Koh Chang

[daydreamer]

I have just returned home from a one month vacation in Thailand.  I decided this time to plan a side trip to Koh Chang.  Here is a brief report of my recent adventure.  

After spending a week in Bangkok, I stayed in Pattaya for ten days, so I was ready to hit the road for a break.  In Pattaya I rented a car for the trip to Koh Chang.  I have rented vehicles many times in Thailand, because I like the freedom driving a car gives me.

I took a boy from a Pattaya bar with me, he was eager to travel with me.  It was a good break for him to get away from the bar for a few days, while still making a guaranteed long time tip each day.  I have always paid any boy traveling with me the going rate for long time tip daily, and of course I paid for all expenses.  I always let them know if they want free time away from me, they can have it, but I have found they usually want to stick with me every day.  When I ask them what they would like to do, the usual response is the ubiquitous "up to you".   Believe me, if you have planned something a boy thinks is boring, or not fun for them, they won't be shy to tell you.

Total travel time from Pattaya to Koh Chang was about 6 hours, including the ferry ride.  The first part of the trip was from Pattaya to Laem Gnop in Trat province, that's where the ferries depart for Koh Chang.  The drive was about 4.5 hours, very enjoyable,  going through Sattahip, Rayong, and Chantaburi.  As you can see in this photo, Koh Chang is very close to the Cambodian border.

 

 

Because Koh Chang is a very large island, I wanted to take the rental car on the ferry to use to get around and explore the island.  The ferries run frequently.  Tickets are 80 baht for each passenger, and 120 baht to take a car.  The ride takes about 40 minutes.  After driving aboard, all passengers go up to the second deck lounge for the transit to the island.  There are snacks and drinks available on the second deck from a small store and a coffee stand.

 

 

I had made a reservation for Seabreeze Bungalows in Kai Bae Beach for five nights.  I chose the deluxe bungalow, and it was 1,850 baht per night, including all taxes and fees.  Not a bad deal for a good room on an island in January during high season.  This price was locked in long before the current coronavirus was news.

Upon landing on Koh Chang, it took about 20 minutes to reach the bungalow, driving south along several beaches on the way.  The further south from the ferry pier, the more rustic the small villages along the beaches are.  White Sands Beach is the first beach coming from the ferry.  It is the largest beach, and the most developed on the island, something I wanted to avoid.

After leaving White Sands Beach, the road begins to narrow, and the atmosphere becomes much more tranquil, with less development, and fewer people.  I decided since Kai Bae Beach was located in between White Sands beach and Lonely Beach, it would be a good location to stay.  Lonely Beach is the most popular beach with backpackers, and is known for very loud parties every night at different bars that go till dawn.  Kai Bae turned out to be a good choice, a very relaxed area, but with a good assortment of small restaurants and bars.  There was a Filipino band that played every night at the open air bar and restaurant at the Seabreeze Bungalows where we stayed.

This is the bungalow where we stayed.

 

 

 

This is the main road running through Kai Bae Beach. 

If you travel without a car, there are songtaews, making it very easy to get around the island.  They charge a fixed rate based on how many beaches you pass.  The songtaews meet the ferries, and they strap any large bags on the roof for transport to your hotel.

 

 

One day we rented kayaks, and paddled about 20 minutes to an uninhabited island offshore from Kai Bae beach.  When I first mentioned this, the boy I was with thought that sounded like fun.  It included getting up early to rent the kayaks and be on the water by 9 am.  I have heard many people say that it's impossible to drag a bar boy out of bed early, but if there's something they want to do, they'll make sure to be ready.

There are several waterfalls, and we had planned to hike up to one, but figured since it is dry season with little rain that there wouldn't be anything to see.  Each day we went to a different part of the island to explore using the rental car.  One day I bought us masks and snorkels.  The boy I was with said he liked snorkeling, as he had never done it before.  He told me afterwards it was good, but he didn't get to see any fish.

There are a few 7-Eleven stores on the island, and a small Big C, and a small Makro.  Another reason I chose the Seabreeze Bungalows is it was only a short walk to a 7-Eleven store, very convenient to buy snacks and drinks.  Most motorbikes buy their gasoline from stands selling it in used liquor bottles as you still see in some areas of rural Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia.

There are many small restaurants, and unlike Phuket, the prices for food were reasonable, about the same as on the mainland. 

The air quality on the island was great until late every night when a local resident decided it was a good idea to set large piles of leaves on fire, letting them smolder all night.

There was an elephant camp just steps from the bungalows, and every afternoon, the mahouts would take the juvenile elephants down to Kai Bae Beach to swim and allow tourists to swim with them and take photos.  The salt water didn't bother the elephants, as they were having fun spraying the tourists with water from their trunks.

