Elephants, buckets, mopeds and nommies on Ko Chang

When we (well Rich) was planning Chris and Kates visit, chris had insisted he wanted nice hotels, no cheapies so Rich got us bungalows on the best resort on the island, which was a bit pricey for Thai standards but in pounds, was still bloody cheap. After our flight and a minibus and a ferry and another minibus we arrived at our resort. And it was very nice. Our bungalows were beautiful with little patio areas, right by the resorts private beach. We had great views, the pool was lovely, and the minibar was well stocked and reasonably priced....brill!!! The downside to all this niceness and luxury though was that the resort was a little secluded. But we'll be able to get tuk tuks or taxi's we thought so we could get around.

We settled into our little bungalows and had spot of lunch at the resort and then decided to go for a bit of an explore, so off we went with our resort umberellas (it was raining!) and had a look at the beach then we ventured up the big steep hill to the main road and turned right. We walked and walked along the windy and hilly road for ages looking for signs of life, it was starting to get dark, and we were all a bit knackered, and vowed to get a taxi home! We finally arrived at a place called Lonely Beach and found a nice looking chilled bar and had ourselves a bucket or 2 and played some cards, then more buckets and cards and a couple of rounds of toasties and more buckets, we got a little pissed! There was a scary moment when a couple of the big stray dogs (there are loads of them in Thailand) had a fight right where we were sitting on the floor, it was all big teeth and drooling, biting and scratching and rolling around, Kate and I were forced into a corner trying to get out of their way as we didn't want to get caught up in it as we nearly did! It was quite scary and nobody could do anything as they were really big dogs, but eventually they fled and we could relax, they'd knocked everyting everywhere but luckily our bucket was still intact!! It got to around midnight and everywhere around us seemed to be shut so we figured we'd better get ourselves a taxi home. Unfortunately for us though, there was no-one about. The girl running the bar said if we started walking along the main road we should be able to flag down a passing truck (the way it's done round here), so we did, but we didn't see any vehicles apart from the odd moped, great, so we had a long and hard walk home, but it was very enjoyable!!

The following day, after a very late start we turned left and got to another little 'town' a lot quicker than Lonely beach and had a look around there. After a bit of discussion we decided to hire a couple of mopeds for a few days so we could get around the island. It only cost 1000 baht (about 15 quid) for 2 bikes for 4 days. So we spent the next 4 days razzing round the island, we pretty much went all the way arond it finding nice little places to eat and shop and takes picutres and the like. We got helmets with our mopeds and were about the only people wearing them as the locals don't and most tourists don't, and we got laughed at a lot, especially Rich as, what with his crazy hair do, he couldn't really fit a helmet on, it just sat on his hair!!! Most evenings we were back at the resort by 9ish with a stash of Samsong and coke and snacks and we made our own 'buckets', then empited the minibars and played cards / monopoly on the patio until the small hours. It was much fun!

We had ourselves an afternoon of elephant trekking while there which was really good. We rode on these elephants through the jungle and to a waterfall where we had a nice swim and the elephants had a drink. They are awesome animals, never been that close before. Chris and Rich both got to sit on the elephants head (rather than on a seat on the back), I reckon Chris really enjoyed that part as he had a silly little grin on his face the whole time! Afterwards we got to feed the elephants which was cool, and we all purchased the photo they took of us early in the ride, although chris and katie didn't realise they were having their picture taken and both looked bored / bewildered, tis a very funny photo!!

Unfortunatly the weather wasn't the best, it was cloudy for the first part of the week so we didn't really spend much time on our private beach. But the sun did put his hat on towards the end, and boy was it hot then, we did have a couple of sunsets on the beach and a little swim in the sea, we couldn't do any kayaking though as it was too choppy, which was disappointing.

It was also Rich's birthday while we were in Ko Chang, but it has to be said he did have a bit of a quiet birthday. We'd had a pretty late night the previous night and so didn't get up till really late. Chris had bought a load of cards with him from everyone and Rich was right proper chuffed with that. He didn't really get any pressies though apart from sweets and silly toys, a bit difficult when you're travelling to get pressies for each other! I did manage to get him a birthday cake, well, several small cakes with some candles!!!

Rich and Chris had to take the bikes back by 2pm, we'd still not had any breakfast so Kate and I lazed by the pool while they sorted the bikes out and organised a lift to the airport for the following day. That seemed to take ages and eventually they returned and we went for our first (and only) meal of the day at the resort about 4pm!! The rest of the day / night was spent in the usual manner of beers, buckets and cards with a reasonably early night as we had another early flight the next day!