Ko Chang

After an exhausting week of exams we treated ourselves to a weekend away at a nearby island and national park called Ko Chang.  

It is only a 4.5h bus ride and 30min ferry away from Bangkok so perfect for a long weekend! This island had the perfect combination of beach and activities!

I felt at home, the beach we were on was more like a Vancouver beach... I little rocky, but just down the beach was a nice sandy beach to relax on. 

The newly built bungalows on the beach that we stayed in! Still a backpackers beach so still cheap accommodation even with the spectacular view! (Top picture is of Amber and I sitting on our balcony! see the view!) 

 Our first day we organised an afternoon of elephant trekking!  We went trekking in the jungle for 2hours and even got to go swimming with the elephants!  The jungle on it's own was amazing but going through on elephants made it that much better!  They are HUGE and surprisingly hairy... or stubbly...

We had a blast!  Being in the water with them was what I imagine riding on one of those automatic bulls in a bar would be like!

They would dunk on command and splashed around in the water!

Afterwards they had a monkey on a chain to take pictures with... the monkey really liked Amber's hair elastic and when she wouldn't give it up he jumped at her face and ended up grazing her fingers.  Luckily Amber was ok but we are not going near monkey's again!

After our trek we decided to hike into a water fall that was apparently close by.  Was a little farther along the road then we expected but we had a nice walk along the road in the jungle and a wonderfully refreshing rinse off in the freshwater pools once we got there!

Amber and Trevor (another exchange student we were traveling with, he's actually from Toronto and goes to Queens!)

Amber preparing to jump into the water. 

That night we went to a fishing village on stilts! Unfortunatly not quite as neat as it sounds... much more touristy and developed then I hoped but still got a fantastic view of the sunset and a delicious seafood dinner!

Sunset at the fishing village... waiting for our dinner. 

Yummmm!

The next couple days we relaxed by the beach, walked around the town, got coconut oil massages, and went on a search for the man we thought stole Amber's money (she sadly got a lot of money stolen which we have not found or figured out where it could have gone but spent a day searching for it).

We had more meals on the beach, had our fun at night and then returned back to reality in Bangkok!

He was juggling with bottles on fire!!!!!! 

Breakfast on the patio over the water