Koh Chang

Koh Chang has surprised us as far as Thai islands are concerned.

There’s no doubt about it, Thailand is definitely not off the beaten track territory, particularly as far as Bangkok and most of the major islands are concerned.

Whilst hardly undiscovered, Koh Chang is nowhere near as commercialised as I expected. Sure, it has its hotspots, but the fact that it is very mountainous, has no airport and is a bit of a mission to get to, plus has some contrary locals who won’t capitulate to the money men ( one of them refuses to sell their land so a road that goes all round the island can’t be built) means that so far it’s avoided the worst excesses of other parts of Thailand. Which is great really as it is amazingly beautiful

You can get minibuses or taxis here but you are looking at a five hour trip from Bangkok and that gets you to the pier where the ferries are. Chuck in unreliable ferry timings and a transfer to your resort, you could be talking another hour or so.

We decided to fly to Trat airport which takes less than an hour and then onwards from there. The “onwards” took almost two hours, 1/2 hour to get to the pier, ages waiting for the ferry and another 1/2 hour to get to our hotel in Klong Prao.

We pushed the boat out (haha) on this one and paid more than we usually do and it’s all very lovely – a “villa” (just a big room really ) with its own little pool. Very nice and very private – I can hear my neighbours but I can’t see them. This has led to the “guess the nationality” game. I’m rubbish at this as my hearing isn’t what it used to be and so far my guesses of Scottish and Russian have turned out to be Australian and French respectively.

There is quite a bit of noise here as there seems to be construction going on and the gardeners like a smoke and a chat around the back of our villa. They have arranged themselves some upturned pots and even a tiny little chair and enjoy a get together at 7am. It’s bloody irritating tbh, I’ve been a typical miserable tourist and complained but to no avail. Luckily Steve eventually managed to persuade me to try plastic mouldable ear plugs which have actually changed my life. Just as well as last night there was Thai kickboxing up the road, the sound from which was also bloody annoying, but I inserted the plugs and slept like a baby.

Despite the luxury of our hotel and the beauty of Koh Chang, I’ve finally decided I’m not really a beach resort type of person. A couple of days is fine , reading my book, catching up with emails etc but after that I go a bit stir crazy. I have to walk the length and breadth of any nearby shoreline, climb any hill that’s around and explore anything that is explore worthy or I get very tetchy. This is not helped by the fact that the tide is incredibly high here and the beach is not revealed until late afternoon, it’s too hot to climb hills and anything worthy of exploring requires a car and we just can’t be bothered to get one. At first I was really annoying Steve but now he’s feeling the same. It’s unbelievably ungrateful of us and we deserve to be damned for it. The worst thing is, I’ll get home and after a couple of weeks I’ll wish I was away again. Maybe this will be my New Years resolution for 2020; learn to just be. Now there’s a challenge.

It will all be over very soon anyway. Two more nights in Koh Chang, 1 more in Bangkok then home.

It’s been the most wonderful trip, one of the best. If you are considering a visit to Asia, put Myanmar at the top of your list. I can’t guarantee you’ll love it as much as we have but, unlike Rudyard, you’ll at least have been on the Road to Mandalay.