Epic.: ko chang trip report

Well, its far past time that I completed a few blogs, computer or no computer. I'll start with recounting our trip to Ko Chang (Ko, meaning Island, and Chang, meaning Elephant). Here is a map I made showing, in general, where Ko Chang is in relation to Bangkok. You can see it is in the most northeastern coastal part of Thailand, in the province of Trat.

We decided Friday night that we were going to Ko Chang... that night. So, at around 9p we grabbed a taxi over to the bus terminal where we got tickets to the port where a ferry goes to Ko Chang. Our bus, a government-run bus, was very nice, and I would highly recommend the government buses over private buses (in my experience, the government bus was better). We went overnight to Trat. However, our bus dropped us off in Trat at 3a, and Trat is not the port that you go to Ko Chang from. In Trat, there were open-air truck taxis that we had to pay 50 baht (each) to, to go to what we thought was the port of Laem Ngop to get the ferry to Ko Chang. The trip was a somewhat sketchy ride in the back of a covered truck; and after I saw a sign (miraculously in Roman lettering) that said Laem Ngop "this-way," and we went... "not-that-way," I got very... very nervous. I opened my mouth to inform everyone that we weren't going where we thought we were going but Vanessa caught my eyes and shook her head, not wanting me to make the other girls freak out. So, I played out worst-case scenarios in my head for what seemed like an eternity, as I thought we were getting farther and farther from where we needed to go. Because it was 3:30a, and entirely dark outside, it made all hope of navigation obsolete, as if I could pretend to follow where we were on the curving roads to begin with. I started frantically looking at every passing road sign, 95% of which were in the Thai alphabet, and after about 40 minutes I started seeing pictures of boats, indicating a pier. I began to relax a little, and to my everlasting amazement, we actually got where we wanted to go. I still don't know why we didn't go the way of the sign, but I am thankful we arrived safely. I attribute our not being killed and robbed to the Austrian David being with us (I swear he is eight feet tall).

We arrived and had a horrifically low-safety-standard ride yet again; in true Thai fashion Brian and I held on to the back of another open-air truck-taxi as it careened down very steep roads, only to sputter as it struggled to climb the next hill. I swore we would have to push, but or trusty truck managed to hobble up every hill thrown at it. We stopped at Hat Kai Bae (Hat=beach), where we got 4 bungalows for the 8 of us on the adventure. We paid 300 baht a night for each bungalow. They didn't have AC, but they did have hot/cold water shower and fan and mosquito nets. Well, except Davids (more on that later).

Oh, I forgot to mention that for the Ko Chang trip, I was accompanied by: Vanessa, Brian, Jessica, Catherine, Tyler, David, and Sophia. We were later joined by Bruce, Phil, and Steve. We went there August 18th through August 20th. All of us are American, except Catherine who is from Canada, and David who hails from Austria. Here are three of the bungalows with (left to right): Vanessa (in the back), David, Brian, and Steve.

Here are the boys, with their trusty and loyal stray dog, standing statuesque.

I actually must say something about the dogs on this island. One interesting side-note of our trip was the unusual breed of dog found on the island. Thailand is full of stray dogs, most are a mutt thoroughly mixed over many generations and made up of every breed imaginable. Near our bungalows, there was an interesting product of this genetic fun. The dogs legs were short and bodies were long (much like a Deutsche-hound), but looked more like Corgy's. Most unusually, they had a mohawk-like ridge on their back, a sort of giant cow-lick slash guinea-pig like hair-do. I tried to come up with a sporty name for them and dubbed them "Razor Ridgebacks." They were very nice and enjoyed our company. You can see one such dog here loyally guarding our bungalow.

They didn't get along very well with dog who "belonged" to the owners of the bungalow, whose name was (as explained by the bungalow owner):

Name Toopee.

(Toopee-not a Razor Ridgeback)

Well, plenty of other things happened on this trip. For instance, we came across this fun photo-op. insert-your-head cutout. But wait... it just... doesn't make any SENSE!?!? Here's Tyler in a birds neck:

Even just relaxing outside our bungalows was a very nice change from the overwhelming pollution and foul smells of Bangkok. Not to mention the view wasn't bad:

One morning we pretty much just lounged and drank the delicious energy drink m-150:

Then we admired the view some more. Wait a minute... :

David spotted an "Austrian" restaurant on the way in so we had to eat some wienerschnitzel! We were reminded that the majority of Thai's are fantastic hosts and hostesses!

Well, the real highlight of the trip was the waterfall. Yeah, thats right, we were on an island with waterfalls. There were elephants too, but we forewent the elephant trekking for another trip. We had a beautiful hike on our way, full of little views.

Then we got our first glimpse of the magnificant waterfall:

Now you... really can't get the scale from that. So here...

You may have even missed it in that one. Here it is again. Look close... yeah, thats a man, not a child.

You will also notice that there aren't any fences or anything. That isn't Thailand's style. If you want to be dumb and scamper over slick rocks to pointy rocks below, that's your choice here. I think that is one thing I like about this place. They assume people have a certain ammount of personal responsibility. We tried swimming to the mouth of the waterfall, but the current is insane and you can't possibly get up to where the water is pouring in. Fun!! We swam here for hours. If you want good photos, check Tyler's gallery at bottom.

Another nice thing that happened was one night we went swimming at night and bore witness to a great natural phenomenon. We were able to see glowing ocean flagellates that emit green sparks when disturbed by movement (IE: Our swimming). It was a very neat experience. I only wish we could have been even farther away from lights to witness the spectacle even better!

Oh, and there was a fire dancer. Neat.

Lastly, Tyler has been taking some great photos (okay, some of them have been slightly played with, but that doesn't stop them from being great), and I wanted to share them with you. Thanks Tyler!

The first is of the dogs riding the ferry with us.