Koh Chang

What a beautiful little island on the east coast of Thailand. It was my first time to this part of the country and it was great! (ok, what can be bad about a tropical island) Koh Chang is almost at the Cambodia border. Life on the island is slow and unchaotic (unlike my life in Bangkok) and it makes for a really nice weekend getaway.

I met up with a friend from the TEFL course at the Eastern Bus terminal in BKK at 10pm to take a night bus down to the island. It was a quick 5 hours on the bus and then another 30 mins to an hour waiting for out next shuttle. I am not sure how long because I was fast asleep on a bench. Then we took a ferry over to the island as the sun was rising. Even though I was exhausted, it was a beautiful way to start the day.

Once we got to the island we crammed into one last shuttle to get to the southern end of the island to go scuba diving – Bang Boa.

BB is cute little town in the SE. Very touristy with lots of little shops and restaurants lining the pier. All the snorkeling and dive trips leave from this area.

We met up with a guy named Mike and went with his company. It was sooo nice to be back in the water! It had been almost 2 years since I had been diving in Honduras. I love living in the Rockies, but they don’t offer much scuba diving.  

There were some sweet corals, tons of xmas tree worms, pink anemone fish in anemone, batfish, decent sized schools of varying fish and I found a new fish that became my favorite of the dive – mococle bream.

Pretty sure I have never seen this species before (or maybe just never noticed them). Either way, I love finding new anything under the water.

When we came up the fishing boats had moved closer and were trawling on either side of the dive boat. Terribly sad and frustrating. I wanted to scuba dive over and put a few holes in the bottom of the boats. One day….

I know they will only replace the boat, but it would make me feel better. As long as they have a market to sell the fish, shrimp, crabs, sharks and squid to, they will never stop. This is why I never have and never will eat seafood and why I think people should actually take a minute to consider where their food comes from. Even though the price on the menu is cheap, what about the cost on the environment? Generally the cheaper the price of the fish, the lower quality it is...or they obtained the fish using the cheapest methods possible which usually cause the most environmental damage. One of the nets among various fishing debris we saw is in a photo above. I’m not going to say anymore than that subject because I won’t be able to stop.

After the dive we headed up to the lonely beach area and found a cheap bungalow to crash in for the next couple nights. We were about a five minute walk from the beach and this place had the most amazing squat toilet.

My favorite squat toilet I have yet to come across. It is the garden of eden of squat toilets! (and yes, squat toilets are very different from my favorite outdoor facilities up in Glacier National Park)

oops

David and I walked over to the beach, checked out the town, played pool and grabbed some dinner. After that I was off to bed! No such thing as night life for me the night after taking a night bus and a full day of diving.

The next morning we ate breakfast at a cute place overlooking Lonely Beach and then went swimming. In the afternoon I took off for Bangkok while David enjoyed his 3 day weekend and extra day on the island. Looking forward to going back for a longer visit!

Ayutthaya

I spent the other weekend up in Ayutthaya. This town/city was the former capital of Thailand and has quite a few ruins scattered around and between the new buildings of the town/city. At one time there were around 450 temples here. It feels like a small town, but it's technically a city.

Ayutthaya experienced some of Thailands worst flooding this season. The area is flat and I didn't see a building that wasn't affected. The high water flood line is still visible on many of the buildings and homes. The cleanup is well under way, but far from complete. It was an interesting time to be there.

I am not sure how much damage was done to each wat. Many were closed off in places and people said they were unstable. When you look at the pictures you can see the high water mark on the wats - the white line a couple feet above the base.

They were all partially underwater- the pictures of them during the flood were actually really cool. In the photos many people were boating around the wats and jumping off of them into the water.

On Saturday morning, before heading north to Ayutthaya I stopped by the Chatuchak Weekend Market. It's the market of markets. Bigger than any I have ever seen and could possibly be the biggest one...in Thailand....in SE Asia?

I had heard about the animals at the market and had to go see them myself. I almost left with a sugarglider, hedgehog and chinchilla but decided to hold off. I did pick up a couple more teacher skirts and a t-shirt instead. (They require less maintenance than a hedgehog.) 

The market has everything. I finally found some 'Thai pants' which are going to get sent to you Seth! There were books, souvineers in every shape, size and color, food, lots of clothes, household decorations and more!

After a couple hours it was time to get up to Ayutthaya. It's only a couple hours north of Bangkok - an easy weekend trip.

When I arrived I made it to Soi 2 and found a room at a guesthouse called Tony's Place. It was very obvious that my room was in recovery mode from the flooding, but a great place to stay. When I checked in, an evening boat cruise around the island was leaving. Thanks to a speedy motorbike driver, I managed to make it to the pier before they took off.

Old town Ayutthaya is called an island because there are rivers and canals completely circling around it. Our trip went around the island and I found out once we were on the boat that we were going to be stopping at 3 wats along the way. (It was so last minute I didn't even ask what was included on the tour or where we were going =)

The first wat had a huge buddha inside. I don't think I ever figured out what this one was called...

Thais don't mess around when it comes to making giant buddhas. Look at the men standing on the buddha.

The second had a lot of cock statues. Not sure what for, but they were everywhere! It was called Wat Phutthaisawan.

The third wat along the boat tour is called Wat Chai Wattanaram. I loved this one. It looked like Angkor Wat over in Cambodia. Later the next day I found out many looked like Angkor and it they were designed to look like it. Go figure.

That night I met up with a friend who lives and works in Ayutthaya. It was fun to catch up and hear about his school! (Its amazing how different the schools can be.)

The next morning I hired a bicycle and rode around to more wats. The first one I stopped at was Wat Ratcha Burana. I love the Ankor design so I was really happy to be exploring around. You could climb all over this one.

It was a beautiful day with a breeze and this wat was very quite. Oh, and to top it all off - today was a free day at all the wats!

Wat Thammikarat
I thought I saw a lot of cocks at the wat the day before, but this was the cock wat.

Not your typical traffic jam!




Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit
Modern temple

Wat Phra Si Sanphet
This temple was built in the late 14th century.

Wat Phra Ram
I had this whole place to myself. The dome shaped structures are called prangs.

Wat Maha That
This is one of the really famous wats because of the buddha head growing in the Bodi Tree's roots. The Bodi tree is seen as a symbol of perfect knowledge because buddha sat under one when he became enlightened.

The buddha wanted to understand suffering. He realized suffering is rooted to our attachment. What we are attached to clouds our judgement. What we see and feel are impermanent. He became enlightened by becoming unattached.

I'm sure there is way more to it than that. But that's the gist and was what I took away from the audio tour.

After visiting 9 wats in less than 24 hours I was completely watted out. (You may even be tired of wats after looking at my pictures!) I rode around the island just to get in some biking.

There were a lot of other parts of ruins scattered all over. I tried to go to a floating market, but it was cancelled. I did get to see where a floating market could take place and some empty bamboo vendor stalls.

I was able to meet up with David for some dinner before heading back to Bangkok. Then I slept the whole way back home =)