One Night and One Day on Koh Chang

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Not a Cool Job

It's sounds cool, doesn't it? "Tiger-Tamer!" But, to tell you the truth, Chelly's job really sucks.

She's in there all day with a tiny Thai man, a couple other tiny Kenyans, and a bunch of big, aggressive, teenage tigers who are whole lot curious about what it would look like to claw her face off and what it would taste like to eat her. In fact, one of her co-workers went just this way a few months ago.

On top of that, they have to wear these ridiculous tiger-patterned costumes and they have to smile through hundreds of pictures for pushy tourists every day. The management are jerks and they're always messing around with wages and overtime and vacation and stuff like that. This is why Chelly calls her work, "the Hell."

To add some insult to it, each of the Tiger Tamers is given only 6 days off per month. That is six days total, which means they are working 24 days out of a 30 day month, or 6-day weeks. But, if they get sick or want to visit somewhere, they might end up with a grueling 13-day week, or worse.

Nonetheless, after a couple of days living together in Sriracha, Chelly took two of those precious vacation days and accompanied me to the lovely island of Koh Chang for a brief respite.


Hooray for Buses!

I sent a quick email to my friend Nina, who was teaching divers on Koh Change, and we packed our bags on Sunday night after Chelly got home from work. That put us right on time to catch the last Sangthaew into town, but we didn't have a clue where to go after that.

The best plan we could come up with was to take a bus into Pattaya (the nearest hub city), grab some dinner, and from there hop on the late bus from Bangkok to Trat (the setting-off point for Koh Chang), which had left Bangkok's east terminal at 5:30pm. At Trat, we'd grab a boat over to the island and find a place to sleep, maybe enjoy a Full Moon Party, and then spend the entire following day swimming in the crystal-clear ocean water.

We shoulda done some research, because everything we'd planned on was completely wrong.

First of all, the bus from Sriracha to Pattaya doesn't even stop at a terminal. We figured this out shortly after passing through Pattaya along the highway, panicking, and begging the bus-drivers for help. These drivers were completely un-helpful actually, and they just dropped us there on the side of the road at the far end of Pattaya.

But, we're a pair of smart and resourceful characters, so we came up with a plan to just stand there and wait until another bus came through going in the easterly direction--hopefully it would be heading all the way to Trat.

The next bus came, and after only a few minutes, but this is like standing on the side of the freeway and trying to catch a Greyhound bus: first you gotta read the sign on the front and make sure you want this one, then you gotta get it to pull over for you, then you gotta negotiate a fare from wherever it is you're standing to wherever it is the bus is going. We probably paid too much, but we got on the bus and it was going our way. Unfortunately, it wasn't going all the way.

That bus took us to Rayong, and these bus drivers were incredibly helpful. We'd told them our dilemma when we got on, and they'd expressed some concern but hadn't given us much reason for hope. However, while we were asleep in our seats, these guys radioed to the bus continuing on to Chanthaburi and arranged to meet up in Rayong. So, when we got into Rayong these guys woke us and escorted us--tired and confused--onto the very bus we needed to complete the next leg of our journey.

And luck struck again when we got to Chanthaburi, with that last bus from Bangkok to Trat we'd been chasing having just come in minutes before for a scheduled delay. It was 11:45. We bought our tickets to Trat, saw the sign that said this bus wasn't leaving until 12:30, and ordered some food for dinner. Our food ordered, we sat to decompress for a moment, and that's when I heard the roar of a big bus engine starting up. I turned to see our bus, not scheduled to leave for 45 minutes, pulling out of the terminal without us.

I ran up to the bus, waving our tickets in the air and yelling for them to stop. The bus driver kept his eyes on the wheel and kept driving, with me chasing along less than two feet away outside his window. His stewardess actually looked straight at me as I chased and yelled and didn't do jack, turning to look at the road ahead. So I got desperate.

I jumped out in front of the bus.

And it worked. They stopped. The scowling stewardess smacked on the window like she was shooing off a stray dog, but I stayed where I was standing, slapping our tickets against the glass. Pretty soon, Chelly walked up with our bags and approached the door. The stewardesses vicious glare was one step down from Medusa's, but she opened the door and roughly pulled Chelly onto the bus. I followed her to the last seats at the back of the bus and we quickly passed out for the final stretch into Trat.

