Koh Chang- Elephant Island- Adventure 4

Koh Chang is a very rugged and beautiful island that lies off the coast of Thailand’s Eastern Gulf near Trang.  According to the guidebooks it is Thailand’s second largest island.  The largest being Phuket at 540 sq km, Koh Chang is 492 sq km.  Koh Chang is one of islands that make up the archipelago within the Koh Chang National Marine Park.  There are a bunch of islands, but only a handful have overnight facilities and the others are great for day trips.  Sadly I didn’t have that much time on Koh Chang to venture off to some of the other islands, but I would love to go back and make my way to Ko Kood(sometimes spelled Ko Kut).  It's the furthest south island in that archipelago and a bit inaccessible and therefore the beaches, lagoons, and quiet coves are said to be in almost perfect condition. 

Like many other islands in Thailand, you will see development on Koh Chang, but I didn't experience it too much and the island is so mountainous that only so much can be developed.  I spent very little time in town where you are likely to see most of the development because I stayed in a hut on the beach about 10 steps from the ocean.  I traveled with my friend Johanna who I became buddies with on Koh Tao.  Flood escapees we were.  Johanna is such an awesome girl and I’m so lucky to have met her.  She’s from Germany, she lived in New Zealand and then Australia, and then came to Southeast Asia to tour around before heading home to Germany.  We had many conversations over countless cups of tea and fruit shakes and while lazily swimming in the warm ocean waters.

Me and Johanna my sweet German friend

What is this stuff? I could have sworn it was sand dollar poop but the piles are too big.  Crab holes?  Still trying to figure it out.

Getting down to the beach of Hat Sai Khao (white sand beach) was a bit tough, especially at night when we were trekking down there.  There are no lights on the bumpy road so I busted out my headlamp, but not long after that a man in a song tao from the neighboring resort stopped to pick us up.  We had avoided taking a song tao in the first place because we didn’t want to spend the money, but once were walking we had a change of heart.  So when we asked him how much, he said “up to you!” the classic Thai phrase when they either don’t have a specific answer (I used to get this a lot in school when I would ask to many questions of my Thai teaching partners) or they’re being modest and they don’t want to tell you a price.  

We arrived to the lovely no-frills beach bungalow spot of Tiger Hut Resort and a crowd of diners all looking at us two gals with our packs with a look on their faces that I can’t really describe.  When we glanced back at the folks at the restaurant we realized we were surrounded by couples!  Guess we were at a romantic getaway spot.  Oh well.  Our room was a thin walled hut with a bed, mosquito net, bathroom and fan.  I think we paid something like 500 baht a night (about 15 USD) no wifi, no tv, just beach, tasty food and fruit shakes from the restaurant and books.  Pretty perfect. 

We stayed for 3 nights and four days there and we were just happy campers to have some better weather.  We woke up each morning to sunshine!  This was something we weren’t very used to from the past week!  It did rain a bit here and there, but only sprinkles.  We’d felt very cooped up and surprisingly wiped out from our week of being stuck in the rain or stuck indoors and damp, and we were satisfied to sit on the beach or go walks along the shore.  It was so relaxing to go to sleep and wake up to the sound of the waves just outside the door.  

It takes about 6 hours to travel from Bangkok to Koh Chang, then the ferry takes about half an hour so it is a bit of a trip, but well worth it.  Koh Chang was the perfect respite for us after Koh Tao.  The mountain views every direction you turn are marvelous, lovely sunsets, and a very laid back, friendly beach vibe made for a great mini vacation.  It was nice to be in a quiet spot without hearing (and feeling) thumping music coming from every bar like I felt on Koh Tao.  I felt rested and excited for the next adventure- my mom’s arrival!  I left Koh Chang and took a series of buses and song taos to get back to Rayong, for which I had a handful of little tickets stapled together for each leg of this journey.  For how close Rayong appears to be on a map, it was quite interesting getting back.  I was happy to be somewhat familiar with the area, because once again I was just being deposited at the side of the road and told in a mix of Thai and English (or just told with hand gestures) to go somewhere else and give them my packet of tickets to find out where to hurry up and wait for the next mode of transportation.  I knew I’d get home just fine, but with which minibus, regular size bus, or son tao?  In any event, I got home in the evening and then had a full day and a half to prepare for my mother’s arrival.  I was very excited for her to come to Thailand and to show her around my hometown, which would be the first part of our time together.  I hadn’t been home to my apartment in about three weeks so I had a lot of things to do and prepare to ensure a smooth transition to travel with mom! 

