"Where in the World"

Starting my adventure

I woke at around 5.30 am and desperatly tried to shove the last bits and pieces into my bag and made my way downstairs to catch my lift. Alice and Sophia drove me to the airport and waited there while I qued to check in. They had to leave around 7.45 as Sophia had an all day meeting or as Mr Kwak refered to it "as a workshop." I eventually checked in, cleared customs and made my way onto the plane.

After a few hours I realised that unlike the plane I caught to Korea we would not be landing in Tai Pai on route. This meant that I would be turning up at the airport a few hours earlier than I told Jenna and Emily. After queing for an hour to clear customs in Bangkok I collected my bag just as the Singapore flight began to unload theirs.

I walked throught the main doors expecting to see two rather tanned faces shouting my name. This was not the case and after wandering round a bit I realised that there would be no way to contact them. It had taken so long to go through customs that my flight number had been removed from the board, including which gate I had come out of.

I remembered Jenna telling me there flight from Chang Mai got in around one o'clock and so I hurried over to domestic arrivals and just as I got there I saw them strolling out looking at the main board for my flight. Phew taht could of been a disaster like the one I had when I arrived at Seoul International airport and John my coordinator two and a half hours late.

We couldn't stopped talking we had so much to tell each other about what had happened in the three weeks we'd been apart it took us a while to get our arses into gear. We made our way over to the taxi rank and drove to the YMCA. Shortly after unloading our bags we ventured out to find something to eat. Not long after we'd left the hostel and the skies opened up and poured with rain. It had turned into a cold, grey, miserable day in miutes.

We were lucky enough to find a shopping mall that had a food floor. This was not my ideal choice for my first nigth in Bangkok but the food beat Korean food any day. I think the lack of sleep the night before was catching up with me because as soon as I'd finished dinner I became really tired. We had an early start so we we went back to the hostel where I collapsed in bed while the girls went to find the bus station.

Bright and early the next morning I woke up and tried manouver out o the top bunk without waking the Austalian guy below me. After a 200 yard walk to the bus stop with my heavy pack we climbed aboard a really nice airconditioned bus that handed out snacks once we'd sat down. For around five GBP for a 5 hour bus journey was not bad. That was until the guy sat behing Jenna and me began to sing, badley! It was a mixture of broken English and Thai and he did not stop for breath for the entire time we were on the bus.

After a quick ferry trip we arrived on Koh Chang where we took a taxi to one of the beaches on the south west side of the island, Khlomg Prao beach. We checked into a place called KP Huts, which was a series of small bamboo huts over looking what was supposed to to be (according to the guide book) one of the prettiest beaches on the isalnd. The accomadation was okay but the staff were incredable rude and within the first hour we decided we would only stay the one night. On a positive note the food was extremely good.

We spent the night drinking a cheap bottle of Malibu on our veranda playing cards as it was miles to anywhere. It was fun but we moved off early in the morning to our next destination, White Sand beach.

We walked down the long beach past all the nice fancy and expensive hotels to the end of the beach looking for Star beach bungalows. Whilst asking for directions a lady started shouting at us "weve got rooms, come up." It was right at the end of the beach, colourfully painted kinda resembling a pirate ship and storing more junk than an antiques shop. It was called Bo's Independent and the woman that had called us was scottish (called Fiona) who had married a Thai and now helped run the place.

It was very quant and because it was built into the cliffs it had nook and cranies everywhere, with steep steps and wet slippery handle bars. Luckily for them in Thailand they dont have health and safety inspectors and take an attitude of if you hurt yourself, its your fault.

We spent the on the beach although we only waded in up to our waste as Jenna had over heard this German guy earlier talking to Fiona at the bar. He had said that he met another German man and had had a long conversation with him before he went up to his room. He was looking out from the balcony watching this guy go for a swim when he got swept futher and futher out and drowned. There are no lifeguards or life boats on Koh Chang only red flags warning swimers. Even though we only went up to our waste we could feel how strong the tide was and ended up paddling.

That night we realised just how close we were to the beach when we decided to go and get something to eat. the tide had come right in and was covering the first few steps of the enterance. Basically if we wanted to go out we would have to be prepared to get wet.

We spent one day visiting some waterfalls where we encounterd some wild monkey's throwing nuts at us from high in the tree tops. Other than that we did exacly what I had wanted to since leaving Korea and that was lying on a beach. Also due to the fact that Emilys foot had swollen up from an infected bite she must of got trekking in the jungle in Chang Mai, we couldn't go anywhere. The doctor had advised plenty of rest and to keep her foot elevated which meant when it cam to bed time I was sharing a bed with Emily and her massive bag, working as a foot rest.    

It finally came time to move on and hopefully end up in Cambodia. It was er... very interesting journey.

• Posted by k_millington on 14/07/2007.
• k_millington's site