We made it in a little after one and learned that the last boats to Koh Chang had departed around 6:00pm (while we were still 7 hours away, packing our bags). So we got some cup-o-soups at the 7-11 for a belated dinner and rented a hotel room for the night.

Despite the doubt--and even outright mockery--of nearly everyone we'd met through the night, we had made it into Trat in one piece. And despite the mistakes and confusion and near-misses and mean-spiritedness we'd encountered, we were actually laughing and smiling about the whole thing. I chock that up to Chelly's joyful character in the face of adversity. It was just like Bangkok: things went wrong, but she was having fun no matter what and she was gonna make sure I had a blast too.

Put that in the job description for Ideal Travelling Companion.


The Ferry Ride

It was a good thing that there hadn't been a boat for us to catch that night, because the voyage to a cheap guesthouse on the island would have really taken the steam out of us. Not that the trip wasn't pleasant, I loved it in fact, but doing it at 1 or 2 in the morning would have been hell.

We started on a cheap chartered Sangthaew to the fishing village of Laem Ngop, where we sat on a ferry terminal and waited for the boat with a very pleasant group of Thais. Every time we see a child, Chelly lights up, whether infant, toddler, or brat. I light up too, because I really love kids. And there were a lot there on the ferry dock for us to make faces at, say "Sawasdee" to, and frighten the heck out of with our wierd Farang clothes and skin-colors.

After a while, the ferry came, and we boarded amidst a chaos of motorcycles, backpackers, cars, trucks, and big rigs--all loaded-on at the same time.

We found our seats and settled in for a beautiful hour of gazing at the early-morning fishing boats and taking cute pictures of one-another as the sun rose in the sky.


On Koh Chang, Finally

All of Thailand's tourist-sites seem to me like something out of Hades, the ancient Greek hell: perpetually being built-up and expanded while simultaneously crumbling to pieces. The roads on Koh Chang are some of the worst anywhere; full of cracks and bumps, twists, turns, and rises, bent-up guardrails; then all along the sides you see the construction of new high-class resorts.

Koh Chang means, "Elephant Island," which I assume is in reference to its size (the largest on the Gulf of Thailand), because there are no elephants there. Interestingly enough, the island is a nature preserve. However, this is one of those national park areas that Thailand is famous for, where the laws have gone un-enforced and much of the protected areas have been bulldozed over for resort-hopping foreigners to have a place to sleep and money-grubbing businesspeople to have a place to charge said foreigners absurdly high prices for goods and services.

From the pier, we jumped on a Sangthaew that was headed to the farthest-point possible: the "sleepy" fishing village of Bang Bao, which the guidebooks said was the secluded and pleasant place on the island.

The roads, as I've said, were rough. Also, they were winding. Also, we were in the back of a pickup truck, sucking in exhaust and dust the whole way. Also, we'd jsut come from a boat, which hadn't done our tummies too well to start with.

So the excitment of the adventure was fading fast and we were both getting ready to hurl by the time we got into Bang Bao. Once we saw the 7-11 and the ATM and the strips of bathing suit shops, we started to actually taste the bile. But all that bad-feeling went away as soon as we got some food and set about our next task.


Bang Bao

It really was a great, sleepy fishing village, once you got your bearings.

We haggled for a swimsuit for Chelly and then pushed past the shops for a stroll along Bang Bao's floating boardwalk. Very quickly, we found a great restaraunt and sat down for breakfast.

This place was sweet. It looked like one of the nicer restaraunts out on the Seattle waterfront, but Thai style. At the end of the long stretch of outdoor-dining tables was a floating barge with low tables and cushions for kneeling or lying on. We sat there under a Singha Beer sun umbrella and opened up our menus.

The food was really cheap, considering it was easily the best Thai meal I've had in the country so far. We ate red curry and green curry and washed our steamed rice down with a frosty lemon shake (Thai shakes are blended juices with ice). All the while we gazed around the bay of Bang Bao and shared little kisses between feeding one-another more spoonfuls of food.

After snapping off a couple of pictures, we made our way down to the very end of the boardwalk.

