Ko Chang 19th - 22nd October

We're in Thailand - made it to Ko Chang in a day rather than having to spend a night in the port town Trat which was a massive result. Mammoth journey, not helped by the 2 hour wait at the border (over lunchtime with the sun streaming down - nice) for our connecting mini bus to Trat which no-one mentioned when we booked the through tickets - fortunately as always, we're patient people...

We caught the ferry over to Ko Chang and watched the sunset on the way over which was a gorgeous introduction to the island, and got some great photos - which we can finally upload, having sorted the memory cards in Bangkok - hurrah!

Shared a tuk tuk - which is more like a little bus over here, being the back of a pick up with 2 benches - with a few other people, including a very impatient Russian man, who didn't like it when the driver stopped for a chat with his mate on the way. By this time it was pretty dark, and the roads on Ko Chang are not for the faint-hearted - up and down, twisting and turning and a couple of massive hair pin bends while you're hanging onto any bits of the vehicle for grim death to stop sliding right out the back end. We'd selected what sounded like a pretty lovely little group of bungalows on the beach, but hadn't managed to call them before getting to Thailand and the Cambodge Sim stopped working.

We soon wished we had tried to call as the taxi dropped us off by a very dimly lit sign, seemingly in the middle of nowhere and b*****ed off. We started to stagger down to the beach, backpacks on down a very bumpy track, with no lights, using the torch from my mobile, and quickly came to the realisation that the entire place was definitely not open... I squawked as i looked down and realised the stones were moving under my feet - actually hermit crabs... Paul later told me he was imagining we were about to get mugged at any point in the darkness - both suffering from over-active imaginations.

Finally, a few stubbed toes and curses later, we popped out onto the beach... which was also deserted. Eeek what now? Paul fortunately heard some music coming from not too far away, and we staggered along the beach towards the lights. It turned out to be another hostel - which we quickly checked into, to the question "you come from the beach?!" and lots of laughter accompanying it. Clearly it's not the usual way for their guests to arrive here... thankfully, it's low season still and we've got a pretty sweet deal on a bungalow overlooking the sea with AC. Happy days. If we ever see that taxi driver again he will be hurt.

The next morning we decided to check out some other accommodation and jumped into the tuk tuk bus to head to one of the little villages we'd passed the previous evening. Eventually we ended up on a pretty deserted beach, with only a few ramshackle and falling down huts along it, and a very long walk along a grubby track back to civilisation - it really is "off-season" round here. I was finally persuaded that the place we're staying is actually pretty decent, so mission accomplished - we're staying put. Paul recuperated in a hammock for the rest of the afternoon while i caught some rays - after an hour and a half in the Sun in the morning he got mild sunburn!

We've actually been pretty active in Ko Chang - heading out on a 4 island snorkelling trip and a jungle trek. Snorkelling was fantastic. We left Bang Bao Bay- a village jutting into the harbour built on stilts - on a pretty big boat with about 30 or 40 people, heading out to visit 4 islands and snorkelling sites over the course of the day. The coral wasn't particularly spectacular - but the fish were amazing - saw a real mix of tiny bright blue ones, stripey zebra ones which really seemed to love Paul's toes and some larger skinny fish with long pointed noses (not too sure what these were). We soon learned how to attract massive schools of them with a handful of cooked rice - shame we didn't have waterproof casing or camera - definitely something to purchase before we get out to the Great Barrier Reef. Tour guides were offering free beers if anyone managed to catch one in their hands - their beer was pretty safe...We also enjoyed some freshly caught squid kebabs on the way back, BBQ'd at the back of the boat.

The only down side was a total sunscreen failure on my part on my back - cue massive red patches where i'd either totally missed or hadn't re-applied - first time in YEARS that i've burnt, and really painful. It's cleared up now - and just starting to peel, which is equally attractive. Felt like the very stupid tourists we've been gawking at in various places. Now i feel their pain...

We decided to stick around Bang Bao Bay for dinner, rather than get the transfer back with the rest of the tourists, and were pretty pleased with ourselves for doing so - it's a beautiful little village out on stilts. We managed to get a jungle trek booked for the next day, and celebrated with beers in a restaurant on stilts overlooking the harbour - really peaceful as the sun went down and all the day-trippers had disappeared. Fortunately they also had a car service to take us back to the hotel, as we were having dinner there, the heavens opened and yet again we were reminded it was still rainy season in this neck of the woods.


Jungle Trek Day - or "The Beastie Boys' T-shirt's final hurrah..."

After the previous night's downpour, we reckoned that hiking boots + shorts, although massively German Tourist in appearance, were probably a pretty good idea - and we were right... The Jungle trekking guide picked us all up (group included us 2, 2 Finnish girls - the blond one who was very popular with the guide... 2 dutch guys and another guy from the UK) and drove like a maniac to the start of the trek - everyone hanging on for grim death on the back of the pick up. Having burnt like a BBQ'd sausage the previous day, the Beastie boys T-shirt was in use again, despite the likelihood of stinking by the end of the day.

We were liberally sprayed with repellent before we started... which had no effect whatsoever about 10 minutes into the trek, we were SWEAT-O-RAMA and getting munched by mosquitoes right left and centre. I was starting to have second thoughts about whether this had been a good idea or not, especially when we then came across a MASSIVE spider sitting in a web spun over the path.

We then progressed to the guide tickling tarantulas, sneaking around sleeping and not so sleeping bright green viper snakes - one of which i almost trod on and squawked almost as loudly as at the hermit crabs in the first night i'm sorry to say - the guide immediately apologetic saying he hadn't seen it - the damn thing was sitting up about to go for my ankles like a particularly nasty Jack Russell..(obviously not Murphy, M&P, the little saint...).

I'd also managed to fall over about 5 times - getting both boots soaked in the process and squelching around afterwards, not in the greatest of moods... Thankfully there were some amazing fresh water lagoons and waterfalls which we made full use of at every stop to de-sweat for 5 minutes - one of which had a particularly deep pool where we stopped for lunch. Our guide immediately chucked the tins of juice into the bottom of it to "chill out" while we went on another mini-adventure...

We set off with everyone in bikinis or boardies, no sandals etc, and proceeded to do a river gorge walk up a series of mini-waterfalls and rapids - the sort of thing you can do in the UK, wearing helmets, lifejackets, padding and using ropes - clearly health and safety in Thailand is a bit more relaxed... a few scrapes and bumps later we'd reached the top - and as everyone had been wondering how we'd get back down - ohhh barefoot through the jungle - eeeek! Made it back in one piece to the lagoon eventually, almost all in one piece to do some final face painting with mud before we headed back to the final lagoon and home. Great fun in the end, and the best exercise we've had since Nepal.

We realised that we were going to be leaving the island the day of their big full moon party - shame to miss a classic Thai event, but not too bothered by this, when we saw the hoardes of people arriving as we were heading off - literally thousands descending on the island - Thais and westerners looking set for a massive night - rather like the opening of Glasto. We're off to sweat some more in Bangkok instead.