The beach by the slow boat pier
We’ve just uploaded a new album of photos from the island of Koh Mak in the Koh Chang Archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand. This island is smaller than Koh Chang with less tourists and activities but offered an excellent getaway from big island life, plenty of roads to explore by motorbike (or bicycle) and very nice beaches and seafood. Click here to view the photos!
We’ve added a new video of the friendly animals (pigs, cat, dogs) from the Coral Resort at Kaibe Beach in Koh Chang, Thailand. Everyone mostly gets along although I’m not sure there’s a lot of love there. But we loved these guys!
The Pool at the Coral Resort, Kaibe Beach
We stayed a total of seven nights on the island of Koh Chang and four of those were at a very nice resort, the Coral Resort, located at the northern end of Kaibe Beach. This is not a huge resort or even a fancy resort like the ones a bit further North at Klong Prao Beach. But this resort had what we needed and more.
We opted for a private cabin with air-conditioning which ran us 2,000 Thai Baht ($53) a night. Identical cabins with a sea view were 2,500 but from our cabin the sea was still visible between the neighboring “sea-view cabinsâ€. Walking about 20 meters brought us to the edge of the sea for an unobstructed view.
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Pancake & Dewey
A few days ago, while riding around Koh Chang, Kevin and I stopped to ask for directions and discovered a charming little cafe called “Lanna’s Cafeâ€. It is located at the southern tip of Kai Be beach, right before the road becomes steep and winding leading to Lonely Beach. The place is run by a Thai-Japanese couple who offer organic Arabic coffee grown in the North of Thailand. All the coffees and teas served can be bought in beautifully designed packages. Due to some inexplicable health streak we’re on, we opted for organic tea instead of coffee and it was excellent!
The cafe is a very cute spot for chillin’ in the afternoon. We stayed for drinks and a chat with Uta (one of the owners) about life in Koh Chang. Uta and her husband also have a cute kitty named Pancake (I suspect he got that nickname since his daily regiment consists of 22hrs laying flat on his belly, 2 hrs for eating). Pancake happens to look a lot like Dewey, the hero of a book I got as a gift from a friend for this trip. I just had to take a picture of the two of them!
My last similar post was a bit of a false alarm. We had gone several days without Internet access but then we found wifi in our hotel room shortly after. This time we’re heading to Koh Mak, a smaller island in the Koh Chang Archipelago, and we’re likely to have more offline time than online for the next 3 days until we reach Chang Mai in the North of Thailand. However, that will give us more time to take photos and post them soon enough. See you soon!
A First Glimpse of Koh Chang
We’ve just posted new photos from Koh Chang Island and surrounding islands in this approx 50 island archipelago in the Eastern Gulf Coast of Thailand.
View Koh Chang Island photos.
View Island Hopping photos.
Hiking up the Mountain in Koh Chang
The only part of my body that doesn’t actually ache at the moment is my fingers which is why I am able to type this post. This morning Kevin and I got picked up at our resort and drove to the northern tip of the island for a full day of trekking in the jungle. We sat in a back of a pickup truck while the driver took us through steep mountain roads. As we were driving north, we had a chance to meet the other members of our small group (a French couple and a Scottish couple) and I noticed that all but me were wearing professional trekking shoes. Hmm. I definitely have a pair somewhere at home in New York where I will never ever need to use them.
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As you know, Tamar and I are chillin’ on this great island, Koh Chang. However, we haven’t had much access to Internet so far. That’s not to say that Internet is not available on Koh Chang. It is. but we’ve been so busy hiking, motorbiking, tanning and swimming that we just haven’t been near our computers or the relatively expensive pay-by-the-minute Internet access. We’ve changed hotels and are now at the Coral Resort where there’s wifi. But don’t count on us to be online more now since we’ve got full days of jungle trekking and snorkeling lined up for this weekend!
Coral Resort, Koh Chang
Koh Chang has everything an island needs to have in order to qualify for paradise status: great beaches, beautiful scenery, excellent food and plenty of cats around. On our first day here, we took a little survey of the beach and pool situation, I am happy to report the water is warm and clear. Perfect. Tomorrow we hope to explore the waterfalls and do some hiking.
Barack Obama's Inauguration 2009
This is my first post that I am writing from Asia on this trip. Last night Tamar and I stayed up late, fully absorbed by the TV coverage of the inauguration of the first African-American president of the USA. These two firsts coincided to remind us of another, that of the very first time we traveled to Asia in September 2001. Continue Reading »