Our last few days on Koh Chang were in many ways the most interesting and struck a nice balance of getting out and experiencing new things, hanging out with friends old and new, and going out partying in epic style.

23rd March – Easter Sunday

Rather then partying on Lonely Beach as a group we’d been invited over to join some of our Thai friends at their bar to have a BBQ and watch the Liverpool vs Manchester Utd football match. Now to be fair, this isn’t my normal kind of night out, but I was no less keen to go see what the craic was, as much as I don’t watch football I can drink beer and eat BBQ happily!

The BBQ was a sort of hybrid between a traditional BBQ with hot coals in a iron bowl with a fondue like top with oil/stock around the rim and a raised center where the meat was placed to cook and we had a whole selection of sea food, meats and vegetables to cook on it. Defiantly the most random meal we had for the whole holiday, and also the most fun. In all honesty I probably wouldn’t have chosen to eat like this normally, but I’m so glad it was all prepared for us and we got a chance to experience some real Thai food away from the restaurants and cafes we’d been pretty much living in.

We rounded of the evening with a drink in Treehouse and then another in Ting Tong bumping into a few of our friends from around and about in passing, but not really staying out nearly as long as I would have liked to as we had a big day trip out set for early the next morning.

24th March – The Boat Trip

The everything provided boat trip was an epic 24 hours, meeting at Coconut a little bar just opposite Ting Tong the boat trip was mostly just our group and a couple of friends who we got to know pretty well in our last couple of days, and turned out to know friends I’d already met – it’s a pretty small world out in Koh Chang I guess!

The boat trip took us out from Bang Bao to spend the day out at sea visiting a couple of different sports snorkeling, and a short stop over at a beach before heading over to the tiny little uninhabited island where we would be spending the night, all the while being fed and kept with beer in hand.

From a personal point of view this was the only time I actually went swimming as well, which for me was a huge achievement since I don’t swim at all. – I know how to swim, I just haven’t since I was probably about 12 – so when we had to get from the boat, to the island we were staying at, I figured if it was the perfect time to just jump in and give it ago. Getting to that point took some encouragement from my friends, but they were a great help to me once I was in the water, and with them to hand and the fact the water was warm and calm, and didn’t do badly at all, and we I managed to do a bit of swimming, a tiny bit of snorkeling and got to the shore without any major issues, though I did struggle at one or two points my friends were on hand to straighten me out. Which I will be eternally thankful for.

Our time on the island was very chilled, just sun bathing, chilling in hammocks, playing travel guess who, spinning poi and so on, and we finally settled down fairly late in the night to sleep on the beach, after enjoying a spot of hermit crab racing by the fire side.

We were woken up fairly early in the morning just before dawn as we got caught by an incoming burst of rain fall – leading to everyone leaping up and scrambling into the tents to avoid getting soaked through – not the best way to be woken up, particularly as the tents didn’t have the rain hats on so they leaked, so there was a degree of faffing about but we survived.

Swimming back to the boat was not nearly as fun as getting to the island, the water was a lot more choppy and not as warm, combined with a rocky area where I tried to cross just didn’t work out as well. But if anything it made me more determined to learn how to swim properly when I’m out in Thailand for a good amount of time.

25th March – Last Night On Koh Chang

Once we’d all made it back from our over night boat trip we did the usual round of napping and food, before late in the afternoon heading out to Coconut to start the night off by getting Tattoos and a beer.

I’d been eyeing up my particular tattoo for much of the holiday, and the last day on the island it came to a now or never choice, and I really wanted it doing, so went of to get it done ahead of the girls who between three of them had all chosen to get the same Thai word (For Paradise) in various locations but I wanted to get in first so mind was out the way, in short I got it done, and while it wasn’t that uncomfortable, I did quickly down two beers after it was done. I’ll write a bit more about my tattoo in another post though.

We went on to have some food, and start the night early bumping into most of the people we’d got to know on the island over the last couple of weeks on the way, and so a very busy, hectic and drunken night. By the time I got back to my hut and said my final good byes to new friends it was well past dawn, and I was well set to abandon going home and just stay on the island for a few more weeks – However, since my bank account was already empty that wasn’t really an option – so I went to catch a couple of hours sleep before we needed to get up for the bus to Bangkok.

26th March – The Journey To Bangkok

Wednesday morning is a blur to be honest, the short version is the trio of girls I was traveling to Bangkok with were still in Ting Tong drinking at 9am when we had planned to get the bus. I wasn’t to worried by this, there were other buses, in fact really I think I was more thinking to my self I should have stayed up myself, if I’d know the girls were up at that time still I would have joined them much earlier. Some few drinks later, and maybe some food we ended up on a Taxi and getting the ferry to the mainland, nicely timed to get the 4pm bus to Bangkok, which we all slept though and crawled of blurry eyed and not really fully awake at about 10pm in Bangkok East Bus Station.

To find the police standing next to our bags wanting to inspect them, I’d been told by a number of people that this happens fairly frequently so I wasn’t particularly worried, I don’t smoke anything for the most part so nothing to worried about in my bag, and every one else I thought knew not to carry stuff on them for this very reason.

Turns out, that not everyone in our traveling group did know that, and got caught with a very small amount of green in their bag. At which point, things get interesting to say the least.

We were led over to a set of benches in the center of the bus station forecourt, and sat down with our bags while the various police officers talked among themselves, and would tell us (Or more specifically the girl who had the weed) that we would have to go to the police station and a few other comments along the lines of “Your in deep shit now” however, they then mentioned we could just pay a fine of 40,000 Baht (About £500) to which we said we’d love to, but simply didn’t have that kind of money as we were at the end of our holiday on the way to the airport – which of course, was all true. This went on for a little while, and we essentially haggled with them for a little while, the girls were getting particularly scared and I think it showed, as when I made an offer of 5,000 Baht (About £85) they accepted, gave us a folded bit of newspaper to put the cash into, which we placed to one side on the bench, got our passports back, grabbed our bags and jumped into the first taxi we came across to head to Khaosan road.

The plan was do go shopping for gifts in the few hours we had before heading to the airport, but the girls didn’t feel to well after the trauma of nearly getting arrested, and all my spending money had gone on bribes so we caught a couple of hours sleep at My House in the room Tansy had taken for her self since she was staying over night to catch a later flight, and we headed off to the air port about 3am, to make our final journey back.

27th March – Going Home

The flight back went pretty smoothly, a few minor delays and some niggles with annoying kids on the second flight, but all in all it went as well as could be expected, the food was okay, we all managed to get some sleep for parts of the journey, and while the first flight was the most basic we had of the four flights for the whole amount of travel we did, we also got the most sleep on that one, so it worked out in our favor.

And that’s pretty much it for my very badly written holiday overview – I’ll put together some better posts on specific events and places over time, the overviews are mostly to keep in my head what happened when while it’s still fairly close. There are a number of things missing that don’t need to be placed in context, or don’t need to be shared on a public forum, but for now this little set gives a good idea of how things went down in Thailand for an epic two weeks around Easter in 2008.

I’ll certainly be visiting Koh Chang when I head back out on travels of my own (I considering holidaying, and traveling to be two very different things) and who knows, maybe I’ll bump into some of the people I meet this time around when I’m globe trotting around.