Written by Holly

Hello! We are so sorry that we haven't updated our blog for ages, unfortunately we have been on a castaway island without any internet so you will have to forgive us!

After Hong Kong we decided to fly directly to Bangkok which was a good idea as we were desperate for a beach after trekking through China for 3 weeks. When we arrived it was HOT, so humid and muggy and a bit of a shock to the system after being cold for so long! We took a taxi from the airport to our gueshouse which was slightly out of the city centre (the reason that we chose it!) and crashed out. We spent 2 days in Bangkok trying to orientate ourselves, but to be really honest we hated it and just wanted to find somewhere that we could chill out for a few days. Luckily, the owner of our guesthouse (a nice english gentleman who speaks and looks exactly like Michael Caine and is actually called Mike!) also owns a resort called 'Eden' on an island called Koh Chang on the west coast of Thailand and could arrange our transport and for us to stay as long as we liked. We took him up on his offer immediately and before we knew it we were on a 'VIP sleeper bus' from Bangkok heading down towards the coast. The sleeper bus was an experience, we paid about 5 pounds each for the 10 hour journey and didn't sleep a wink! The bus was quite comfortable (compared to most of the Thai transport!) but the seats didn't really recline and there just wasn't any space. We never thought we'd say this but we prefer the sleepr trains!!!!!

The bus took us to a fishing town called Ranong and we were met by one of Mike's staff who took us to the morning market for breakfast (it was 6.30am) which was amazing - it was already in full swing and there was food everywhere, all the local people were there drinking coffee (note to self - do NOT drink Thai coffee ever again) and eating fruit and rice for their breakfast. Matt literally ran straight in as he was so hungry and everything was soooo cheap. He opted for these cute little coconut sticky rice parcels which were actually wrapped in bamboo leaves. They cost us about 10p each so he went to town and just sat eating his way through them grinning like a small child. I opted for the banana chips and some fresh fruit from the fruit market next door - the apples here are huge and the mangoes are so cheap it's brilliant. We have started buying fresh mango as snacks and Matt has got quite good at preparing it with his penknife so we can eat it on the go (knew that would come in handy). We were then driven to the port where we had to sit around and wait for our boat to come in at 9.30. We realised that if we had been told that in England we would have been really frustrated and stressed out at having to wait for a few hours but instead we paid our 150 baht (3 pounds) for the crossing and started to read our books in the early morning sunshine. We are changing!!!

The boat eventually turned up - a long tail boat painted bright blue, and transported us to the island of Koh Chang. We were so excited and relieved to be in the sunshine and the scenery as you approach the island is just stunning. We could also see Burma from the other side of the boat which looks really beautiful, but we don't have any plans to visit just yet! When we finally got there, we literally had to walk 15 metres across the beach to get to Eden. I can remember us just grinning stupidly at each other - we had found our paradise!!! We were shown to a cute bungalow on stilts completely made from wood with it's own bathroom, admired it for about three minutes and then ran out to the beach!! The beach on Koh Chang is amazing - it stretches out as far as the eye can see and is literally empty. Neither of us have been on an empty beach before so this experience alone was breathtaking enough. It felt just like Lost and looks just like the island in Lost too with all the mountains and trees. There is no electricity, telephones or hot water on Koh Chang so we had a week of cold showers (quite nice as the temperature got up to 40 degrees C one day) and light from a generator from 7pm-11pm! But we really didn't mind, all we went to do was relax and it was just great not to see any traffic (there are only about 5 scooters on the island and no roads) and hide away from the world for a while.

We stayed on Koh Chang for 9 days and only left today because we made a mistake and got our days mixed up! It's very easy to lose track of time there, you have no need for a calendar or a clock even so all the days just merge in to one! The week basically consisted of getting up in the morning, maybe going for a run along the beach before breakfast (and before the heat started up), having the nicest muesli with fresh fruit and yogurt for breakfast (and costing 1 pound!), going to the beach and sunbaking for as long as we can (I read so much that I got through 3 books whilst I was there! Matt is actually reading - horay - the Da Vinci Code and loving it too), running in to the sea when it gets too hot, baking some more and then eating amazing fresh fish caught from the sea that very day. We absolutely loved it! We met some really nice people on the island who we will probably catch up with when we return to Bangkok and did attempt to explore a few times but it was just so hot that we only really got as far as this little (and random) bakery in the middle of the island run by an ozzie guy and his Burnemse wife (very strange). They made fresh bread and muffins every day and the chocolate cake was to die for plus they also had cheese (we miss cheese, you just can't get it here) so we were quite regular visitors!

So that was Koh Chang really, we are so glad that we went it really was the most beautiful, romantic paradise and we took some lovely sunset photos but unfortunately the system is not letting me upload photos today. As soon as we can we will put them on so that you can see where we were. We are now back in Ranong for a few hours before our very special VIP bus back to Bangkok, so have gone to a semi-posh hotel to use the pool and gym for the day. When we get back to Bangkok we are planning to stay for a few days and then head north to Chiang Mai where we should see some tigers and elephants as well as some trekking if the weather isn't too hot. Apparently there is a lot of slash and burn in the forests up there at the moment as each year after the harvest they just burn everything to start again and this could affect visabilty so that will affect our decision to go there or not!