Next installments…the mother and daughter chronicles. 

But first, some more pictures of Koh Chang and my lovely friend Johanna.  I hope you enjoy them!  And thanks for visiting my blog, reading my often lengthy posts, and perusing my pictures.  I appreciate your readership.  I know pictures are usually a lot easier to digest and sometimes that's all you have time for, so I'm sorry I haven't posted new picasa web albums. They will be coming soon!

our bungalow

Turn around from the bungalow and you got the beach!

After a ways down the beach, the beach ends, and a huge canal opens up.  You can go across by kayak, swimming or by hired boat.  We chose to swim to check out the other side.  There are other beaches and resorts, which are also reached from the main road behind them.  From our side of the canal to the other side isn't very long, but it does get deep so simply walking across isn't really possible unless you're maybe 12 or 13 feet tall.

eye spy

The khlong (canal) we swam across to get to another beach

View from across the khlong after we swam over.  Dry bag came in handy.

The Great Flood- March, 2011

Koh Tao Part 2- The Great Flood

Koh Tao was the epitome of an extreme vacation.  On one end I had a fantastic time and pretty good weather for scuba diving.  I got some beach time and enjoyed some swimming. On the other extreme was the most intense rain and flooding I’d ever experienced.   Luckily I was able to finish my scuba course with no problems.  On the last day of course though, the weather looked as though it would be turning for the worse.  I decided to stick around on Koh Tao after finishing the course because I wanted to do some bouldering and kayaking, and I was waiting for the weather to clear up.  Well I waited and waited…and all I got was rain and more rain.  At first it was just some light but pretty consistent rain.  Then on a Sunday night it started to rain hard, and the power and water went out, and it didn’t stop raining at all until the next day around 2pm, and that was just for a short break.  When the power went out I wasn’t really concerned, the power cuts in and out on islands.  But when the power still wasn’t on the next day I was a little worried.  More concerning though, was waking up at 5:30am with the other folks in the dorm I was staying in, looking outside, and seeing the courtyard of the place we were staying at destroyed by water.  We jumped out of bed to take a look outside, and plenty of other guests were awake doing the same thing.  We all stood outside with our jaws dropped.  Overnight this place was transformed.  Where a little covered table sat for eating and hanging out in the middle of a walkway from the back of the resort to the beach, there was a massive river with water rushing through it so fast it was astonishing.  The bungalows opposite us were starting to fall into this new river where only a sandy walk way existed before.  The kayaks that were tied up to one of the bungalow posts were now pulling on that rope, nearly about to pull away and into the sea.  There was no longer a beach- the river and the ocean met and the water was waving back and forth, pounding against the office of the dive resort porch and the porch of the restaurant.  One of my chakos got washed away and is now swimming at the bottom of the Gulf of Thailand, or it’s thrown up onto a rock down a beach somewhere else on the island.  All of us guests stood around a little shocked, but there was little that could be done.  So I went back to sleep.

