I Haven’t Been Everywhere, But It’s On My List: Bang Bao, Koh Chang

Our time in Bangkok seemed to slip by quickly and we departed early on Saturday morning, escaping the dead heat of the afternoon. The days leading up to our exit were filled with many walks, lots of food, boat rides, and Buddhist monks. One of my favorite outings included taking a river boat through the city and seeing the incredible architecture along the shores. We stepped off of the water taxi at the Grand Palace and realized that it was closed when we neared the gate. I snapped some pictures of it from the outside and we moved on down the road.

Aboard the water taxi in Bangkok

A temple along the river

I love the monks! (this is really not OK to take picts of them, I'm sorry)

We didn't even have to hit up Tokyo to find Godzilla!

We each received our visa to visit Vietnam successfully on Friday and we quickly made plans to leave Bangkok and head to Koh Chang island, near the Cambodian border. That evening, after purchasing my new camera (finally), I sat down and had some noodle soup at an outside cart. The woman was incredibly nice and patient at my novice Thai soup skills and helped me season and spice up the bowl before digging in. She kindly gave me a bottle of water when she saw how spicy it was for me. The locals at the other tables laughed a bit but I had fun and the soup was some of the best I have ever had. For around a dollar, I was full and ready for bed.

We took a tuk-tuk from our hostel to the main bus station. I took a short video of the ride and Lucian is quite displeased about being filmed so early in the morning. When we arrived to purchase our tickets to Trat, we realized all of the signs were in Thai and we were a bit lost. We finally found the correct booth and realized it was 7:33 AM and the morning bus left at 7:30 AM. The woman in the booth seemed unaffected by the time and booked us two seats o the 7:30 AM bus. We rushed to the platform and realized the bus driver was enjoying a cigarette and chatting with other drivers. We piled our backpacks at the bottom and climbed aboard. We were given a muffin, some shortbread cookies, and a bottle of water as well.

The bus ride was long and I slept through most of it. About 4 hours after riding, the bus came to a halt outside of a shack-like building and we were told that if we wanted to go to Koh Chang that we get off here. We were the only foreigners that got off, which made me a little nervous, but we booked our ferry tickets from the shack then climbed aboard our transportation to the docks. The taxi was a truck, with seats in the bed and we crammed about 10 people aboard, luggage and all. We flew down the road and arrived at the ferry terminal about 20 min. later.

The short ferry ride from Trat was beautiful and we arrived in Koh Chang around mid-afternoon. After taking another converted truck taxi ride to our town of Bang Bao, we set off in search of the highly rated Cliffside Cottages to rent our bungalow and being a little R & R. We were a bit far off of the beaten path and finally stumbled upon the bungalows. The reservation / restaurant / relaxing area was beautiful, but we were a little underwhelmed at the sight of our accommodations. The bungalow, excuse me, storage shack, looked like it could fall apart at any moment and didn't seem strong enough to support the weight of both Lucian and I.

We decided we were too tired to care at that point and went off in search of food, which had not consumed since the previous evening. The rest of the day was spent walking around Bang Bao, sampling some Thai cuisine, and relaxing at our cliffside shack. We spent most of the evening in the common area, near the shore, with millions of stars in the distance. A mix of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys played on the deck. It was a nice evening but sleeping on styrofoam dulled the magic a bit. We are moving up the coast to another set of bungalows. Overall, the island is quite lovely and I would love to do some snorkeling while I am here