Ko Chang is 70% undisturbed island rainforest, the best reserved in Thailand. It is the second largest island in Thailand after Phuket, ringed with small bays and beaches.
This weekend was the Kings birthday and Fathers Day so a lot of Thai people were flocking to the island for the national holiday. A lot of the accomodation was fully booked already. It took us a long time to find somewhere and we stopped for breakfast at the Treehouse.
Eventually we found 3 beach huts at Kaibae beach on the west coast of the island. I spent the day reading and sleeping in a hammock on the beach. There was a beautiful sunset that evening.
That night we had dinner we Sitti's friend from Rhode Island and his ex monk friends. His parents were from Cambodia. For buddhists it is normal for the young men to spend at least one rainy season in a Wat (temple) practising as a monk. They had all disrobed that weekend.
The next day we hired motorbikes headed for the waterfall. A combination of steep terrain and year round streams creates several scenic waterfalls but there had not been much rain this year and so we decided the entry fee was too much to see a trickle of water and had lunch instead. We next headed for Bang Bao fishing viallage where we booked a snorkelling trip for the day after. Then we went to Bang Bao beach. There were no huts here just a curvy coastline of beautiful beach.
We stopped for a swim here before we made our way back to Kaibae.
The sun was setting as we drove along the steep roads. When we got back to our beach. the sunset made the sea look red and I couldn't resist joing ing Ohm for a swim. Owen & Leonard joined us and we all tried doing handstands in the water while the sun went down - it was amazing.
It was cold when I got out of the water and I had a freezing cold shower to look forward to. I tried to be tough but the shared showers and toilets were quite dirty and as you quickly showered in the freezing water lizards sat on the beams above your head - you became glad of their presence though as they ate the mosquitos!
That eveing we ate dinner at Lonely Beach, we ate food from a BBQ and sat on the beach in front of a bar called Natures they had a fire show.
The others were boring and went back to Kaibae where it is very quiet but me and some of the guys stayed and drank buckets - whiskey, red bull and soda. After three of those we thought it was a great idea to go swimming! I didn't really notice at the time but I stood on a rock and cut my foot. After our swim we went dancing in the bar.
Next morning after getting to bed at 4am - Sitti was banging on the beach hut at 9am shouting 'ready to go?' the snorkelling trip!!!
Because they were 8 of us we got a longtail boat to ourselves! The boat headed south towards Ko Kut. The boat guide took us to coral encrsuted seamounts. After stopping at two we had lunch - mmmm fried rice, makeral and salad. WE stopped in really calm shallow amazing green water, and we all dived in for a swim. We saved some rice and threw it in the water so that the fish came to eat and swam all around us - it was so beautiful. We headed further south where there were no boats or people to be seen, and here I saw some amazing fish. The others all swam off and there was just me with blue and yellow striped fish swimming near to the surface so close to me. Down in the coral there was a smallish rainbow coloured fish eating at the coral. I was stunned by the colours. Then from the drakness came the same type of fish but 3 times the size. I saw two squid swimming - now this I was really impressed by - it put a smile o my face all day. I had never seen so many tropical fish before. I also got to see my favourite tiny electirc blue fish. I was so pleased on the way back and to top it all we watched the sunset over the ocean. I had never seen anyhting like it- watching the sun drop and change from yellow to orange to red and then just fade into the haze.....a perfect end to a perfect day.