I woke up around 11am to continuing downpour.  Not much had changed except that it was light out now, and the river had just created more damage to the resort.  Trees were uprooted and branches were floating down the river towards the ocean, and an employee of the resort tied a rope from a tree on our side of the resort to a tree on the other side so that the people staying in bungalows over there could cross. Not like they’d want to at that point in time, but it was handy later on when the water wasn’t gushing so quickly.  I woke up starving, as did the other people in the dorm so we ventured out to get some food.  And it was quite a venture- to get up the path and up the driveway of our place we had to make our way on the remaining concrete (that was being destroyed by flood waters), then trudge through knee deep water at some points, then get up to the street.  Once on the street, we realized we weren’t the only people to encounter a river where there wasn’t one before.  The main road through the beach town of Hat Sairee was a river, and very deep and very fast at some points.  Motorbikes driving through had to be extremely careful- their wheels were almost completely submerged.  Cars carrying loads of people passed both directions, shuttling people through to get from one side of the river to the other.  Restaurant and shop owners were throwing out buckets of water and trying to salvage furniture from the water.  Sandbags were being filled and piled everywhere you looked.  Despite the destruction to shops and restaurants, the Thai people still seemed to be in relatively good spirits, and the visitors- those who weren't panicking because they had flights to catch or visas that would soon expire, looked just a little uncomfortable to be entirely wet, and cold.  

Later that day I helped the Burmese men who were the workers at Big Blue Diving Resort fill sandbags.  I'd say that was a highlight of the whole event.  They were quite jolly, and only when I started helping them did I understand why.  They were getting drunk!  Some were in more on their way then others, but everyone was singing and dancing in the nearly waist deep water in the driveway.  The neighboring resort had diverted their flood waters somehow, so Big Blue had a lot of water to deal with.  They kept handing me glasses of Hong Thong (Thai whiskey) and coke, and pretty soon I was feeling a bit warmer and happier as well.  I held bag after bag while the men shoveled sand that they scooped from the "driveway" (now well underwater) into the bags.  All the while their Thai boss sat on the side under an umbrella. Hmm.

That night I relocated to new lodgings with a handful of others staying at the resort.  Big Blue has another hotel they use when their beach front property fills up.  I snagged a spot on the floor of a room where some other stranded folks were staying, and I slept their for the next 3 nights.  Over the course of those days and nights I made some great friends, so while the flood was pretty frustrating and terrible, it did bring people together.  On top of this the internet wasn't working very often, and if it was, internet shops were open only sporadically, so this also brought people together.  All anyone talked about was rumors we'd heard about when boats were supposed to start running again, what the weather was looking like, how big were the waves, and when the hell could we get off that blessed island.  Everyone started to get bored and anxious.  Islands aren't so great when you can't do anything that normally happens on an island.  It was raining and cold (I wore my fleece everyday for 3 days which was a first in a long time), and really not much to do but eat, sleep, watch movies, and read.  Stores weren't really running out of water so we were ok there.  Restaurants were running low on ingredients though, so after a while we'd simply ask waiters what dishes they could make.  

Soon, we all caught wind of a Thai Navy boat headed towards the islands to pick people up who desperately needed to get off the island.  Since I wasn't in dire straits and I didn't want to fight my way through a huge crowd to get on a crowded boat, I stuck it out.  It did leave many who were reading BBC or CNN online in a panick- namely my mom!  She has been unable to call me while I've been away because she doesn't have international calling capabilities, so I was very surprised to pick up the phone and hear her voice!  But I was happy to hear from her and she was relieved to know I was alright.  

I left with my friends Johanna, Kerri and Javi the next day on a catamaran and 1 1/2 hours later we were back on the mainland at Chumpon, thank goodness!  Javi, Kerri and I parted ways, and Johanna and I boarded a bus bound for Bangkok.  My friends Kerri and Javi (English gal and Argentinian fellow respectively) were headed toward Phuket where they were to catch a flight in a few days bound for Australia.  That was my crew for the flood days, and we had a really good time hanging out considering the circumstances.  Johanna and I would then spend the night in Bangkok and head for Koh Chang, an island south of Koh Samet on the eastern side of the Gulf of Thailand which is close to where I live in Rayong, and were hoping for some better beach weather over there.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the flood days- the place where I stayed, beach trash, and the road through the beach town where I was staying- Hat Sairee.

