Advertisement
Published: January 8th 2013
Edit Blog Post
I am now back in Muang Samsip with the wind sending a cooling breeze through our house. Yet the last week was one to remember as something of a first. The first time on a Thai beach. First time I’ve awoken on a Thai beach with no recollection of the New Year’s night that brought me there. And not the first or the last time I’ve taken the night in for a night out.
Our journey took the best part of 27hours, thanks to booked up buses, a 40 minute stop off for the driver to excavate his nose, and a ferry change when ours broke down. Definitely taking a mini bus back to Bangkok! We crammed into a Songtaew and winded our way around the narrow roads till we arrived, weary, at Koh Chang’s backpacker central. Lonely Beach.
We stayed in bungalows that were simple, stilted affairs with a hot shower (depending on which one you were in), and owned by Magic Resort. This temporary housing became progressively grimier as the week’s session evolved, made worse by the sounds of ants and lizards crawling on the other side of the thin walls. By day 5, Robyn and Claire’s
bathroom was strewn with sodden swimwear and a thick trail of ants marched away with bits of leftover biscuits. Yet Magic Resorts food, drink and music more than made up for this. As the whole main building was on stilts, meals were brought up on a pulley from the kitchen below, (the grilled Barracuda and BLT’s are arroy maak). The bars specialty was buckets of whatever concoction you desired. A favourite was pineapple, orange and cranberry juice topped with a full glass of Sangsom rum, (dubbed the Charlie bucket by its creator). At 150baht these fuelled hard pre-drinks and a harder night, the main one being New Year’s Eve itself. Lonely Beach’s best bars were Ting Tong for its continuous Dub and Reggae nights, and Himmel Cocktail bar where they set alight to the bar whilst people danced in the flames. On one night, Charlie and I took a shot named Batman’s sperm out of an actual ring of fire (still unsure what is in it). The beach club is Siam bar yet I cannot give a good description of its ambience since both visits were done under the influence of far too much of everything alcoholic. It is here
that we partied for the countdown.
New Year’s Eve, and the drink was flowing. Between buckets and numerous revelations in ‘I have Never’ games, Ben, Charlie and I decided shirts were unnecessary and dressed formally in ties and bowties. From here on out it is a drunken haze of dancing to throbbing beach techno, seeing fireworks and jumping through flaming door frames. Accounts show I was here, there and probably everywhere. Claire claims I ran off with her bucket. Lewis tells me I made him jump into a Thai wedding in search of a toilet, leaving him there for 15 minutes of awkward silence, and then running off for the countdown. One certainty is going into the sea as my watch still has droplets inside and my phone drowned. A memorable New Year that I struggled to remember, (still have no idea how I ended up without shoes).
The best hangover cure (next to having a double breakfast from the Magic Resort kitchens) is cooling off in the Thai Gulf. It is the clearest water I have ever seen, like a sea of crystals sparkling off into the distance. Its calmness is overwhelming and small waves beat gently against the white sands. I bought a snorkel but saw little except feet and coloured stones. Instead, we took to floating rather than swimming, drifting through the warmth till the sunset. Together, we watched as the sun sank into the sea, sending deep orange light across the skyline. It was stunning. Like God had dunk a giant Jaffa cake into the Gulf. In the last moments of light a shoal of fish jumped towards the horizon. Who needs a snorkel when you can just sit back and take it all in?
This little piece of paradise had everyone calling their hosts, informing them that no buses were travelling out of Koh Chang till Saturday. In this extra time off some made it 7 nights in-a-row out (hats off to Ben, Charlie, Robyn, Alex and Amy), others went snorkelling and Island hopping. I simply chilled from bungalow to beach, beach to bungalow with Claire and temporarily forgot about teaching. Nevertheless, a growing money deficit and eventually boredom seeped in and despite the urge to carry on travelling, we returned to our projects.
So here I am again; blogging, lesson planning and trying to work out how the ants got into the kettle. Yet I will never forget Koh Chang or the time spent there, (with the exception of alcohol-induced memory loss). An amazing place with some amazing people, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the year.
P.S. I know Christmas Day is missing from this but here’s a photo of our Christmas meal at an Italian. Big thank-you to my family who sent me and Ben presents, to school who got us to sing Rudolph to the assembly, and to my students who belted out renditions of ‘The 12 days of Christmas’. If you want to see more of what happened then check out Ben’s video blog:
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0517s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb