Hi all Where to begin with Koh Chang! Well we got up after agood night's sleep (well 4 hours for me and 2 for Mandy who took one for the team when she woke up early and realised the alarm clock had run out of batteries) and off we went. Breakfast at the train station and with an increasingly grumpy Mand we boarded the bus. 6 hours and several childish squabbles later (mainly due to me listening to Bob Dylan on the ipod so Mand had a whiny sound in her ear whilst she was trying to sleep) we arrived at Trata and got the ferry over to the island. Our first impression was one of paradise, with misty mountains looming up out of deep green jungle and golden sandy beaches and we couldn't wait to go for a swim. Off the boat and onto the 'taxi' (which was actually a battered old pick up with a roof rack) with 10 other people and off to White Sands, the up and coming touristy part of the island. He dropped us all off outside a hotel and we booked straight in. Now, we'd been told Koh Chang was pretty cheap so when they tokld us the rooms were 500 baht we thought we were getting something pretty plush. Turns out it was a shack with an outside toilet, a fan that looked older than the actual island itself, a scabby looking matress on the floor, and electric that only came on between 6pm and 6am. But it looked out over palm trees and white sand and the beach was about 10 yards away. Needless to say we took it. 2 minutes later there we are swimming in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean in blazing sunshine. Just what we needed after the drunkeness and fumes of Bangkok. That lasted about 2 hours before we got trashed and ended up in an Irish bar called Paddy's Palms (the only bar in White Sands that'd stay open for the football). Its so brand new it smells of paint and varnish but hey they put up with my drunken ranting and let us watch Sweden get beaten by someone or other (Germany I think). After consoling the Swedish boys with a drunken rant about how girls don't feel footbal the same way we do (it made some sort of sense at the time...probably) we took a lovely 30 minute moonlit stroll home along the surf and sand. By now the sun was coming up and as we got closer to our hut we heard the beautiful cry of a cockerel. Turns out the f***er lived under the hut next door and proceeded to welcome the new day every 5 seconds or so for the next hour. He probably went on longer than that but the drunken coma overtook me. The next day was spent wandering White Sands and readying ourselves for the England game which we got to watch from massive leather sofas about 2 feet from the big screen. Beautiful, although the game was far from it and off we went to Paddys for the Dutch game and after a few more beers we found ourselves consoling the Orange boys with slightly kinder words than we did the Swedes...well they probably made more sense anyway. Home to bed, this time thanks to an English fella who works at Paddy's who mangaed to cram about 15 of us in/on his pick up. The next day we were internet bound and thats when we discovered Kimberley was already on the island and had arrived the day before with no money for food or board, and picturing her lying starving in the gutter we shot off to recue her.