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.

Of course, there are some things I’ll never forget, and around them I’ve pieced together the party nights like this:

18th March

I ached all day, but couldn’t place my finger on why, and just put it down to sleeping funny until suddenly much later in the day it dawned on me that the day before we’d done the Tree Top Adventure, it turns out working your body out really hard is a good way to wake up the next day feeling like you’ve worked your body out really hard.

There was a plan to go to some reggae and ska party but it turned out to be on another beach and a bit of a trek, so we stayed local instead. But I’m not completely sure where we ended up.

19th March

Another night I don’t really remember much about, pretty sure that this was a night of BBQ and dancing at Treehouse, with a funky acoustic set from the same guys we’d seen previously at Ting Tong providing the early music.

20th March

“Lemon bar grand opening with 20 bangkok show girls!” Or so the posters said, which was a little confusing given that we were at the end of the season and we’d already been to Lemon Bar earlier in the week. Still, seemed worth checking out from a “Tick off another box” point of view, so starting at Treehouse for some food and a few warm up drinks we spent so long chilling out, and bantering with people we’d meet previously that we pretty much missed the show, litterally arriving for the very last moments, but we still headed in and had a dance. The whole experience was pretty seedy though, I have no hang ups about dancing with ladyboys, but there was clearly more then dancing going on in another part of the bar, which I stayed well clear of.

The dance floor did have lasers coming out from the DJ booth though which was cool, and I danced like crazy while there, by the time we arrived we’d had a lot of vodka red bull, but I don’t think I got any more drinks while there as Lemon Bar is one of the more expensive places on Lonely Beach.

I headed back to the huts at a fairly early (For us) time, but left my bag in Lemon bar and had to go back and get it, and while heading back down the hill from Oasis I discovered I’d lost my wallet, so after picking up my bag (Which was still with our friends who were still raving on) I headed over to Treehouse to see if anyone found it there, which they hadn’t, so a bit stressed I headed back to the huts, and promptly found my wallet just outside the door of the hut we were hanging out in. But such is life.

21st March – Full Moon

The big parties of the night were dotted along the beach, and for some reason Siam Hut’s appeared to have toned down their set up from the previous weeks Half Moon party, but we were all much more settled into the party lifestyle this time so were as at the Half Moon we all seemed to stick together, we all spread out and mingled a lot more this time, watching the fire shows, dancing in the sea, rolling around in the sand after consuming mushroom shakes and so on, but my big memory of this night was doing a lot of poi, and talking to quiet a number of people about poi as well.

22nd March – Dancing In The Rain

We didn’t really have much of a plan on this night, we just started out at Treehouse fairly early with the usual plan of eating, drinking and partying into the night. As it happens though, this was the most memorable night out.

Not long after we’d all settled for some food and the drinks started flowing the first few drops of rain were felt falling and the wind was noticeably picking up, bringing the waves rising up below Treehouse’s sea front edge, and people quickly hurried to clear the cushions and chairs under the covered areas leaving a lot more open space then normal.

Most of the other rain fall we’d had came in sudden bursts, and left as suddenly as it arrived, but this night there was a real sense of the storm approaching, out across the darkened sea you could clearly see bolts of lightening illuminating the sky and people (Including myself) were hanging of the railings to gaze out at the sea and feel the growing wind lift of the waves that continued to crash below, everyone was getting a little crazy and wild with the anticipation of the storm hitting.

As it happens, caught up in the mood of the night I danced away to the music that fitted perfectly with the way everyone was feeling, and when the rain hit jumping off the dance floor and on to the open decks was the natural thing to do, and I can honestly say I’ve never been happier to dance in the rain.

Edit: Embedding isn’t working, so here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_92PcQhzic

15th March – Lonely Beach, Koh Chang
Just off Lonely Beach there is a set of three smaller islands not far from the coast, the closest of which has an easy to get to beach so six of us jumped in a couple of kayaks, and paddled out to them to what we had in mind as a deserted island. Of course, we weren’t the only people with this idea, there were a couple of other people milling around as well, but still, it was a good find, and a fun paddle out. Though a rather large wave right on the outset broke my phone (And thus, camera) turns out the water proof pouch didn’t have a water proof zip, and it leaked just enough to break. You live and learn though. Was well worth going out there though, considering I nearly bailed out as I don’t swim so I was slightly nervous about heading out over the ocean, but I didn’t fly half way around the world not to push my comfort levels.

At this point, I don’t really remember which places we partied at – my note book was rain damaged from the previous nights tropical storm, but I think it’s safe to say we went out and drank a lot! I also realize around this time that when you’re in a tropical climate, you really need to pay attention to waterproofing items that needed it. If memory serves, this was Kelly’s – a traveler the guys we had gone out to meet had been hanging out with – last night, so we went out for pizza, and did some drinking out and about.

