Koh Chang, Thailand

A few weeks ago I met my wonderful friend Sara in Thailand for a week of beach and relaxation. We planned the trip months ago, for the purpose of both celebrating both the end of our two fantastic years together in Korea, and the beginning of our dream years of 'freedom.' Both of us will be traveling, spending time at home, volunteering, and just plain enjoying life until next September, when reality will give us a good kick in the face and we'll have to get back to being proper citizens. But for now, we were going to Thailand with no worries.

We both had rough transit trips coming into Bangkok, so we were pretty zombied by the time we met up at the terminal at 7:30 in the morning. We were happy to see each other, after a couple of weeks apart, even if all we could manage were a couple 'hey.'s. We were also incredibly impatient for the five hour bus journey to the ferry port, but we calmed down once the island was actually in sight.

Koh Chang, which translates to Elephant Island, is a small island off Thailand's southeastern coast, very close to the Cambodian border. As of right now, it remains pretty quiet, but one of the beaches has already become pretty commercialized and we're guessing in a few years the rest of it will be too.

Our destination was Lonely Beach, which a couple of years ago was next to nothing, and now has about a dozen guesthouses, restaurants, and bars to choose from, either right on the beach or on a little dirt road off the main road (the entire island only has one road going around the perimeter).

So, bags in hand, our teeth rattling a bit from the bumpy ride to Lonely Beach in the back of a pickup truck, we set off down the dirt road in pursuit of what we had been thinking about and posting on each other's Facebook walls for months: a beach hut.

We were in luck, as during the low season there were plenty of rooms to spare, and for about two dollars each we had ourselves a hut. Unfortunately, the low season was due to the humid temperatures and rainy season, so our first few days there we mostly stayed under the shelter of the main open air lounge area: this wasn't too difficult to enjoy, as you can see.

At first it was difficult for both of us to just sit still and lounge, without a multitude of tasks to worry about, as we usually kept ourselves pretty busy in Korea. But then we figured that if it was sunny, we would just be laying on the beach anyways, so it was okay for is to just lay around when it was raining out too. When pockets of non rain would appear we ventured down to the beach. Perfection.

We soon fell into a rhythm of sleeping in, waking up and having coffee, muesli, and fresh tropical fruit (something I think every backpacker succumbs to in southeast Asia at some point or another- that or banana pancakes) and then reading or hanging out until it was time for the next meal or the next fruit shake. We both ate pad Thai every day, with no question or hesitation. Our evenings were spent enjoying the sunset, usually with a Chang beer in hand, then heading to whichever one of the beach barbecue parties was going on that night.

We made some local friends, and found that traveling in the low season yielded many restaurant an bar owners to pay you lots of attention in between their own rainy season lifestyles of sitting around and passing the day by with their friends and families at their establishments.








Lucky for us, after three days of rain we finally got a break and woke up to partly sunny skies! Determined not to get sunburned (we're getting older and wiser) we slathered on some coconut sunscreen and basked in the sun, alternating laying with dips in the warm turquoise waters.

Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that cheap Thai brand sunscreen was not to be trusted (again, getting wiser.) We paid for our time in the sun with a pair of nasty sunburns, so the following day, our last full day on the island, was another 'indoor' day.

However, we had some new housekeeping tasks the last couple of days as we had moved from the little jungle street huts to huts right in the beach for about 4 dollars a night. The showers were questionable, but what could beat waking up to this view?

We had some good sunset moments, usually talking about our future plans and how lucky we were to be doing what we were doing. There are sacrifices, to be sure, but we decided we were willing to make those sacrifices to see the world and see what good we could do in it.

And as we both took off early on our last morning- me to Cambodia, Sara to Tanzania- we had to say our goodbyes for three months, the longest we've been apart for over two years. We agreed that a week of no worries in Thailand had been the best way to begin our  'years' and the most appropriate location for us to say goodbye, go our separate ways, and began living our dreams.