Koh Chang

We stopped at Pattaya on the way to our Christmas destinations of Koh Chang and Koh Samet… Terry wanted to show me what’s known as Thailand’s seediest City!! Needless to say we didn’t get many photos but it was an eye opener!
So many Old, White, Fat, Men with young Thai women, or leering after them! In restaurants we were the only couple of same nationality and under 40. Many men dining alone, some in groups of men, and the others with their Thai Lady. We reckoned about 95% of non-locals in Pattaya were male, the only females being the occasional Russian wife! As Terry called it a ‘massive sausage fest’!!
Typical sights...

Obviously the tourist streets were packed with Go Go bars where you could pay hourly, daily, monthly and we are not talking rooms!

As you walk down the streets you know what’s behind closed doors, but actually it’s not pushed in your face, and as a couple we were left well alone!!

Even the beaches were full of 'just men' sitting around...

2 nights in Pattaya was enough to get a good feel for the place and then we swiftly moved on the Islands!

Koh Chang
Koh Chang is Thailand's second largest island, situated in Eastern Thailand. Despite its size the island only has about 5,000 permanent residents. Although the "discovery" of the island as a tourist destination since 2000 has brought on a large amount of rapid development, its still far quieter than places like Phuket or Ko Samui, so we decided to head here rather than the southern islands for a quiet build up to christmas... or so we thought!!

The journey from Pattaya consisted of 3 subotaxi, 3 minibuses and a ferry crossing all in all taking us 7 hours to do probably less than 250km!!
Ferry...

But finally we arrived at our Hostel… and what a spot we picked….
Hostel..

Terry enjoying a dip in our Private Pool..

Koh Chang is definitely one of the most beautiful islands we have come accross so far... with long white sandy beaches, most half deserted.

We had picked the pack backer beach (Lonely Beach) which by day had a chilled out atmosphere and great vibe on the beach…

Sun set on the beach bars was pretty cool..

However lonely beach is not lonely at night…. Our little huts made of wood… failed to keep out any of the pumping base in the next street, that played till 6am every night… Its times like this we realise we are no longer 18 and respect our sleep!!!

Boat trip – Rock the Boat….
We get sucked in to a boat party on our first full day, with apparently FREE Rum, lunch, dinner, drinking games – visiting 3 islands, snorkelling, fishing and monkey feeding. Sounds good you may think…!
So we arrive at the Meeting point on time and loaded into several taxis’s. Once on the boat we waited at least an hour in the port because quite frankly the staff couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery!
When at last we set sail… and the bar finally opened… we were informed to take our ticket to the bar and exchange it for our ONE FREE DRINK!!!! Apparently it was only the staff getting free booze and after an hour or so they were lagging leaving the paying customers thirsty, once the over-priced bar rang out of drink!
As for the drinking games… well musical chairs (life jackets) was hardly that entertaining - but I made Terry join in anyway!!

There were no monkeys, no fishing and we only go to stop at one island. However it was quite beautiful…. But we suspected the clam of Secret Beach – was not so secret as other tours were pulling up too!

Despite Rock the Boat failing to live up to its expectations… we made some friends, had a few drinks and had a giggle……

Bec's (apparently dancing).

A little pole dancing...

The next few days were spent relaxing by the pool and beach, dozing in attempt to make up for lack of sleep due to the Base making our pillows jump up and down!

However despite our bad choice of boat trip at least we got to see the beautiful islands and Koh Chang coastline..

Koh Chang was beautiful island and I think if we were to return we would choose our spot carefully… maybe another, slightly quieter beach!