The floating, wooden street passes a cluster of shops at first, then the shops fade out into restaurants, then the restaraunts give way to fish shops, all along you have diving shops offering tours and courses, then finally--at the end--it becomes a legitimate dock for large fishing boats and tour boats. We went to the end of this dock and stood there in a soft breeze from the bay, looking around for a beach we wanted to spend the night on.

It wasn't tough to pick a suitable beach, it really came down to whichever one we could get to first. But, that was the problem, we couldn't get to any.

We talked to quite a few people, but quickly figured out that none of them offered boat-taxis around here. If they did have boats, they were tied up with the diving schools or the tour companies, or someone was out fishing on them. Even with Chelly's grasp of Thai, we couldn't hire a boat for the life of us.

But, we did find a helpful European backpacker, and he tipped us off to a great-sounding place called the Treehouse.


Treehouse

I love treehouses, as everyone knows: I practically grew up in one. I also love cool guest houses right down by the water, with great food for not a lot of money and a beach so close you can spit on it. This was how the place had been described, and we headed there with haste.

The Sangthaew was quick, but it just dropped us on the side of the road, far from the beach. WTF? That's when we saw the first sign.

There was a dirt road here, winding between little outdoor cafe/bars and bamboo-tattoo shops, and scattered all along the road were palm trees with little signs nailed to them that read, "Treehouse". Basically it was a treasure hunt, and we followed the signs past turns and branches and a handful of quite-attractive clumps of bungalows, all the way down to the golden reward at the end.

Treehouse was all we had been told it was, except it wasn't in a tree.

Yeah, I didn't get it. There were plenty of trees around, but none of them were in use in the structure of any buildings. So what? The place was great!

We weaved through the adorable beach-front bungalows to the totally rad Treehouse restaurant and bar--which was completely built out over the water--with a round, wall-less center hut and several expansive decks of tables, cushions, and hammocks. (Even the share-toilets and showers were awesome: independent buildings hand-made from jungle stones and mortar, with out-of-this-world vines growing through the walls and forming their roofs.)

After checking in, we went to our bungalow only to find another couple rooting around in our hut! But, they were just the previous tenants, an hour late to check-out, 'cause that's the kind of pace people live on out here. We changed into our bathing suits and went to soak in the water while they got packed up and the place was cleaned.

After a brief swim, Chelly changed and went over to the restaraunt for lunch. I waded out a few hundred feet (seriously, this water was wicked shallow) until the ocean was deep enough to swim in, and had a good float.

I floated on my back and sucked in all the sights and soiunds and smells and tastes. With water clear enough to see through all the way to the bottom, I could watch the flounders as they brushed against my feet. Looking up, I could watch fast wisps of white cloud drift across the sun. On the horizon: water, and a few tiny islands. I heard backpackers chat in low voices and the occassional musical laugh of a young woman. I could smell salt and palms and cooking food, almost strong enough to taste it.

We'd arrived.


One Night

Sadly, the trip had taken us a lot longer than expected, and we were gonna get only one night on Koh Chang. I had to bag any plans to meet my friend Nina and in order to get Chelly home in time for work on Wednesday we'd need to leave no later than 4:00pm tommorrow afternoon. So we were gonna have to make this night count.

I swam over to the deck of the restaraunt where Chelly was sitting and tried to give her a scare. Yeah, she saw me. She laughed at me floating down there below here and asked me to come up for some food. I obliged, scaling the wooden-pole structure of the deck and climbing over the railing to find a sun chair waiting there for my own lounging purposes.

This was another great meal, but this is the part of the movie where the camera fades out, only to fade back in on our pair of lovebirds a few hours later when their lying in bed with clothes scattered everywhere and sweat on their foreheads.

We napped through the sunset, then headed back to the Treehouse restaurant for dinner.

Dinner was again fantastic, with lovely ginger/lemon/watermelon shakes to help us wash down our pork satay and BBQ barracuda steaks. We sat and listened to clumps of foreigners talk about their travels and joked with the children. This time I went against character and didn't make any new friends, content to spend this night with the one I'd brought.

We spent the better part of it sprawled out on the beach.

