Part IV: Koh Chang (enter Mum and Auntie)

Kevin and I parted ways for a while in Chiang Mai-he to Laos for 10 days or so and I to hot and sweaty Bangkok to await the arrival of Mum and Auntie.

Bangkok is one big chaotic jumbled mess-roads filled with mopeds and scooters and tuk tuks (three-wheeled taxis) that weave around and between buses and cars and taxis and spew black exhaust which just lingers in the thick, humid air. The sidewalks are a mass of foreigners and Thais trying to decide whether to walk on the right or left, all the while maneuvering around food and wares laid out on the ground and bursting forth out of shopfronts.

Bangkok is as undecipherable to me as the run-on sentences in the previous paragraph would be to a Thai :) It is intimidating and gritty and just too disordered for me. And thus, into this, arrived Mum and Auntie.

Leaving Bangkok behind, we settled into a six-hour double-decker bus ride and a 40-minute ferry ride, arriving on the paradisaical island of Koh Chang in time to see the sunset.

Located just north of the Cambodia's border off the far south coast of Thailand, Koh Chang is white sand as fine as powdered sugar, fresh fruit shakes and soft evening air, the smells of flower blossoms and incense mixed with fires burned to fertilize the soil and the salt from the sea.

The water was an aqua green that I have not seen since my time in Brisbane, Australia. We spent three days lounging on the beach, using a neighboring resort's chairs, towels and pool (like good Yankees, we take what we can get!).

Mum and Auntie love the food (at least the rice with vegetables and tofu they've had each night). They love the people and their slow, deliberate and thoughtful way of life-they've even learned how to say hello and thank you in Thai (sawadee ka and khap kun ka).

We spent our final day snorkeling among corals around Koh Chang National Marine Park. Mum exclaimed at one point that it was coolest thing she's ever done. Can you think of the coolest thing you've ever done? Pretty neat!

As I write this post in my journal, we are on an overnight train back up to Chiang Mai. I am on the top bunk, with Mum and Auntie asleep below. We have hopes of seeing some temples, getting massages, going for a river boat ride, doing some shopping. I would like to get my teeth cleaned for cheap, maybe get a tailored suit and buy a souvenir or two.

From Chiang Mai, we're not sure where we'll go. But that's for another post.

Pop kan mai (see you later)

Jordan