Enjoying the sun! Koh Chang Day 6-8

Its been a crazy and at the same time relaxing last few days. After we visited the temples of Angkor we took off in the morning to Thailand which was an interesting journey to say the least. There are a couple of ways to get to the Thai border either by bus or by taxi. The bus was said to take twice as long as the taxi so we opted to take the taxi. Now with a taxi there are two ways to do it, you can either rent the taxi for yourself or share the taxi with some other people traveling to the border. Since it was just the two of us we decided it would be cheaper to share the taxi, little did we know that when we signed up for this that they would be cramming ten (8 adults, 2 children) of us including the driver into a Toyota Camry for an hour and a half. More over no one that we were sharing the taxi with spoke a lick of English so it made the ride even that much more interesting. We were so cozy that at one point one of the ladies in the back seat with us fell asleep on Jason’s shoulder making for a pretty funny picture. Once we arrived in Poipet near the Thai border we were dropped off at a bus station around 2km from the border. Eagerly we got out of the taxi to stretch our legs. To get to the Thai border Jason and I hopped on a motorbike with all of our bags and the three of us drove the final leg to the border.
Once we arrived at the border we had to go through the Cambodian departure process. While we were in line we met a nice girl from Denmark “Maja” who was at the border to extend her Thai visa. We asked if she would like to share a tuk tuk to the bus station on the other side where her boyfriend “Fridi” was waiting. We had some loose plans to try to take a bus into Pattaya but after some discussion we decided to head with them to the island of Koh Chang. We managed to catch the final ferry to the island and stayed at the same hotel that they were staying at.
So to sum it up our journey from Siem Reap to Koh Chang went something like this:
A tuk tuk to the taxi station
A taxi to the bus station
A moto to the border
A tuk tuk to the bus station
A bus to the Chanthaburi
A bhat bus to the ferry
A ferry to the island
And finally a van to the hotel.
Needless to say we were quite tired at the end of the day.
We arrived on Koh Chang in the night. So when we saw it at first light we were amazed. The beaches are picture perfect, the sands, soft white and the water is just perfect. We walked the whole length of White Sand beach which was by our hotel. By midday we wanted to check out the rest of the island. We decided to rent Motorbikes as they only cost $7.50 for 24 hours. I wouldn’t normally rent motorbikes in Thailand but Koh Chang didn’t have much traffic so the riding wasn’t bad. We did have to ride on the opposite side of the road as back home. We did fine for the most part; once I found myself drifting to the wrong side of the road and had to make a quick turn back. Our first stop was Lonely Beach. It was a nice small beach tucked away from the road. It’s not very commercialized and had a lot of cheap backpacker accommodations. We ended up spending a few hours there. We went back to White Sand beach for the sunset and to go out to dinner with Maja and Fridi. We had a really nice dinner on the beach. There was a cool fire show in which one of the fire performers was maybe three years old, it was crazy. They put on an amazing show.
The next day we still had our bikes until 1pm so we decided to check out a few other beaches. First we went to Kai Bae beach which had a few picturesque beaches on deserted islands a few hundred yards off shore. It was low tide so we decided to walk to across to the island. Little did we know half way across there was a big reef system with coral, As a scuba diver I couldn’t keep walking and damage the coral that was older than me. We decided to turn back and only made it about half way. We then stopped by Koh Preah beach. It was once again out of a post card but I was worn out and decided to head back to the room. That evening we went back to Lonely Beach with Maja and Fridi for another chill BBQ on the beach.
We had an amazing time in Koh Chang. If you can ever make it out here, I would highly recommend it. The dollar still goes a long way here. You can get a top notch room for $50 a night.
Were now in Bangkok, it took us 9 hours on a Baht Bus, Ferry then a bus. As big and crowded Bangkok is I still rate this as one of my top cities. It has some of the best food and amazing sights.
Brads flying home tonight. I’m going to be solo for 12 days. I’ll be in Bangkok for one more night then off to Laos. I’m looking forward to relaxing on the Mekong river.
Hopefully I’ll have good internet in Laos so I can keep this blog updated. Check back in a few.