Koh Chang Arrival

(Written Thursday, May 31)

I’m at the beach!

Our bus left Bangkok around 8 am this morning. We took a 1^st class bus (there are VIP, 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd class buses), so it was new and clean with AC. However, once again I noticed that things are built for shorter people in Asia: my knees hit the back of the seat in front of me. The ride took about 5 hours, and we only stopped once at an outdoor restaurant/convenience store about an hour and a half into our trip. I was very glad I bought an iPod before coming to Thailand, as I listened to it almost non-stop while I attempted (but mostly failed) to doze.

We arrived at the ferry dock around 1 pm. Koh Chang was clearly visible from the mainland, but it took the ferry about 30-45 minutes to cross. My ability to judge distances over water is nonexistent—I had guessed it would take about 10 minutes. This is what comes of growing up in a land-locked state!

After arriving on the island (where I did a little arrival dance), a bunch of people from the ferry and the five of us interns hailed a truck taxi to drive us to our hotel. We had no idea where or how far the place was, but we gave the driver the hotel name and he nodded and took off. These taxis have 2 long parallel boards for seats (no seat belts) in the back and a metal roof to toss luggage onto. The truck is open on the sides and on the back. After squeezing 12 people onto the seats, there was still one passenger who needed a ride: he ended up standing on the back of the truck holding onto the roof! This was slightly terrifying because the truck went fast, the ride was long (~20-30 minutes), and the roads were steep and windy. The only thing keeping me from feeling sick from all the switchbacks (taken at high speeds that threatened to tip the entire truckload of people over) was the excitement of being on an island! in Thailand! surrounded by ocean!

After a harrowing ride, the truck dropped us off near our hotel. “Near” wasn’t quite near enough for me—we ended up having to walk for 10 or 15 minutes with our luggage and despite being on an island, the weather is still rather beastly. But when we arrived at our resort, we were thrilled to discover that it is beautiful! The buildings are all located in the center of a lagoon. Palm trees surround the water, with dramatic mountainous peaks in the background, and glimpses of the ocean that lies directly next to the resort between the trees and buildings.

Unfortunately, our experience getting settled in a hotel room didn’t quite compare to the beauty outside. First, the staff tried to put 3 of us in a 2-person room (with only 2 twin beds!). It took a lot of exclaiming and gesturing before they agreed to show us a different room. This room was better: a double and a twin. We moved our stuff in, but hours later when we were on the verge of going to sleep, the air conditioner started leaking water all over my bed (the twin)! We called the front desk and a workman came and made the mess even worse in his attempt to fix whatever was broken, so they moved us to a third room. This was the mirror image of the second, but with an AC that didn’t drip water. At least, it hasn’t yet.

But before going to bed, and experiencing room change number 2, we went and walked on the beach! To get to the beach from our room, we cross a short bridge across the lagoon, walk past the reception desk, and we’re on the sand. The ocean here is perfect. The sand is white and powdery, the water is blue-green and warm, there are pretty shells dotting the beach, palm trees divide the sand from the grass, and there are no condos or tall buildings to obscure the view (the resort buildings are all small and placed slightly back from the sand, often behind a row of palm trees). Our stretch of beach is in the center of a U-shaped piece of coast. The view to the left: the mountainous peaks we saw when we first arrived. The view straight ahead: the big, wide ocean, with 3 or 4 tiny islands on the horizon. The view to the right: a long expanse of beach ending in a rocky point at the top of the U.

On the street right outside our resort are a few shops: a place to rent motorcycles, two open-air restaurants, a place for laundry, and a massage store. There are little clusters of shops located all along this main road, but they are separated by expanses of wilderness. It’s a short walk to the cluster of stores down the road from us, but the others are far enough away that we would have to flag down transportation to get there. We ate dinner at one of the restaurants by the resort, and it was cheap and tasty. We then put on swimming suits and took a dip in the ocean…the temperature is perfect! Cooler than the air, which is still hot and sticky here, but warm enough to stay in the ocean for any length of time without feeling chilly. There are waves, but they are mostly swells, with a few baby waves that crash just enough to make them fun to jump through.

P.S. There are geckos on the ceiling of our room. I think their little sticky-toed feet are creepy.