Life's a Beach

Koh Chang

Back in Thailand : 7 May 2004

We've made it back to Thailand, on the pleasant island of Koh Chang, off the eastern coast. For what was supposed to be a sleepy little island dominated by an undeveloped national park, it seems to be rather crowded with Thai families. But after two days of hard searching, we've found a quiet little bungalow on the beach that won't break us, and it's time to hunker down. Who are these people? The journey back from Cambodia was... exhausting. We left Sihanoukville on the noon ferry to the border town of Krong Koh Kong. This was a four hour boat ride through the beautiful waters off the Cambodian coast, through various totally undeveloped island. The downside was that we were sharing the boat with a bunch of locals, a bunch of smelly Westerners, and a whole bunch of cockroaches. Though the boat is much faster than the bus, it will be a very difficult decision which to take when we go back. Before the boat had even finished docking, the entire town of Krong Koh Kong was there to greet us, shouting at us to take their moto, car, or truck to the border. It was the worst place we've been as far as the annoying touts go in the entire time we've been travelling. Combine that with the sheer number of people, and our bag being on top of the boat instead of with us, and it was a very unpleasant situation. We somehow ended up on the back of this pick-up truck, with all of our luggage intact. The ride to the border was only about 20 minutes long, but, of course, it started pouring on us. In the back of the pick-up truck. At one point they pulled over and pulled out a tarp, but that was for the luggage, not us. Go figure. The rain slacked off by the time we hit the border itself. This is one of the easiest border crossings we've been through yet, and pretty uncrowded. I think it's relatively recently opened, so not as many people know about it. We got through pretty easily, and ended up on a minibus to Trat, the nearest large city in Thailand. We arrived in Trat at about 6:30pm, and decided to just spend the night there, rather than rush to the last ferry to Koh Chang, just to be stuck on an island at night with nowhere to stay. There were only 2 touts at the bus arrival place, and they were much more lax than the Cambodians were. Maybe it was the late hour. We managed to find a very cute little guesthouse a short walk from the center of town, and bunked down for the night there. Our room in Trat It's nice to be back in Thailand, which feels incredibly civilized after being in Cambodia. They use only one currency here, and it's their own. And they have ATMs, and sometimes even take credit cards! We went out for a pleasant little dinner in town, and headed back to our little room to escape the mosquitos and get some much needed rest. Of course, it was only at this time that we noticed that there was no sheet or blanket on the bed. They had provided some towels, though, so we did our best. The next morning was the ferry over to the island. We made it to the biggest "town" part, White Sand beach, and by noon we were on little scooters looking for a nice place to stay. Too bad that by 6 pm we still hadn't found one. Apparently, it's a holiday weekend coming up, and even though we've just entered the "slow season," everyplace is heavily booked and prices are through the roof. It seemed a little silly to come back to Thailand when it ends up being just as expensive as Cambodia. It was a long, hot day yesterday, but we had worked out a reasonable sounding plan, and it wasn't going to break the bank. It involved two hotels and two changes of room in each one, but it gave us some time on the island to get some work done. After a very pleasant dinner on the beach (with another huge lightning storm and dumping of rain), things were starting to feel settled. Until we tried to actually sleep in our first hotel. It turns out to be a very popular destination with Thai families on vacations, and it was packed. The walls were paper thin, so the loud Thai TV program didn't help. The water in the bathroom was yellow and never cleared up, and the little electric heater for the shower was broken so it was cold showers for us. One night and we completely changed our plan. This was a good thing, though, since we found a much better deal in a much quieter location. Half the price and 1% of the people, plus the owner of the place is English, and very friendly. We think things should go much better here. The basic plan is to spend a few weeks here. I'm going to spend most of the time writing software, and Andrea is going to spend some time reading and floating on the ocean. It is a step backward for us (we will have to put off Vietnam for another month), but it provides some much needed time to catch up on the programming work. Since this is our primary source of paying for this trip, it's a small price to pay in the long run. Communication here is a bit spotty, so you can't really contact us directly, except by email of course. We will be doing very regular email and Internet checks, though as less will be happening, expect less updates on the website for the next month or so. And it's a lot cheaper to call from here than from Cambodia (less than $1 per minute instead of $5 per minute!) so we'll try calling when we can, but it's still not cheap, and we have to go for a 10 minute moto drive to the phone, so it's not going to be exactly regular communication!