I think the term is big-city-itis and the symptoms include an aversion to mass rapid transit, being fed up with smog, indecisiveness due to many options for what to eat for dinner AND pale white skin. Call it whatever you like, by the time we arrived in Bangkok and spent a few days there - we were ready to head somewhere quiet and a little more remote. While we loved Singapore, KL, Penang and Bangkok (all for different reasons), we needed to take a break from SE Asian city life.
Cue Koh Chang which is an island off the east coast of Thailand and has been our home now for 4 days AND we'll be staying for awhile longer…. We took the flight from Bangkok to Trat airport and then the ferry across to Koh Chang. A long but relaxing way to get here.
Koh Chang island is part of a huge national park area in this part of Thailand and is an awesome mix of jungle and beach. There are plenty of tourist strips here (White Sands Beach, Lonely Beach, Hat Sai Khao) with their pubs, nightclubs and buckets of brightly coloured cocktails all for the price of a decent espresso in Sydney. We decided to steer clear of those beaches though - and are staying on the West Coast at Bai Lan Bay which is a fairly quiet part of town. Our semi traditional Thai hut is on stilts, overlooking a rocky beach on one side and the jungle on the other. We're trading off no internet access for the peaceful crashing of waves that we fall asleep to every night and the awesome Thai / seafood restaurant on site. A good trade methinks. We're spending our days reading, walking the island, swimming on the small beach and might muster up the energy to do a cooking class or two before we move onto the next spot. Its lovely to be somewhat off the grid for awhile….
