21/01/2012 - Visiting Koh Chang
I arrived
at the house late Thursday evening and had a plan ready for the next day. Me
and another volunteer Nick, had previously decided that we were going to spend
the next day on Koh Chang as the co-ordinator had informed us we had a free day
on Saturday as orientation would be done the next day because another 2
volunteers were joining us in the evening on Saturday.
The day
started off by me sleeping in...oops. We were supposed to wake up at 6.30am
because a songthaew was picking us up at 7am so we would be at the pier to
catch the 8am ferry to Koh Chang. We got there in time and bought a round trip
ticket for the ferry which cost 100 baht ($3) and boarded the ferry. This trip
took around 45min, in the rather slow moving ferry but the amazing view makes
the trip much more enjoyable.
Once we
got to the pier the one of two songthaews there left after being filled up so
we asked the driver of the other how much it will cost us to get to a tiny village where we were planning to do the elephant trekking. The driver informed us that
since it was just the two of us it would cost 100baht each for the ride, this
is cheap by western standards but expensive by Thai standards. So we thought we
would look for other alternatives. The previous volunteers who had been to Koh
Chang told us that finding a songthaew on the island is not as easy as one may
think so after seeing a 'for rent' sign on scooter we thought we should check
that out. We somehow managed to communicate to the stall owner that we wanted
to know how much it cost to rent one for a day and he said it cost only
250baht. I had no clue how to ride a bike but thankfully nick knew. There was
one catch, since we weren't planning to rent a scooter we left our passports at
the house, but the owner said he wouldn't rent it to us without a passport. I
looked at Nick and said, lets try another stall, as he had a copy of his
passport - maybe that could get us somewhere. We tried the stall opposite to
the first one and the guy told us we could rent with the copy but we had to
leave a 5000 baht ($160) deposit apart from 250 baht ($8) rent fee. We checked
our wallets and collectively summed up the money and off we were. This is a
testament of what money can get you in Thailand. We had a basic map with the
major landmarks on that didn't include any roads so we just went one direction
hoping it was the right one (and it was!!). We drove on a for a while and since
the signs were all in Thai we had no clue where we were. We stopped and asked
for directions and the lady told us to turn left on the next road. So we drove
on looking for the next road but somehow we missed it and after a driving for a
while we turned back hoping to find this road. We found it and followed on until
we found the elephant trekking place. Once we got there we were asked to choose
one of their two options and we chose the one that included riding the elephant
for 45min and feeding it which was supposed to cost 500 baht but the lady told us it will only
cost 350 baht each. I had never seen an elephant up close before so for me it
was an amazing experience, seeing such majestic creatures.
The next
stop was supposed to be Lonely Beach on the other side of the island but after
a long drive we noticed we still had 8km left so we turned back where we previously saw a sign
for a waterfall which was quite close by. We went in with the thought of seeing
a waterfall, taking some photos and we would be back out in 10 min or so. That
did not happen. We went in bought a ticket which cost 200baht each and starting
walking in a road filled with shops and stalls, then we ended up in a terrain
like pathway which had a sign "500m to waterfall". We started walking
and with the kind of terrain there was 500m seemed far longer than they
actually were. We got there and saw the beautiful waterfall and alot of
tourists swimming at the base of the waterfall. We had to swim. Who knows if we
will be here again. The water was freezing which was a welcomed treat in that
heat. I loved it. We stayed there for around an hour and then headed back to
the scooter to continue the journey to Lonely beach.
When we
entered the Lonely beach area I knew this was going to be a treat. The views
from afar were already beautiful. We got there parked the scooter and walked to
the beach, only to be left speechless by the scene in front of us. It was
stunning!! The view of the islands afar was amazing and the beach itself was
stunning with white sand and light blue water. It was something out of a dream.
First thing i did was drop by backpack on the sand took out my camera and took
a couple of shots, second thing was drop my camera and go swimming. After some
swimming I decided to simply lay on the sand and relax which resulted in me
sleeping and getting sunburnt.
At around
3.30pm we decided to head back to the pier to catch the 5pm ferry. On our way
back we stopped at viewpoint to take some photos, and off we were again. After
about half an hour of driving we noticed we were a bit early so we said that if
we see anything of interest on the way, we will stop by. 5 minutes later we
came to see an ornate temple which seemed interesting so we stopped by for some
photos before continuing the journey to the pier.
We got
back to the pier, returned the scooter and got on the ferry to get back to
Trat. My living quarters for the next 3 weeks.
We got
back only to notice that getting a songthaew at the pier was not so easy
because it cost a lot (by thai standards) for only 2 people. So we called Meaw
to get us our usual songthaew which she did but that took quite a while and a
whole lot of my patience.
We
finally got back home at around 7.30pm only to find guests for a BBQ we were
all having later that night, and 2 new volunteers. The BBQ was great, thai food
was starting to grow on me. We were 4 volunteers, meaw and 3 of her non-thai
friends which were living in Trat. It was nice hearing the different stories
from across the globe. After alot of food and alot of thai whiskey and beer we
called it night at around 4am. We had to go to bed, big day the next day.
Orientation Sunday!
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