Big Blue Diving Resort Before...

Restaurant Deck

Deck of the Office

Office

Starting to get cloudy

Flooding begins...

6am

River and ocean meet, no more beach

No beach!

View from the other direction- bungalows up toward the road.  That tree and that hut weren't really there before...and those pipes weren't exposed...and that river wasn't there either.

washed up

Burmese guys who work at Big Blue.  Fillin' some sand bags.

Beach trash

 

Good luck charging your phone with this plug.

Holiday Travels Parts Two and Three: Koh Phangan and part one of Koh Tao

Chumpon was a very lovely place to start my holiday travels and I'm very thankful to Jess for hosting me and touring me around town.  I almost didn't want to leave, but I'd made plans to meet other friends on the island of Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party and I was excited to see them.  Koh Phangan boasts the biggest Full Moon parties (along with half moon, new moon, no moon, waning gibbous moon...) in Thailand.  The beach is huge and the view of the moon is unforgettable.  I was lucky to be there for this particular full moon because it was the famed 'super moon'.  The moon was the largest it has been in 28 years, and that night, I'm tellin ya- it was very huge, and very bright!  The weather while I was on the island wasn't so great, but the sky did clear for the night of the full moon, so it made the whole night even more worth it.

I won't elaborate too much on the whole of the Full Moon party shenanigans.  To be honest, it wasn't an earth shattering experience,  but it was something I wanted to cross off my Thailand bucket list.  It's a huge party on the beach basically.  But I had a good time and kept my whits about me.  You'd probably find a better description of this event in any guidebook to Thailand.  I'm not a huge party type so I'm a bad person to describe this event.  I will say that after 4 days of rain and being around too many farangs, I was ready to get off the island and do something different.

So after 4 days of being surrounded by a lot of neon and plastic buckets, I took a ferry to Koh Tao- the northernmost island in the chain of islands on the western side of the Gulf of Thailand.  It takes about 2 1/2 hours by ferry to travel from Koh Phangan.  My plan was to do a four day open water scuba course, a little bouldering on some sweet granite boulders, and some kayaking around the island.  Part one of this 3 part plan was successful, but the latter two soon became unmanageable due to the severe rains and flood that ravaged the island for nearly 4 days straight.  I was lucky and happy to have cooperative weather for scuba, so I'll talk a little bit about that before delving into the great flood.

This was my second visit to Koh Tao.  The first time I went to the island was with Petey in the beginning of my travels in Thailand in late August.  Petey has his advanced open water scuba certification and was eager to do as much diving as he could.  Koh Tao is known as one of the best  places in Thailand to scuba dive and there must be nearly a hundred dive schools.   It is also one of the cheapest places in the world to get certified or just fun dive (the dives you go on if you are already certified are known as fun dives).  At that point I did not have any scuba experience so I tried a 'discover scuba' class where you get a little bit of instruction in a pool or shallow water first to learn about the gear and get comfortable, then in the afternoon you do a dive with your instructor.  I had a great with this trial of scuba and from experience I was excited for to come back another time when I had a little more money to take a full course to get certified.

The course consisted of watching some videos, a little bit of reading and homework, skills tests in shallow water, skills tests in deeper water, and 5 dives.  The skills include showing you can successfully inflate and deflate your bcd (bouyancy control device- the 'vest' that carries your tank), read your air gauge, take your mask off and put it back on under water, clear your mask of water, control your buoyancy, retrieve your regulator (where your air comes from) if it gets knocked out of your mouth, and resurface at a safe rate.  We also learned about what we would see under water and learned different hand signals for fish and hand signals to communicate with our buddy and instructor.  At the end of the course we were given our Scuba Schools International (SSI- the other internationally recognized scuba school aside from PADI) cards under water after we finished our last skill.  It was a fun little surprise.