Take a rickety wooden bridge from Treehouse and follow a rocky trail and you'll soon find yourself on Lonely Beach. The tide goes out at night and reveals acres of soft, smooth sand. We walked barefoot through the tiny grains, looking at all the colored lights and smiling as we passed the quiet little beach bars, all nearly-deserted at this peak hour.

At some point we found a bar that had lain out carpets for sitting on almost all the way down to the water, and they'd peppered the area with litel torches to give their patrons light and keep the mosquitos away.

We sat there on the beach together and lost track of time, cuddling and laughing and snapping off pictures just for fun. We were totally happy and as soon as we saw the first yawn it was time for bed. No need to stay up all night drinking and partying with the tourists and the backpackers, we were on Lonely Beach, but we weren't lonely.


One Day

The early bedtime afforded us a lot of extra time in the morning. Even after sleeping in, we were some of the first to get into the restaraunt and order a ridiculously large breakfast. We got french toast and tuna melts and an avocado chicken wrap (my first avocados in Asia, so, so welcome!), two more ginger/lemon/watermelon shakes, and a crepe with fruit and chocolate sauce and sweet milk. And we took our time with it all.

We met another cute couple and they steered us to some shaded hammocks where we could lay and digest. After completely losing track of time, we headed down to the beach.

The water was in, which meant a gradual slope of gentle sands under the clear ocean. I jumped in as soon as I could see it, but the thing is, Chelly can't swim.

Yeah, who knew? Her parents live on the coast of the Indian Ocean, I mean come on. But it was alright, 'cause I just ended up carrying her through the water the whole time--when she wasn't wading along with me and when we weren't floating gracefully together hand-in-hand.

(Somebody better kick me for the sappy, sentimental crap I'm writing. And soon.)

This was a highlight of the trip, as the beach melted into the sea and the sea melted into the sky and the sky melted into the clouds and then the sun and more sky and that sky melted into the trees and that back into the beach. The world around me looked like a handful of God's favorite crayons had been left out in the sun while he forgot about drawing and went to sit on the beach for awhile. And I was melting every time Chelly looked over at me with those big brown eyes.

Time wore on, however, and it was getting close to the hour for heading home.

We walked back along the rocky trail, past a pair of benches with a Bob Marley handkerchief hanging and a sign that said "Closed until later". Then we were on the bridge, and then there was this guy I could swear knew.

He looked just like somebody I'd met a couple weeks before in Bangkok, and he got closer as I tried ot figure it out.

"Bazin?"

It was Nina's Swiss boyfriend, the one she'd had some trouble with and left behind in the south, the one who'd followed her to Bangkok and then ended up apart from her the whole night while we ran into a series of mishaps involving ping-pong balls and rowdy Aussies.

"Hello." He said with a smile. He remembered my name and seem like he was expecting us.

"I'm just going for a swim, Nina is at the Treehouse having some lunch."

And off he went. And I was beaming. What a great coincidence to add to a wonderful day, my friend Nina who I'd given up hopes of seeing was right here at the same place we were, of all the places on this whole huge island.

So we went down to Treehouse and we found Nina and she met Chelly and Bazin came back and we all caught up and talked for a while. After a bit, the conversation slowed down, and the boys were looking longingly at the girls, and the girls were smiling softly at the boys, and we split up. It really was great to see them, and maybe I'll get another chance before I leave this corner of the world.

After that, we had an intense hour of arm-bending Thai massage, during which I fell asleep and mumbled Chelly's name a few times (or so she tells me). Then we had a shower and headed off up the road.

On the way out, we ran into a pair of tattoo artists who were promoting a big party to happen that night. It seemed we came just in time to miss everything, one night after the huge parties of Loi Kratang, and one night before the smaller parties got started again for the week. We didn't miss anything, though.

We left smiling.

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Comments

[Aaron Brown]

"I chock that up to Chelly's joyful character in the face of adversity. It was just like Bangkok: things went wrong, but she was having fun no matter what and she was gonna make sure I had a blast too. " I have to wonder what this girl grew up eating- links in fat soluble nutrient density to a joyful character(I just got back from the Weston A. Price Foundation conference). They have flounder there huh? '(Somebody better kick me for the sappy, sentimental crap I'm writing. And soon.) ' Ha, you have to bring that out sometime- even Odysseus I'm sure was quite sentimental when needed.