Koh Chang Trip

The high point of our Christmas break was a short trip to Koh Chang, an island to the south east of us, very close to the Cambodian border. Koh Chang was beautiful – exactly what you’d expect a tropical island to be! We drove down there (Rick’s first big solo driving trip – long – about 6 hours each way - but uneventful except for the ticket he got on the way home for driving in the wrong lane! He didn’t know it was the wrong lane and we weren’t really sure why we were pulled over since the highway patrolman didn’t speak English and we don’t speak Thai! We’ve since learned that you don’t give him your driver’s license since that pretty much guarantees a ticket [though ours was only 300 baht – about $8.50] but instead you just hold a couple hundred baht out just below the window edge and he takes that and you are back on your way – no ticket for you, a little extra cash for him!) and took the ferry across to the island. We stayed in a resort right on the beach and were able to do a lot of fun things! The island itself had gorgeous beaches – very fine, powdery sand, neat seashells, and water that was crystal clear, gentle (it was shallow – not more than 2 ½ feet deep - and almost waveless for about 100 feet out from the shore) and warm! It also had rainforest/jungle on the mountains that take up most of the island. We took a short hike through the jungle/rainforest (about 1 km) up to a waterfall, Khlong Phlu, where the kids swam in the water at the base of the waterfall. We also rode elephants (Nate had his first ever elephant ride – he liked it!), went on a longboat ride in the evening (longboats are like a long canoe – very shallow – that are directed by a guy using a pole) through the deltas going inland so that we could see the fireflies in the trees – very neat, though there weren’t too many fireflies out for us, ate a ton of good Thai food (and some surprisingly good pizza – go figure!) right on the beach, played in the pool, and spent a lot of time on the beach. Leah and Caroline got their hair braided, too – Caroline looks like Bo Derrick! J Nate would have spent the entire time digging in the sand if you would have let him – give him a shovel and bucket, some sand, and a little water, and he’s happy as a clam! The kids got a big kick out of finding some really neat seashells, seeing the little fish swim around our feet in the water, finding hermit crabs, and watching the sand crabs scuttling around!

It was really a nice trip and we plan to head back there again soon! There isn't nearly enough room here to post all the pictures that will do justice to the island (there's a 5 picture limit to each post!) but if you want to see more than I've posted here, feel free to check out our album of pictures on photobucket: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v65/amyks/Koh%20Chang%20Jan%202009/

Koh Chang (Elephant Island!)

Here's some more pictures of Koh Chang. There's a shot of the Gulf of Thailand, with one of the smaller islands next to Koh Chang in the picture (check out the beautiful blue water!) There's also some pictures of our hike up to the waterfall and the waterfall, itself. Since this is the dry time of year, the waterfall isn't very big and the jungle was a little bit dry, but give it another few months when the humidity goes up and the rain starts and the waterfall will be a lot bigger and the jungle a lot greener! (But check out all those vines hanging down ....it's kind of tarzan like! :) )

Visiting Way Prayoon (or as Nate says, "Turtle Town"!)

Another little day trip we took was downtown to Bangkok to visit one of the many temples found in Thailand, Way Prayoon. This one was unique, though, both in appearance and in what we found there. Part of it was your typical Thai temple (or Wat) – ornate, big white spire, etc. Very pretty, but not different from the thousands of other temples here, really. But then there was a small section off to the side that had a pond with an odd island in the middle full of little houses – spirit houses. Most Thai homes and businesses have spirit houses in front of them – they put incense and candles and other offerings there (anything from flowers to food to a bottle of open soda, complete with a straw in it ready to drink!) The point of the spirit houses (and offerings) is to attract spirits to the little house outside the home or business instead of having them come inside, where they could cause problems for the people. This little island at Wat Prayoon had all kinds of spirit houses, little caves with gold Buddahs in them, and best yet, a ton of turtles swimming all over the place. The kids got a big kick out of buying a plate of food and feeding the turtles chunks of bananas (who knew turtles ate bananas? Not me!) off of long sticks. We also got roped into lighting incense and candles in front of a Buddah statue by some little old Thai lady who didn’t speak a lick of English but who was very insistent, none the less, that we buy the incense and light those candles!

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

We’ve been doing a lot of day trips over our long Christmas break and one of them was to the bridge over the river Kwai, in the Kanchanaburi district here in Thailand. The bridge is the same one that was built by the Allied POWs in World War II. They were in a Japanese POW camp and the Japanese made them build this bridge to that they could move ammunition and supplies through the region from Thailand to Burma. After having thoughts of the movie “The Bridge Over the River Kwai” in our heads, the bridge was just that – a bridge over a small river! The kids got to walk over it, though, and learn a little about the history of it. There were also trains on display that had been used during WWII, and the kids got a kick out of those. Their favorite part of the whole trip, though…..getting ice cream and playing on the playground near the bridge! Go figure!