 

 

 

 

 

Koh Chang was a good break after being in Bangkok and Pattaya.  Five days was a good getaway.   It's a place I had wanted to see for some time.  It's well worth the taking the time to travel there.

 

 

 

[khaolakguy]

Great report, very useful, thanks

[DivineMadman]

 Super and informative report.  Thanks!

[macaroni21]

Wonderfully helpful report, daydreamer, though the beach looked a bit disappointing compared to Krabi or Ko Samui.

Could you perhaps add a bit more information regarding these:

1. Was the bungalow all yours, or was it a duplex? It seemed large for a single unit, and it had two peak roofs.

2. Could you say something about food options on the island?

3. What about water from the tap -- how was it? (20 years ago on Ko Samed, everything was great except the water which came from a well and looked/smelled dodgy).

4. Presumably the sea was noticeably cleaner than at Jomtien?

Mack.

[daydreamer]

Mack - to answer your questions:

Yes, the bungalow was a duplex.  The room was square, and the bathroom was tucked around, added onto the back side, not visible in the photo from the front.  The front deck was thoughtfully offset to provide privacy so the residents from the other unit were not visible when they were sitting outside.  

As for food, we ate every meal at different Kai Bae restaurants.  There was plenty of variety, lots of seafood places, regular non-seafood Thai food, and a number of different options for western food.  There was even a Thai buffet place where you cook your own food at your table, it looked popular with locals and some tourists.  The only western meal we ate was pizza one night, so I can't really speak to the quality of the western food, although there was a highly rated Mexican restaurant very close to the bungalow compound, but we didn't eat there.  There are quite a few small restaurants down the side sois off the main road.  As I said in the report, meal prices were reasonable, not inflated like on some islands.  Most places are open air, typical of a beach resort.  

Here's a typical restaurant right on the main road in Kai Bae where we ate breakfast one morning.  Note the parrot sitting in the tree in this photo.

 

In addition, there was a place specializing in burgers, one serving Greek food, and the usual western fare of Italian, plus Indian restaurants that seem to be everywhere in Thailand nowadays.  There were no Indian tourists, and it looked like the Indian restaurants were starving for business.  There was even an Indian tailor shop offering to "make a nice suit for you, sir".  Seemed kind of out of place on a laid back tropical island.

The restaurants I just mentioned were all at Kai Bae within a short walk from the room.  Lots more food options at the other beaches not far away, but we were satisfied with what we found at Kai Bae.

The tap water was fine.  I brushed my teeth with it, and no strange odor or discoloration in the water.  I know what you mean, I remember staying at the Tropica Bungalows at Patong Beach in Phuket about 20 years ago.  The tap water contained tiny red worms I could see coming from the tap against the white sink.  And this was no budget room, Tropica Bungalows is right on the beach road, directly at the corner of Bangla Road in Patong Beach.

I suspect some water gets contaminated from being held in those large storage tanks many places use.  The water sits in the heat in those storage tanks, and who knows what grows in the tanks.

Yes, I remember when many places on Koh Samet used generators for electricity, before there was a stable power supply.  The place I stayed 20+ years ago on Koh Samet would turn off the generators during daylight hours, so no power all day.  I agree, the tap water was dodgy on Koh Samet back then, but things have improved a lot in the last couple decades.  Of course this was before the internet.  Could you imagine today not having wi-fi access 24/7, or power to a cell phone tower when the generators turn off all day?  It wouldn't bother me, but the way many people are glued to their screens all day, I think they wouldn't know what to do with themselves with no phone access.  There is a sign on the wall in the Balcony Pub in Silom Soi 4 next to the bar that reads "We have wi-fi, so you don't need to talk to each other".  Sad, but true.

Yes, the sea was clean.  No sign of pollution.  When we drove to the far side of the island where it's sparsely populated, I noticed a large sewage treatment facility, so they are trying to keep the sea clean.  This was many miles from the beaches on the west side of the island.  They're doing a lot better at keeping the water clean than Hong Kong is.  There are approximately 200 ships in port in Hong Kong daily at anchor and various moorages in the harbors.  Raw sewage is regularly pumped from the ships directly into the sea in Hong Kong rather than transferring it to sewage barges for proper treatment.

The photos of the beach were taken at Kai Bae Beach.  White Sands Beach is a few miles north, and is the nicest and largest beach on the island with the best sand, although the most crowded with people.  We went to White Sands one day to swim, but like I say, it's far more crowded.  At Kai Bae, there were plenty of places with chairs or loungers tucked back under the trees.  No masses of chairs and umbrellas like they have in Jomtien.

One more thing to note - public access to the beaches is becoming harder to find.  Like many places in the world, resorts buy up big swaths of ocean front land, denying the public access to the water.  This is widespread at White Sands Beach.  Take a look at the satellite view on Google, and you can see how resorts are blocking off entire beaches from the public.  Of course the beaches are public up to the high tide mark, but in some areas of Koh Chang, try getting to the water without trespassing.  In Kai Bae, there is open public access to the beach, with a road leading right to the water.  That's how the elephants access the beach every day to swim.

