quite a LONG weekend

this past sunday was a buddhist holiday, and so we had monday off. the long weekend gave us a chance to go on a trip a little further away than we would normally prefer to do in just a two day weekend, and so we opted for the beaches of koh chang. from what we had been told, it was suppose to be so amazing there that once we had been, we wouldnt want to go anywhere else.

to get to the port town of trat takes about 5 hours from bangkok, so we bussed down to trat and spent the night at a cute little hostel there, then woke up in the morning, had breakfast, and headed over to the ferry. we thought the whole thing might take about an hour and half and then we would be on the beach! but no, of course not, because THIS IS THAILAND.

so it took a good half hour at least to get to the port, or what we thought was the port, and so we booked our tickets for the ferry to koh chang, back and our bus back to bkk since it was a good deal. then we climbed into another songthaew and went on another ride to the port. as we were about to enter, the guy stopped us because apparently the four of us who got the package deal did not receive our tickets TO koh chang. great. so we spent about 10 minutes arguing with him, as he was being very not nice, before he finally got smart enough to call the desk, and things were eventually settled. but we had missed the ferry and had to wait for the next one.

so we ferry over to koh chang and are loaded onto another songthaew, this time packed fuller than it should legally allowed to be, and we start on our journey to lonely beach where we had booked our stay. after driving for a half hour, we still hadnt made it, and to make it worse, we were pulled over so that some of the other passengers could go to a bank. we were stopped there in the heat for about 15 minutes before they got BACK on the songthaew and continued on with us, ugh. finally, we saw a sign for lonely beach, and thought we would be getting off. but not yet. our place wasnt that close, and after a little longer, we got dropped off on the top of a hill with a sign pointing down to where we could find our bungalows. at this point, i was not happy, but our place was nice enough and that cheered me up some, until i discovered we had to trek BACK about 15-20 minutes to get to a beach. needless to say, my first moment in the water was long anticipated and well deserved.

the water was crystal clear and definitely the warmest i have yet to encounter here in thailand. the group we went down with was me steph tasha beth jake and eric and then when we got there we met up with david megan and nicole who did ati in chiang mai at the same time we did and are friends with beth from school. we stayed

on the beach all day and had a nice time. i had decided that i wanted a jumping picture at sunset, and so i made everyone stay out until we got a semi good one...after 22 attempts. its much harder to do than it looks.

thats the only one that is semi-good. i need more coordinated friends :P

so after that we got showered and ready and had dinner, then we heard that there was a full moon party on the island somewhere but found out it was way too far for us to go to. some people the others knew from their group joined us and we went to happy hour where drinks 20 baht, then we went back to a bar closer to the beach and danced and drank and swam until we were tired then made the trek back to our bungalows. the next day was more relaxing and basically all we did was stay on the beach and eat. we got to see the start of a gorgeous sunset before some clouds moved in and blocked it, then i ended up reading in a hammock until dinner, which was a nice barbaque. jake and steph and i took a long walk and explored the area some more and then we called it an early night.

i wouldnt say i preferred koh chang more than koh samet, but it turned out better than i expected it to at the start and i ended up having a great long weekend.

o yeah, i also made a new friend:

and steph and i almost puppysnatched yet again. the two of us are dangerous when it comes to baby dogs and the longer we are here the more likely it seems as if we will have a pet pretty soon...