Not Without My Backpack: Koh Chang, Thailand

To get to Koh Chang, an island just off the coast, we went back to the airport and booked a bus. Online and at the bus ticket counter, it said the first bus left at 7:30 am. We woke up early and arrived a little after 7 so that we could catch the first bus. After buying our tickets, we were informed that we would be on a 10:00 bus. The man at the ticket counter claimed the 7:30 was full, but we thought it was a bit suspicious that there were not any passengers milling about. We waited at the airport until 10:00 when we were taken out to the bus parking area. We walked past several large, spacious tour buses to arrive at a small mini-bus. I thought there was no way everybody would fit in, but with a little squishing we did. Nobody was happy with the situation, but at that point, there's not a lot you can do. Britainy had the pleasure of sitting in a fold down seat next to the driver. I was next to her in the front passenger seat. We traded for about the last hour of the four hour drive and I found that the booster seat, as we were calling it, was extremely uncomfortable. The mini bus drove us directly on to the ferry, which took an hour, but was a welcome break from the road. On the other side, we piled back into the bus, but our journey was brief. It was not long before they stopped at their own tour office and then squeezed us onto a songthaew (basically a small pick-up truck with two bench seats in the bed.) It was a tight fit with 7 passengers and all of our luggage. After a short ride, we were dropped off in White Sand Beach.

We spent seven days in the small town of White Sand Beach and I would have been happy to spend more. Each morning we walked across the street to the beach and sat ourselves down for the whole day. Vendors selling various crafts, fried bananas, and beach toys made themselves known but were not too aggressive. As the sun went down, the restaurants lining the beach pulled out their folding tables and plastic chairs. We were able to sample pad thai, spring rolls, and fried rice from several of the restaurants, though our favorite was called Bam Boo. We appreciated the English translations on the menus but were also highly amused when things like "Buddy Mary," "Rice Pounding," or "Shirm with rice" appeared.

We had thought about renting motorbikes to explore other parts of the island, or maybe joining an elephant trekking tour, but the weather convinced us to stay on the beach. Thunderstorms were in the forecast nearly everyday and we did get to experience a few downpours. Luckily, it never lasted too long. Even though it kept us from venturing elsewhere on the island (the last thing we wanted was to be caught in a downpour on motorbikes on poorly kept steep roads), the weather did not interfere much with our beach time. Britainy and I did manage to find time for a fish spa. Hundreds of little fish nibbled away at our feet, supposedly eating any dead skin. It was strange, but my feet did feel softer afterwards.

We spent our evenings walking down the beach, listening to live music (which unfortunately was across the street from our hotel so we had to listen whether we wanted to or not), playing pool at the western themed Buffalo Bills Steakhouse, and indulging in a few fried banana pancakes from the street vendors.