 

 

[ggobkk]

Thanks for your report and thorough detailing of the island  

[macaroni21]

18 minutes ago, daydreamer said:

"We have wi-fi, so you don't need to talk to each other"

Below is a photo from 2018, taken at a bubbletea cafe in Galle Fort, Sri Lanka, trying to make the best of their situation (no wifi). But as you said, the new generation finds the absence of wifi intolerable, so there was no one but me in this shop for over an hour. 

Oh, as for the sign cut off at the left edge of the picture, it says "I keep losing weight, but it keeps finding me." I find it quite apposite, and made me feel guilty about having afternoon tea there. I had half a mind to tell the proprietor that making his clients feel guilty about his cakes and bubbletea, and exhorting them to talk (what's that?), is not exactly a secret to success in his business.

Mack.

 

[macaroni21]

And the breakfast place looks lovely.

[vinapu]

7 hours ago, daydreamer said:

but the way many people are glued to their screens all day, I think they wouldn't know what to do with themselves with no phone access. 

 

while you are spot on, going that far to be glued to the screen seems very expensive way to enjoy one's smartphone

18 hours ago, daydreamer said:

 

I took a boy from a Pattaya bar with me, he was eager to travel with me.  It was a good break for him to get away from the bar for a few days, while still making a guaranteed long time tip each day.  I have always paid any boy traveling with me the going rate for long time tip daily, and of course I paid for all expenses. 

 

from my experience and what i heard from others that seems to be established , accepted and fair practice

I'm joining chorus : great and informative report !!!

 

[macaroni21]

Did you know there was a Battle of Koh Chang in 1941?

I was just surfing around the Bangkok Post, in particular, the scathing opinion piece 'Govt won't win Oscar for army propaganda' by columnist Atiya Achakulwisut. Three paragraphs from the end there was a mention of the battle -- which I had not heard of before -- so I looked up wikipedia and it's quite an interesting story. Check it out. I don't suppose there are any ruins or sunk ships left to explore. Might hurt Thai pride too much to highlight the defeat.

Mack.

[DivineMadman]

I don't think the Thais view the battle as a particular embarrassment or injury to pride.  Perhaps they even think of it as a bit of success - as many of us do when the French don't get what they want.   The Thai Navy has built a memorial to the battle.  The Navy hosts a big annual ceremony to honor the servicemen who died. 

[macaroni21]

On 2/19/2020 at 9:19 AM, DivineMadman said:

I don't think the Thais view the battle as a particular embarrassment or injury to pride.

But they were trashed. Several navy boats sunk by the French. I don't always understand Thai logic but this could be another example of it. 

[DivineMadman]

1 hour ago, macaroni21 said:

But they were trashed. Several navy boats sunk by the French. I don't always understand Thai logic but this could be another example of it. 

Hmm.  Not sure it is a Thai logic issue.  I think sometimes in wars defending forces take substantial damages and loss of lives but that nation will still celebrate and take pride in those defending forces -- despite the casualties and losses.  N'est-ce pas?  In any event, in this particular situation the Thais were the defenders.  The French didn't get what they wanted.  Within a couple of weeks the Franco-Thai War was over and the Thai annexation of territory from French Cambodia was confirmed.  For the government at the time - a win.

But I return to the main point that I think there are probably lots and lots of examples around the world where defending forces take substantial damages and they can still honor and celebrate the defenders in the battle.  Not a particularly Thai thing.   

 

[thaiophilus]

10 hours ago, DivineMadman said:

 Within a couple of weeks the Franco-Thai War was over and the Thai annexation of territory from French Cambodia was confirmed.  For the government at the time - a win.

Indeed that's the "victory" celebrated by the Victory Monument (1941) in BKK.

Shame they had to give it all back in 1946...

[macaroni21]

11 hours ago, DivineMadman said:

 I think sometimes in wars defending forces take substantial damages and loss of lives but that nation will still celebrate and take pride in those defending forces -- despite the casualties and losses.  

You have a point. Movies have been made of Pearl Harbor (1941) and Dunkirk (1940). However,  such pride/celebration of defending forces may only be possible if the country is the ultimate victor despite those losses. For example, I wonder if Germany could similarly indulge in celebrating German soldiers' efforts and valour in Stalingrad (1942) or the Japanese indulge in Midway (1942), without others sniggering.

Mack.

[john]

Lovely..want to explore the island with a man too

[siriusBE]

Great report, thank you daydreamer. I will do almost the same in two weeks (Some days Jomtien at Zing and then Koh Chang). But I have a bungalow in the south of the island. I will probably rent a motorbike and will visit various places as I have done on Samui.

Enjoy your further stay!