We are in Bangkok at the moment. Arrived here from Koh Chang – an island in the Gulf of Thailand – this afternoon.
We’ve spent the last 5 days so relaxed it was brilliant. We stayed in a hostel dorm room which we try to not do on a regular basis but the hostel we stayed at was really good. The beds were huge for dorm standards and the facilities were pretty good too. We slept in everyday, generally missed breakfast and chilled by the pool for the morning until we decided to go out and actually do something. For a couple of days we hired a motorbike and rode around the island. Generally in places like Koh Chang you can circumnavigate the island by following the same road. You can’t do that in Koh Chang, you can only go so far one way before the road stops and you can’t go any further so like what we did, you stop, have a look at your surroundings and drive back the other way until you reach the other end. We stopped occasionally to look at the views and one time even stopped to go check out a waterfall. The waterfall was more like a pool of water than actual running waterfalls. The climb up there was via a barely visible track covered in leaves which I was adamant would contain snakes, spiders and other things I’m scared of. Safe to say I did not enjoy the walk up to the waterfall while wearing my havaianas, especially because Mark has a tendency to walk off ahead and I was helped down a steep slippery section of the path by some locals.
So apart from riding around the island and checking a few things out we sat by the pool at the hostel because it was so hot and humid. Now normally I don’t actually go into public pools because they kind of gross me out but when it’s too hot outside I had no option but to go in constantly. When I was younger and did go into pools throughout summer my hair would always get a slight green tinge to it. I remembered this and mentioned it to Mark but didn’t actually think it would happen after only a couple of days. I was wrong. My hair is now green at the ends and I have to find a way to fix it while in Vietnam over the next couple of weeks.
Koh Chang is different to other islands we have been to in Thailand. Phuket & Koh Samui can be relaxing but they also have a huge nightlight area which just isn’t present in Koh Chang. As well as the nightlight Koh Chang isn’t as built up and although there are a lot of travellers there, they all seem to be there for the same reason – just to chill out – and we did meet a couple of people who had been to Koh Chang weeks or even months earlier but were back there to take it easy before their next stops.
We are looking forward to having no plans the next couple of weeks and just travelling through one of our favourite places – Vietnam!
Until then, B 🙂
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