A Holiday From Our Holiday
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2005
1
45
122
Trip End
Ongoing
Koh Chang,
Thailand
Sunday, February 12, 2006
After a little fun trying to convince our songtaew (pickup truck with bench seats in the tray) driver to leave as we weren't full, we had to eventually jump into another one, as he refused to go! Finally we were on our way and went to our chosen accommodation, ready to put the feet up for a few days and relax. The accommodation was a lot more expensive that we had expected, but tired, we settled into a bungalow overlooking the ocean
Big Kid (1)
. Koh Chang is Thailands second largest island at around 11km long, so it was not a tiny little remote island. Nevertheless, it was quite pretty and the chance to swim was great!
In order to save the budget, Glenn ordered a move to a nearby bungalow for the next morning, which was right on the beach front but cheaper, so we made this our home for the next two days. It looked great by day and we had more of a breeze than the last place. At night though, they had a local singing western songs accompanied by his all in one "band" keyboard. The first night of this was ok, but we felt like we had arrived on a cruise ship and it wasn't really our scene. All the classic kareoke songs for Asia like "Hello, is it me your looking for..." haunted us while we slept and got stuck in our heads the next day. Arrrrgggghhh! Maybe time to look elsewhere.
We hired a little 125cc motorbike, in order to get around, as the songtaews were just as expensive. This was a great way to relax, zipping along the windy roads along the ocean front, and getting to some quieter beaches and restaurants to chill the day away.
We covered a lot of the west coast of the island on the bike (the beach side) and headed to the south side which was famous for its fresh seafood (although that was all we had been eating so far on the island!). We picked a nice place and settled in to have a fantastic lunch, although Glenn had a big surprise when what looked like fried crushed weetbix arrived for his meal. On questioning the staff and re-reading the menu again, we had missed the "minced" word when reading "fried minced prawn and mango salad"
Big Kid (2)
. How they could call it a salad was unknown and reluctantly Glenn ate the fried "crushed weetbix" without any visible mango or salad. Christie donated some of her prawns (these were real) to make him feel a bit better.On the way back, we decided to check out "Lonely Beach", where some of our travelling friends had stayed after we had met them in China. This beach was fantastic. Just what we had imagined and wanted... so it was another move! We had asked our friends for recommendations and they had described the place, but couldn't remember the name... and when we found it we were so happy. They were wonderful bungalows, away from the water, but very well presented, with gorgeous bathroom and outdoor areas. Ahhhh, we had finally found the beach holiday place that we were after - and it was right next to our favourite beach! (Thanks Edwin & Inti!)
We managed to spend another 2 days here enjoying the beach, catching up on some reading and having fun on the motorbike.
After 5 days though, and the week in Bangkok (which was to our surprise very relaxing) we were ready to start picking up the pace again and travelling (as opposed to holidaying). Cambodia here we come!
