Koh Chang

Hey Everyone!
My first week of vacation was great! A group of us left for Koh Chang on Sunday. Koh Chang literally translates into “Elephant Island“ in Thai and is the second largest island in Thailand. We rented a minibus to take us to Trat, the port town, which took about 4 hours. Then we hopped on a hour long ferry which brought us to the northernmost point of the Island. The island is gigantic, mountainous, and covered in green jungle. The roads are all very curved with sharp turns and all hills. A lot of people rent motorbikes, which is extremely dangerous, so we took a Songthaew (the pickup trucks with benches in the back).
We first went down the northwest coast of the island, and stopped in White Sand Beach, where we rented bungalows. It was pretty late so we just went to bed, after eating delicious street food. My favorite is a guy who made crepes filled with fruit…YUM! Half the group decided to get scuba certified, so they did a 4 day course, while the rest of us decided to explore the island.
The next day, Scott, Sarah, Matt and I decided to do a jungle trek on Elephants. We went to the middle of the island, and found an elephant encampment. Scott and I rode together through the jungle. The elephant went up mountains, and through rivers. It was absolutely incredible. It was a little bit painful on the behind, but a really good way to see the inside of the jungle. I was enjoying it very much until a GIANT jungle spider dropped on me. I of course screamed bloody murder, but made it out alive (of which I cannot say the same for the spider). After the trek we fed the elephants fruit and bamboo, which was so fun! That night we had dinner on the beach, and watched a fire show, with Thai fire dancers.
The next day, we decided to head further down the west coast to Lonely beach…the operative word being “lonely”. This beach was deserted, but we decided to stay there anyway in a hut on Bai Lan bay. It was very quiet and peaceful. They boys hiked to a waterfall, while Sarah and I explored Bai Lan. I got a “foot scrub”, which basically was a pedicure on steroids. Seriously they basically took some kind of tool resembling a potato peeler, and slathered some kind of chemical on my feet which resulted in the removal of about 10 years of calluses. My feet were pretty much jacked up from running the marathon in June, and now they are smooth as a baby’s bottom! They probably don’t do these in America for a reason, but by golly I highly recommend it to anyone!
The next day, we headed down to Bang Bao, the southernmost tip of the island to meet up with a couple people from our group who had finished the scuba course. Bang Bao officially has the most beautiful beach I have seen in Thailand yet. We pretty much swam all day, and laid under a palm tree. That evening we went into the town, which was a pier and then a bunch of restaurants and shops in stilts floating over the water. We had a nice dinner, and then decided to hop a taxi to a bar we had heard of called “the tree house”. We go to the tree house, which was basically a giant tree house in the middle of the jungle. It was a little bit rickety, with boards breaking at every turn. It was very hidden, and I am sure if I tried to find it ever again, I wouldn‘t be able to. All of a sudden you walk down this long path and come upon the giant tree house filled with hundreds of people having a huge party. We had a blast, and somehow made it back to Bang Bao alive.
We woke up the next morning, and 4 of us decided to go back to Ban Phe. As amazing as Koh Chang had been, we were a little worn down from sleeping for 4 nights on what essentially was a wooden plank covered in a sheet under a mosquito net. We were also showering in a pipe made out of bamboo with freezing cold water trickling out. Some of us also mysteriously smelled of pee (most likely from the aforementioned plank bed). Needless to say we decided it was time to leave, as we had seen more than half of the island.
We hopped on a songthaew to take us back to the pier in the north. As I mentioned before the roads are pretty treacherous, and if you know me, I am “sally seasick“. I actually made it to the pier without vomiting, but cannot say the same for Matt and Scott, who both got off the Songhthaew and immediately puked. We jump on the ferry, and everything was fine, until the ferry stopped, and started kicking up sand. The ferry had beached itself, and we took an extra 30 minutes to arrive in Trat. At this point it had started to monsoon. We realized quickly that we had missed the last bus back to Ban Phe so we tried to get a taxi to drive us the 3 hours. We finally found a man who would take us, in the rain, in a Songthaew. We get in and it is pouring rain. We are all soaking wet, our backpacks are soaking wet, we smell less than great, and are driving through flooded streets. We look up meet each other’s eyes, and start dying with laughter at the whole situation. Hour later, we FINALLY arrived back in Ban Phe at our apartments (after much persuasion of the driver to not leave us in the main city center about 20 miles from our place). It was dark, and still raining, but we made it back…cold, wet and smelly. I took my first hot shower in 5 days, and will be taking my laundry into town immediately to wash out the mysterious pee smell.
Overall, it was a great trip, with great company, on a beautiful island…but I think you can tell I am happy to be home!

Still no placement, and the forecast is not looking good. Some of the confirmed placements have fallen through and now about 8 of us still need to be placed. Basically most of the positions left are either online teaching, or in Bangkok…neither of which I really want. I am going to call our boss tomorrow and see what is going on, (and how much more vacation time I have). If I don’t start until the 15th, like I think, then I am going to plan a trip to Angkor Wat, and possibly Vietnam. Hopefully I can see as much of Asia as I can before I succumb to the inevitable teaching!
I miss you all. Take a hot shower and eat some Mexican food for me!! xoxo