Although the visibility wasn't so great at times because the weather was taking a turn for the worse, we still saw a lot of really beautiful creatures.  The underwater world is really incredible and it's pretty amazing that humans have invented a way to withstand the pressure of being submerged for so long- something that is not natural.  I saw batfish, bannerfish, angelfish, blue spotted sting rays, lots of corals and anemones, starfish, a huge and pregnant grouper, regular sized groupers, puffer fish, scorpion fish, trigger fish schools of small barracudas, and so much more.  Being underwater for such a long time (we were down for about 50 minutes on each dive) is unnerving at first, but then when you learn to control your breathing, buoyancy, and you learn about all of your equipment, the act of scuba diving is exciting, relaxing, eye opening and peaceful in a way.  Although you see lots of other divers, hear the bubbles from everyone's regulators and hear your own breathing at an amplified volume, diving to me still seemed very quiet.  It is rare to have complete and utter silence in our daily lives.  The silence of the underwater world is different from the kind of silence we might experience in a normal setting.  Being in a room without the noise from the tv, a cell phone ringing, noises from the street etc. is totally different from the type of quiet you experience underwater.  Underwater the silence is ever-present and you can feel it.  The silence added to the fact that your perspective changes completely makes for a remarkable experience.  When you're underwater, you don't only look around you and up, you have a view below you and all around you.  This feeling can also be a bit unnerving as well.  Once I got used to these feelings, I really liked it.  I was able to just float along, look at fish, reflect on all this, and continue on with observing the life of the reef.  Scuba diving is rad and I'm excited that I'm now certified and can dive anywhere else in the world within my limits, unless I want to go ahead and take an advanced open water course which would certify me to dive down to 30 meters. 

I had a great group of people in my class and we all got along really well so all in all, I really enjoyed my time diving and staying at Big Blue Diving.  I was happy to experience something different and be productive.  After my time on Koh Phangan I was eager to be a bit more active.  And now, I'm certified to dive down to 18 meters (about 60 feet).  Hooray!

The next post will be more exciting and with more photos for you to visualize the next four days of intense rain and flood.

Dive site numero uno- Twins- So named because there are two main towers underneath the water that we can swim around.  Behind this boat is a sandbar that beach goers can walk across that connects these two main islands.  There is another island behind the one on the right side.  This beach is called Ao Nang Yuang I'm pretty sure.  It's one of the only islands in the world of its kind- being connected with a sandbar like it is.  Visitors can hang out on the beach and hike around a bit- there are trails up into those sweet boulders.  On the other side of the sandbar is another dive site called Japanese Gardens.

The other side of Ao Nang Yuang- dive site- Japanese Gardens (I thought it looked like a big salad.  Huge, leafy coral everywhere you looked)

Should be the new cover photo for Lonely Planet Thailand.

holiday travels part one: Chumpon

The past four weeks have gone by in such a blur, that always tends to happen when you're on vacation doesn't it?

It was a great four weeks though and I did a lot of bouncing around to visit different friends and join up with different friends.  I've been lucky to make friends through work and travel, and that allows me to plan future trips to meet up with them.

For this holiday- March 12-April 6 I decided to head south for some good beach and island hopping.  I started out by traveling up around the Gulf of Thailand and then south along the coast toward Chumpon which is located on the Isthmus of Thailand.  If you look on a map of Thailand, Rayong is northeast of Chumpon across the Gulf of Thailand.  Too bad there isn't a boat for that trip...

