the next chapter: Australia: Koh Chang!!

One of my new most favorite places ever!! This is an island, near the Cambodian border, for everyone! In addition to beatiful beaches (which are probably even more so in the tourist season - November thru March), there is so much to do! One can go jungle trekking, diving, snorkeling, elephant trekking, adventure climbs and swings, mountain climbing, beach bumming, ATV riding, kayaking, dolphin swimming, visit surrounding islands, etc. It is a jungle-clad island, and the third largest in Thailand. It is mountainous and as compared to many other beautiful islands, largely undeveloped! So, one doesn't feel like they are at an attraction, but rather actually on an island. While tourism development has largely expanded in the last few years, there is a large government effort to slow it down in order to keep it natural - the very reason to go there. Everyone (co-teachers/ friends from orientation that were meeting me there) left the island more than impressed and with the feeling that we've just had the most perfect vacation ever!

The two girls and I arrived at the Lam Ngop Pier in the late morning, and got on a massive ferry over to Koh Chang.

It was nothing like the other ferries I've been on in Thailand, so I was quite impressed by the size, and then even more so by the view of the island from a distance. The boat ride was about 45 minutes, and the view was just absolutely breathtaking!

Once we arrived on the island, a sawngtao was there to bring the guests to their respective destinations. Crazy sawngtao driving - we thought people were going to fall right off the back! Because Koh Chang has a mountainous jungle terrain, the drive was very scary, as we went flying up and down and around steep curves. But, what can you do? One certainly can't walk it. Often times in Thailand, Thais say that a distance is too far to walk, when really, it is perhaps a 10-20 minute walk. Jacqueline arrived in the early evening, and called me from the ferry asking if she could skip paying for a sawngtao and just walk to where I was. I replied with a definite "no". There's no walking road first of all, and unless you are actually making a dangerous mountain trekking trip out of it, walking is simply out of the question.

Once I arrived at White Sands Beach, our specific destination (there are many other beach locations around the island), I began looking for this guest house that Howard kept talking about. This is his fourth trip to the island. But, I went the wrong way, and a Scottish guy, Cal, noticed us three girls trekking along the beach with our backpacker rucksacks, and asked if I was looking for a place to stay. I said no, but did he know where this other place was. I never ended up finding the other place, since I was headed in the wrong direction anyway, and stumbled across Cal again in front of the bungalow his mom runs. So, I went to check it out, ended up loving it, and stayed all four nights!

The place is called Independent Bo and is owned by a Thai man named Bo. His ex-wife, Fiona, who is from Scotland, runs the place, and she welcomed me with open arms. Independent Bo is crazy colorful, exotic, friendly, unique, and just downright cool! Each bungalow was completely different from the next (all fan rooms, though), and each required a trek and a half to get there. So, it is not a place for everyone. The colorful bungalows are built up the side of a cliff, and between wooden steps and bridges and stone steps and planks, and going up and down, one has to walk very carefully in this colorful maze of bungalows. I definitely got lost the first few times, as there is no clear path from one to the next. Fiona's son, Cal and his friends, were there on a two week holiday. There were also two Slovenian girls (who told me how to pronounce my last name correctly), a Russian couple and an older Czech man. It is the slow season, so the whole island was pretty empty, relatively, which made Koh Chang all the more wonderful. Because it is the slow season, all accommodations and activities lower their prices, and you can actually bargain your way into great deals. At Independent Bo, it was 200 baht/ room/ night, so since I split a room with one of my co-teachers/ friends, it only cost me 100 baht a night! What a deal! Plus, I had my own bathroom (don't imagine anything too grand; it provided me with a toilet and a shower head). But, the Independent Bo is right on the beach and has wonderful, colorful lounging areas with a "trust" system bar and was full of very friendly travellers.

The lounging area