any other islands but I'm sure we are going to be seeing a lot more islands in the next few months so not to worry.

We left Koh Chang on Monday the 1st and headed back to Bangkok the way we came, but took the small mini bus opposed to the large air con bus.

We really enjoyed Koh Chang, it was nice to get out of Bangkok and get in some sea air and relax on the beach.