MONDAY 18th APRIL:
The crossing was only about 40 minutes and our resort a mere 25km beyond albeit up some very hairy incredibly steep hairpin bends.
Ko Chang (or elephant island; “chang is Thai for elephant) is a very mountainous island and one of Thailand’s largest. We chose this as we could drive straight to our resort. We found somewhere to park the car whilst we went to check-in. After an arduous check-in procedure, we were shown to our room. First impressions were not bad; fairly small room but well appointed. One faux-pas of my own doing was to realise the booking was made for two adults only. Somewhere in the online booking procedure the “1 child” option disappeared.
Now, what is odd and so typically Thai is that they wanted to charge us an additional 850THB for a bed for Jack. OK, we thought he can sleep on the sofa but the resort offered the bedding free of charge. On getting back to our room, we discovered the sofa, in fact, opened out as flat bed anyway; so we got Jack’s bed free-of-charge anyway.
Jack couldn’t wait to try the pool out and we were both in need of a cooling down, so off we went to one of two large clean pools. Jack’s confidence in deep water now 100% better than a year or so ago when he would never have jumped into any deep water. This is the result of his swimming lessons.
After the pool session we dried off and went for a short wander down the road looking for anywhere suitable to eat.
We came to another hotel bar/restaurant which turned out to be quite attractive right by the sea but surprisingly quiet. The place was evidently short staffed and I think the combination of people still not returning to work after Songkran and the on-going coronavirus restrictions still observed by many Thais.
We had a couple of beers and a bite to eat and returned to our own resort’s restaurant which was a lot more lively; a cocktail for Aom and a beer for me took us near to bedtime.
Bars in Thailand have only recently been allowed to re-open at all as the Thai government had ordered closures during the worst of the pandemic. Even now, they are required to close at 10pm (11pm in Bangkok) which certainly changes the way the tourist industry works and not to the better.
Here's some facts about Ko Chang:-
Ko Chang island, known also as ‘Elephant Island’ named because of its elephant shaped headland, (no natural elephants on the island... they can't swim that far) is Thailand’s third largest island after Phuket and Samui. It is located around 300 kilometres east of Bangkok in Trat Province, in the Gulf of Thailand near the Cambodian border.
From jungle covered mountain peaks to sweeping bays, great waterfalls to flourishing coral reefs, beach huts to luxury resorts, Koh Chang has plenty to offer for everyone.
Ko Chang is part of the Mu Ko Chang National Park. Despite its increase in development and tourism in the past decade or so, it has retained its remote and rugged character.
With an area covering approximately 212 square kilometres, 70% of Koh Chang is covered in rainforests, mountains and beaches. The highest peak on the island is Khao Salak Phet, rising from the ground at 743 meters, and given its mountainous terrain there is an abundance of waterfalls with the tallest but not always the most accessible being Klong Neung waterfall, which can be found in the south-eastern corner of the island.
TUESDAY 19th APRIL:
A day for exploring the resort. After a brief wander about the heat of the day forced us to consider a swim.
First off was a dip in the sea which at 30°C was hardly refreshing. Jack was made up and spent ages in there.
The main swimming pool was next and this is where Jack’s swimming lessons proved fruitful.
Evening saw us opting for sitting on huge bean-bags next to the sea and making full use of the resort’s so-called Happy Hour with drinks on a BOGOF thing.
I’m not one for cocktails but I tried several; too many in fact.
Live music and a fire display [see video]
WEDNESDAY 20th:
A bad day! All the years I've been coming to Thailand I have never experienced any stomach upsets, but this year on Ko Chang I ended up with some form of poisoning. At first, I assumed it was a form of food poisoning but I now realise it was a result of swimming in the sea which (we discovered later) was right beside a sewer outlet on a rocky boulder-strewn part at the extreme end near the hotel. The rest of the long beach was crystal clear. I was was worse off, but both Aom & Jack had symptoms. In fact, Jack was so bad with stomach cramps in the middle of the night Aom had to run him down to the local hospital. Fortunately, this was only 1.5km away. He had an injection and some other medication. I remained pretty ill most of the day with absolutely nothing to eat only lots of water.
THURSDAY 21st:
Feeling better today but still refused breakfast.
Spent 30 minutes on the beach and had a swim with Jack and a frisby session with Aom. This followed by a swim in the lower pool.
Plan was to book a boat trip for tomorrow. This is a full day trip to at least 3 islands. After a conflab we decided to risk it and the trip was booked.
FRIDAY 22nd: I was still not 100% and the other two also a bit below par so Aom phoned the tour guy and asked to postpone our boat trip until tomorrow.
What is very odd about this island visit is that we have not been anywhere. Every other Thai island stay we have at least hired a motorbike and toured all over the island. This is made doubly odd by the fact we had our own vehicle!!
So, it was decided that's exactly what we would do; jump in the car and go see things.
We decided on the eastern road around the island.
Koh Chang is so mountainous with very thick jungle there virtually no roads to the interior; at least nothing bigger than a pathway. It’s mainly rainforest.
We made our way along the eastern road with the coast on our left and dense steep jungle on our right. We passed through small inhabited areas with small-holdings. Things like durian trees, cashew trees and thousands of coconut palms
At one point we deviated off the more major road onto a narrower concrete road which wound its way, once again, through dense impenetrable jungle. This road eventually came to a dead end by a gorgeous little coral beach. Jack was in the sea like a shot and I followed a short time later. Fantastic, with palm trees and other huge trees lining the beach which was dazzling white. We slowly wound our way back with Aom now driving and me taking photos eventually returning to White Sands for a break.
Various gorgeous beaches discovered on our tour around the island.
Back at our room for a short spell after which we ventured out again, this time driving south along the western coast.
The road wound its way through busy communities and eventually became narrower, winding and, frankly, quite hairy with very tight steep hairpin bends with no leeway at the road edges. I really wish I had a carcam to record how hairy the roads were.
We passed an interesting café-bar near Klong Kloi which had a Bob Marley theme to it and decided to stop off for some refreshments; coffee for me and squash drinks for the other two. This sported great views across the bay to Bang Bao.
The "Bob Marley" accented cafe-bar we relaxed in.
Bang Bao is a town built entirely on stilts over the sea. We popped in here for a visit a little later on.
After our pit-stop, we carried on along the twisty, sometimes quite dangerous road and finally arrived at Klong Kloi beach. We parked up and wandered down the beach; golden sand on this one with palm trees and a host of small bars, massage shops and café-restaurants. Jack went for yet another swim here.
Back at out room it was shower a scrub-up time. My appetite now more or less back to normal. For a change from rice, rice and more rice every day I opted for an Italian restaurant down the road. Owned by a real Italian called Claudio who was also the chef.
I felt like something solid so it was 2 big pizzas. Very fresh and very, very good. Pity was I had eaten so little over the past few days my appetite was below norm. The restaurant bagged up our two half pizzas for later consumption.
Early night tonight as we’re up early to get ready to get picked up to go on our booked boat trip.
