Blogs from Ko Chang, South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 5

So, I may have mentioned that it has been quite a week on Koh Chang. Lisa and I had planned to top up our tans, relax by the sea and enjoy our last few days together in a state of cocktail induced bliss. Not so. After our mission to get here and then a below average accomodation situation we were bummed out but ready to give the island a second chance. We knew it was low season here but this is obviously lower than low. There's like 18 people here or something stupid. Ok- slight exaggeration but the place is dead. This might also have something to do with the fact that it has been raining non stop. No- to tell the story proplerly I better go back to the beginning. We spent our first day ... read more

It's pouring with rain so it seems a good time to update my blog. It's been pretty good weather all the time I've been here, which is four or five days (I've lost all track of time, day or date) and it's poured all day, which is the pay off for it being so lush on this island compared to the mainland, which is quite barren in places, it being the dry season. I'd love to visit during or after the wet season as currently none of the island's famous (famous once you're here that is) waterfalls have any water, which puts a slight dampener on things, as it were. It is very beautiful here, it's much like the island from Lost or Jurassic Park, minus the plane crashes and dinosaurs. Steep, jungle clad mountains flatten ... read more

Landing in Bangkok around noon, the time change hangover wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. We made our way over to Th Khao San road to set up our digs. It was much like I had remembered, with few changes in the way of more stalls to buy stuff, and some different things out on the stands. We found the guest house quite easily, a favourite of mine from last time “New Joe”, just off the main road, and set about wandering up and down Khao San checking things out and attempting to relax (an almost impossible feat). A few hours after checking out most of the stalls and going from one end to the other we were standing on a corner discussing our plan of action for the next few days when a Thai ... read more

In Thailand, when the captain of a boat says the weather is too dangerous to carry on, he starts laughing. Thats when I started worrying. Thailand's coast was far away behind us and the nearest real land was Burma to our Starboard - which is on the righthand side for you landlubbers. A looming grey cloud piled up over Burma and another storm was rolling in from the sea ahead, which is the Fore. Or the Stern. But it didn't matter right now, as the captain was looking very stern himself. His small wooden boat was being lashed with rain and wind. Our ferry journey started as a cheerful trip but now we had fallen silent, soaked and slightly seasick from the side to side pounding. The barefoot captain and his swarthy crew were gripping the ... read more

According to a survey conducted by Project Gutenberg and based on 30 million words used in cinema and literature, the three most common words in the English language are You, I and to. If, instead of thousands of movies and books, had the research been carried on using Ya (the bungalows' keeper of the place where I'm lodged on Ko Chang)'s english as basis, the results would have been surprisingly different. After ten weeks on the island I've come to understand that Ya is a minimalist. Not in the philosophical or artistic meaning of the word, but in the plain, literal one: Ya reduces everything to its bare minimum, vocabulary included. He's got three phrases that combine a hundred different meanings: 1. For sure, which might mean surely, are you sure? I'm not sure, maybe and ... read more