16th March – Lonely Beach and Bang Bao, Koh Chang
The big event of the day was the elephant ride, we got picked up by taxi about 9am, and it was a short trip north to the elephant place, were we were placed in pairs up on small benches held a top three huge elephants. You have to climb up a set of steps to the boarding platform, and step on to them and shuffle into your seat in pairs, and then off you go, plodding and at times running along on top of this frankly, massive creature. It was all very surreal, but a fantastic time, and a great way to see some of the deeper jungle of the island. Our route took us on a ride of about 45 minutes out to a small pool, where we got off via some more platforms set up on trees, and then chilled out for a bit, the rest of the group when swimming in the pool, and were joined by a couple of the elephants as their riders cleaned them down. Again, not really a water fan so I just sat and watched and had a mooch around before we rode back. At this point, my elephant took a shorter router back then the other two, because it was been a moody bastard. It’s rider wasn’t best please with him, and he tried to do his own thing at several points.For dinner we went a bit further south to the next beach Bang Bao, to the Buddha View restaurant, watched an amazing sun set from the lighthouse watch point at the end of the peer, and enjoyed an amazing meal. While we were in Treehouse we randomly bumped into the woman who runs the tree top adventure, when we told her what we were planning the next day she exclaimed that it was her place! Small world out there.

17th March – Lonely Beach and Tree Top Adventure Par, Koh Chang
The last day of really doing any serious activity was the Tree Top Adventure Park, climbing up high wires, going down zip lines (One of which was 150 meters long) and generally working really, really hard to get around the pair of amazing courses which over looked one of the bays from a perfect vantage point and wind through the jungle. Of all the activities on the island, this is the one I would really recommend. I was pretty surprised at how I coped with it, I always figured I didn’t have a problem with highs, but never really tested out the theory so when I was pottering though the tree tops I was very happy to find it didn’t phase me at all.

This was Paul and Shell’s last day, so we went out for another good meal down at a place we knew only as the decking, a cozy restaurant that over looked the more rocky part of the beach, somewhere in between paradise and sunset. I was once again really impressed with the food and had one of the best first I had ever eaten. I’ll go out on a limb and guess we went out and partied, I think at sunset and then lemon bar, for a pretty crazy night of dancing.

At this point, we’d had a nice run of making sure we did something of note everyday, though with Paul and Shell been the main motivation to get out there from this point we slipped into a much more relaxed pace which formed a familiar pattern of beaches and parties for the most part, It was good to have a few active days though.

I can’t really it call it traveling or backpacking as we only ended up going two places: Bangkok, and Ko Chang (Koh Chang) we did originally have plans to head further north into Kanchanaburi for the second week of our stay but by that time we had met so many people we were getting along with and a few different trips and parties were coming up that it made sense just to stick to where we were comfortable, particularly since everyone of my group had decided we were going to come back for several months at the end of the year and travel seriously, so there wasn’t any feeling of missing out on anything.

12th March – Manchester To Doha To Bangkok
We flew out with Qatar airways from Manchester which at the time was hit by sever gale force storms, so there was a question as to weather the flight might be delayed, or if we would even make it to the airport as they were closing motorways all over the place as high sided vehicles were blown over in a number of locations. Then with a quick change over in Doha we flew into Bangkok we arrived about 7am on the 13th (local time)

13th March – Khaosan Road, Bangkok
Thankfully it was fairly overcast and smoggy when we arrived so the heat wasn’t too intense, but all the same we were thankful to get onto the air conditioned bus that took us to Khaosan Road where after a bit of milling around we met up with our friend Kate who got us sorted out with rooms for the night at My House (On Soi Camasongkrum) so after settling in, having my first encounter with cold showers and a bit of a nap we set out into the day, had some food, mooched about and did a bit of shopping for the day before finally calling it a night late on ready to catch the early morning VIP bus to Ko Chang.

14th March – Khaosan Road, Bangkok to Lonely Beach, Ko Chang
This was our first real taste of travel in Thailand, which consists of starting at one location with a slip of paper of some sort, which as you go from vehicle to vehicle gets changed for other slips of paper as you travel along. The bus journey took perhaps six hours to get down to the pier near Trat, and then with a short wait we were transfered to the ferry, and then hopped onto a Taxi on Ko Chang which took us along to Lonely Beach, where a short (But hard) climb up the hill got us to the Oasis resort, one of the highest sets of guest huts in the area lead us to meet up with the rest of our friends, and the group of travelers they had hooked up with. After catching up and sorting out rooms and what was to become the usual pattern of lingering getting ready, eating, and then out to party we hit our first taste of the islands full flavor when we went to the Half Moon party at Siam Huts on Lonely Beach. Which was amazing night and really set the pace for our two weeks on the island.