By After a few pretty hectic weeks we left Denmark and flew to Bangkok on a one-way ticket. All of our belongings are stored back in Denmark, and we now only have what we can carry (well, maybe a liiiiittle bit more…).
The night before we left, we booked a hotel in Bangkok – we had been much more focused on moving all of our belongings and starting a new life in Australia, so planning the time in-between Denmark and Australia was not a priority. We booked 3 nights in the same hotel where we spent our last nights on our round-the-world trip last year. A great way to start a new trip 🙂 And a great hotel to relax and enjoy pool time or the playground. If you ever go to Bangkok with kids, stay here! – Chatrium Residence Sathon.
When arriving in Thailand that Sunday morning we had no idea what would happen after the 3 nights, except that we wanted to go to a beach destination. After looking at the weather, the tourist factor, and the distance we decided to go to Koh Mak, Koh Chang and Koh Samet. These islands were chosen over Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao where the weather would also have been good this time a year.
We took a 6 hour taxi drive from the hotel in Bangkok to Trat, which is the port city closest to Koh Mak. Koh Mak was going to be the most basic of the islands we were visiting. And it definitely was! After one night in Trat, where we never found a decent restaurant and had yoghurt from 7/11 in our room for dinner, we went to Koh Mak. We were very excited to go there as basic is normally music in our ears. But the place we ended up was just too basic and not charming in any way. The village seemed almost shut down and the beach was overflown with garbage and dogs. So we made a quick decision and left again the next morning (also the reason why we don’t really have any pictures from there). One speed boat trip later and we were on Koh Chang. I do have to say that when leaving the island from the other side we did see a few places that could have been nice, but the beach was still filthy.
This is one of the things I love about traveling with no fixed schedule. That plans can be changed spontaneously. If we like a place we stay longer (which we did on Koh Samet), and if its the opposite, we just leave. And it is almost always possible to make changes with very short notice. You can always find a boat or a driver to take you to your new destination within the next 10 minutes. So basically you can never go wrong.
At Koh Chang we found the white sand beach we had wanted, and the kids loved it. The water was almost too warm for swimming – if that’s even possible? But with a swimming pool and some beach toys we could even sit down for dinner while the kids were playing. LOVELY! We stayed on White Sand Beach and didn’t really venture around except for up and down this beach. At our hotel we had a waterslide and Carla was so happy, she did not want to leave, and we decided she didn’t really had to 🙂
I will never be a fan of Koh Chang, it was a bit too commercialized in a ‘cheap plastic chairs and mid range tourism’ kind of way. But it was great for what it was – beach time, pool time and family time.
…so I said that transportation can be arranged at any time at any price. True. But its not always comfortable. When leaving Koh Chang we had arranged transport with the hotel. This means that the woman in the reception called someone she knew and probably got paid for it. But anyway all of us had been sick and throwing up, so we decided to just go with the hotel lady’s arrangement. We were picked up in a minivan and joined other travellers as well. After driving for 15 minutes we stopped and were told that the ferry was not part of our negotiated price. Which it was. And so it ended up, but only after some discussion (always be prepared for that :-)). When arriving on the mainland again we drove around for an hour while the driver was doing his own personal stuff, like stopping by a shop where his TV was being repaired… On mentioning that we would like to just go to our destination the driver got really upset and told us we could just get off and pay for a taxi. We stayed… And then the next stop was the bus station. Since we had only paid for two seats, but were using 3, the driver went to find another passenger. And 30 minutes later we were finally on our way. When we came close to the port to Koh Samet we were suddenly dropped off by the main road. All the other passengers were going elsewhere and a tuk tuk driver took us the rest of the way. Happy to be out of the cramped van we drove off, only to realize that we had forgotten a bag in the minivan, which by now was half an hour down the road… Well, somehow it always works out, and we agreed (after some hefty new discussions with the driver) to split the bill for a motorcycle to bring the bag to us. It worked, and we were finally off to pleasant Koh Samet with all of our belongings (minus the ones we had stored in Bangkok).
I’m so happy that we did the island hopping in this order and had Koh Samet as our final destination. This way when we found the island feel that we had been looking for we decided to stay longer than expected. Koh Samet was really nice. The most incredible beaches with soft white sand, nice chill out places and restaurants, and a nice small boutique hotel.
When I was a teenager I was very passionate about volunteering at a foster home in Pattaya. However, at that time I was too young to volunteer, and later when visiting Thailand I didn’t go to Pattaya out of respect for the victims of the sex industry. Despite this, it has kept on being one of those place I would like to see. So here 20 years down the road from when I wanted to work at the foster home I sat my foot in Pattaya for the first (and last) time. It was exactly as nasty as I had imagined, and while I’m glad we went, I will never go back…
We rounded up our Thailand trip in Bangkok in our ‘old’ hotel. So much for my ‘never going back to the same place’ motto. I guess some places are just too good not to go back to.
We visited Khao San Road – a small trip down memory lane to a time before kids ;-), the Grand Palace and the gigantic reclining Buddha as well as just spending some time doing big city shopping and eating (yay for Cinnabon!).
Next up is Indonesia, starting with Bali. We can stay in Indonesia for 60 days, so let’s see where we will end up going. I’ll keep you posted 🙂
GoCargus 