And so our journey began by searching for the "taxi rank". We soon found a group of Thai men chatting and smoking next to a few sangthaews. After finally getting across to them where we wanted to go, we were told to wait in the back of a truck until he had enough people to make the journey worthwhile for him. He took us Laem Ngop, where we caught an open-air ferry that took across to the rising, rugged island of Koh Chang. Thailands second largest island after Phuket.

Once on the island we were again in the back of a truck winding our way up and over the jungle clad hills, and down the west coast to Lonely Beach. Just on the journey to Lonely Beach we saw the real beauty of the island; stunning beaches all around the coast with an impenetrable jungle interior filled with a panoply of wildlife. We drove past monkeys gathering on the sides of the road, birds of all colours in the trees and even elephant camps.

Our accomodation was a wooden hut to stay in by the beach surrounded by plam trees. Finally away from all the hustle and bustle of the city and the mayhem of Thai transport, we could finally relax on this stunnning tropical island.

We took a wander on the beach and spent the evening at the Om bar for dinner and a few drinks, meeting plenty of other backpackers and losing at pool to all the Thai guys.

It was our second day on Koh Chang that we decided to start taking our malaria tablets, which we had brought nearly a hundred of back in Bangkok. Although Koh Chang wasn't particularly malarial, we started the course in preparation for Cambodia. We had put a lot of research into getting the right tablets and checking the side effects ( which they all seemed to have a lot of) and although we were not massively keen on taking a course of tablets for four weeks we thought that we would be being irresponsible for not taking them.

Life for the next five days became a very relaxing holiday. During the days we would read on the beach, swim, play cards with other random people and by night would go to the bar that was having the party ( there was always a party every night! ). We fitted into this lifestyle very easily and what made it better was that for the first time in our 11 or so months travelling, we didn't have to think about money. We had gotten so use to not spending money so we were naturally frugal and Thailand was dramatically cheaper than Australia and New Zealand.

One of the highlights of our week on Koh Change was our elephant trek. It was something we had planned to do whilst in Thailand and was something Kirsty had always dreamed of doing for as long as I've known her. We headed into the jungle to the Ban Kwan Elephant Camp where we were greeted by the family that ran it. After some complimentary pineapple we took a walk down with our group to a watering hole followed down by a couple of elephants, led by a young boy who only looked about 10 years old. He dived into the water followed by the elephants whilst we all watched. He then called us into the water and everyone seemed a bit apprehensive. Being this close to an elephant was pretty good, but to then to told we could swim them, jump on their backs and scrub them was amazing. Noticing that no-one was actually getting in, I decided to be the brave one and go in first, closely followed by Kirsty. All I can say is that it was an incredible experience. We spent nearly half an hour playing with them, scrubbing their tough skin while it splashed and sprayed us with its trunk. After this we then got on one of the elephants and were led on an hours trek through the jungle. Riding the elephant was an experience in itself, let alone the incredible scenery and wildlife that went with the trek.

After all this excitement we spent the rest of the day on the beach playing cards with a couple of Aussy guys we'd met the day before. It turned out we actually got on really well with them both and had planned to travel to Cambodia with them in the morning.

That night we said goodbye to Koh Chang in style. We went to a big party at the bar on the beach and danced the night away with all the friends we had made.