I was headed to Chumpon via bus from Rayong to visit my friend Jess.  I am really grateful to my Thai gal pal Nick for helping me arrange a bus journey from my town of Rayong instead of having to go through Bangkok.  It can be tough to book buses in my town when I don't speak enough Thai and tehy might not speak enough English.  Nick took care of phone calls and even spoke to the driver so he knew where to stop for me because the bus was bound for Koh Samui- the southernmost island in the chain of island in the southwestern part of the Gulf of Thailand.  I didn't need to go that far, she helped me out a lot with clarifying that.  The trip was about 11 hours- I departed at around 6:30pm and arrived at 5:30am.  Not much to write home about for the journey itself- except that while trying to sleep, I felt little things crawling on me, and saw little things scurrying on the walls of the bus, only to realize they were baby cockroaches.  Yes!  I could really sleep well after that.

I was dropped at a major intersection about 8k from the town of Chumpon.  Were this 7 months ago I would have been mildly freaking out at the thought of being dumped at the side of the road not really knowing where I was.  Now, I just grateful that the Thai bus attendants wake up you in when you've reached your destination.  I know in some other places you might not be so lucky.  At that point I waited with the taxi guys for my friend Jess's Thai family to pick me up. 

I arrived at her house and immediately crashed on the little bed she made for me.  Jess and I know each other from AYC- we met at the seminar I attended before starting work.  We were placed together as roommates at the hotel.  She's originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Go halfway around the world and meet someone that lives within a 5 hour drive of your hometown.

We spent the next four days cooking tacos, (they were delicious and I was excited to have western food after a good while without any) riding bicycles to the beach, swimming in the ocean, and visiting a really cool temple in a cave.  It was a very relaxing and enjoyable mini-vacation.  It was so great to be back on a bike again, and the conversations Jess and I had while riding I will definitely cherish.  Since then, I have promised myself to buy a bike in Rayong.  I don't know why I didn't right away.  I guess I thought I should have a really good purpose, or reason.  But I think the reason to have a bike is so simple I just overlooked it.  You don't really need one specific purpose to have a bike, it will create its own purposes and adventures.

The town of Chumpon is a very livable town and I think Jess really enjoyed it there.  She rides her motorbike to school, but otherwise she rides a bicycle around town and gets to ride through jungle for most rides.  The town is quite large and a bit spread out, but people are just as friendly and the beach is so quiet and amazingly underdeveloped.  This is seriously shocking.  It is a beautiful stretch of sand with only a few guesthouses and one small hotel.  On clear days you can see Koh Tao- the island that's about 3 hours by boat.  The town sees some traffic from tourists on their way to and from the islands and to get across the isthmus of Thailand to the Andaman Sea side, but not too much in the town itself.  On Sunday and Tuesday there's a great market on the main road, selling great food and of course the standard market items- clothes, jewelry, bags, sarongs, wood carvings, etc.  It's a nice atmosphere though. 

It was a really nice trip and I felt so happy there- it was great to be with a friend- especially a midwesterner!  I was a little sad to go, but I knew the next adventure would bring more good times.  Here are some photos from Chumpon.  Enjoy!

Chumpon beach- not much build up!  There's a road behind those trees, and some restaurants.

Being led into the cave by our monk friend. I think his name was Siripim.

 

so happy to ring the bells!

"This Buddha, new Buddha.  200 years old.  That Buddha, old Buddha.  2,000 years old." General time frame for old or young a Buddha in the caves are.  Thank you, Monk Siripim.  Most informative.  But when every Buddha in the cave is 2,000 years old you start to wonder about that time frame...

 

Monk Sirilak was always willing to take photos of us.  On the right is Jess.  Left is Jess's friend and I'm a terrible person because I cannot remember her name at this moment!  Kate, I think.  But photos inside caves are pretty silly since it's so dark, but Siripim would often pause and just say, "Ok, I take photo" and gesture for us to get together.  So, what the heck.

Your turn for a photo Siripim!  

aaand then we got look at the porcupines battle it out for a papaya!  yes!  There's a little 'zoo' at the temple.  There were about 15 porcupines in this cage.  Other animals included brightly colored birds, an ostrich, and lots of turtles.

ahhh. doesn't this one just make you take a deep breath?  to me this is an image of relaxation and jubilation.