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Published: August 9th 2009
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Blog 13 - Koh Chang and the Elephants!
After the craziness of Bangkok we only had a few days left on our Thai visa so decided to head to the island of Koh Chang before facing the land border crossing into Cambodia.
After a 4 hour bus ride and a half hour ferry journey we arrived on the island of Koh Chang, there is so many different places to stay on this mountainous island and nearly all the beaches to stay have a wide selection of accommodation to chose from. We decided to stay on white sands beach as we were only going to be here for a couple of days. Both of us were quite taken back by how developed parts of Koh Chang were and how well integrated with rainforest jungle and hills the development was.
The two main reasons we came to Koh Chang were for me to dive and for both of us to ride Elephants as that was one of the main aims of our trip around Asia!
With only a few days to fit in both diving and riding elephants we had to make the best use of our time on the
island but as we had arrived in rainy season the weather was not being co-operative in providing us glorious sunshine and calm sea’s for some nice dives. Our first full day on the Island was cloudy and overcast with quite strong winds which were making the sea very choppy indeed, The diving was ok in Koh chang but as we were there in the wrong season for diving the visibility was low, the best being about 6m and the worst being 50cm!! Not quite the glorious diving in which Thailand is famous for, however even though the viz wasn’t great there is still some very nice diving to be had off and around Koh Chang and with good conditions the diving here would be very good indeed.
Riding Giants
The next day we had booked to ride the graceful Asian elephants, when we arrived at the elephant trekking centre we were introduced to our ride for the day, a male called “Thongyacht” . After saying hello and being told a little about Thongyacht we went up a ladder and stepped into the seats which had been placed on his back to make our ride as comfortable as possible.
With the weather being less than favourable (a huge rain storm during the night had made the muddy ground more like a mud bath) but the rain holding back for the start of our journey, Thongyacht, steadily made his way through the elephants housing section before stepping out into the jungle behind. We all know that Elephants are extremely large creatures, but I had never banked on just how much food one elephant would eat! Much to the amazement of us both, and probably the guide too, Thongyacht kept taking little detours off the track to go rummaging for some nice looking leaves or plants. Each time his long, flexible trunk would go in search of the best greenery and would immerge from the undergrowth with a massive palm tree leaf wrapped up in the coiling trunk! Happy with his find, Thongyacht would obediently move on in the direction intended until he had finished that particular leaf and go off again on another leaf finding mission! Even when goaded away from his little food foraging missions Thongyacht would still grab at small tufts of long grass and continue to satisfy his hunger whilst transporting us around the pomelo groves and
forest. In the hour in which we were plodding along through the forest I think there must have only been about 5 minutes when Thongyacht was not snacking on some lush greenery! After an hour of elephant riding we returned to his shed and to disembark this majestic creature. Once we had disembarked it only seemed right to feed him some small banana’s by hand as he had just carried us around on his back for an hour or so. So one small banana at a time we hand fed this gentle giant and he treated each one as if it was a special treat just for him. All the elephants at Chang Chutiman elephant trekking centre are all cared for and well looked after and all of the elephants we saw looked very happy and comfortable in their surroundings and how they were treated.
Although our time on Koh Chang was short and the weather wasn’t the best it is still an island that I would recommend people to take the time out to go and see, it doesn’t seem be so well known as many of the other Thai islands and if you go in the rainy
season there are some very good discounts to be had on accommodation with some places offering up to 50% off in low season.
Hope all is well at home.
Take care all,
Love
Lucy and Andy
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childinthewild
island-girl
Koh Chang
Is it possible to go there without taking the plane from Malaysia?