trying to remember everything

i'm never gonna be able to do it. but i'll try writing some stuff down here in a feeble* attempt anyway.

koh chang is indeed as beautiful as everyone says. for months, people have been telling us about the spectaularness of koh chang. "you have to go to koh chang. it's amazing. you have to go."

and here we are and i'm telling you, nobody's been lying. it's a HUGE island (it takes probably at least 45 minutes to drive from one end to another) and the middle is this lush, jungly, mountainous national park, which tapers off to a gorgeous shore, lined with white sand, palm trees, and huge boulders. we hiked to a waterfall two days ago and even though it's dry season and "water trickle" is a more appropriate name, it was awesome. maddy and i jumped in to the first natural cold water we've seen in six months.

by the way, april 20th marked six months in thailand (!!!) which means i'm closer to coming home now that i was to leaving home. time continues to baffle me.

anyway, we started off in lonely beach, which lonely planet and travelfish (my travel bibles) said were "backpacker heaven." i expected tons of cheap bungalows, lots of places to eat, and more young travelers than i could count. instead, we found a handful of places to stay (cheap-ish), about three restaurants (one of which had TERRIBLE AWFUL service--they looked at us with disgust, like actually ordering food at your restaurant was a crime), and i think i counted all of 27 other people in the area. we stayed at nature resort for two nights, which was nice and cute but again, it was on this beach where there was nothing to do. not even a 7-11 or any place to get snacks/use an atm. backpacker heaven my butt...unless backpacker heaven means a couple bars that play really loud bob marley/dance beats all night. but if that's what backpacker heaven is, i don't think i'm a backpacker.

we moved up the west coast to white sand beach last night to one of the cutest places i've ever stayed in. it's this janky little bungalow-on-the-beach situation, all wooden and thatch, and some really nice people work here (customer service goes a long way...cough cough people on lonely beach cough). it's a second story place with steps that literally lead to the sand and a porch that overlooks the ocean. sarah, maddy, and i are sharing a double bed, but it's no big deal cuz we've got a/c (ahhhhh!!). we thought we had three nights here on white sand beach but when we looked at a calendar, we realized we only had two. then we all got really sad.

we've gotten a couple massages, done some awesome shopping, gone elephant trekking (where i got asked out by a thai elephant trainer), hiked a couple times (note: do not go to than mayom in the dry season. it is dry), had some of the most delicious shakes i've ever had in thailand, and spent a lot of quality times with our books. koh chang, you've been pretty damn good to us.

tomorrow we're leaving for trat, where we'll be for just a night before we skip off to the cambodian border and head down in to sihanoukville. after a few days there, we'll head into phnom penh. in an ironic twist, i actually feel safer traveling to phnom penh than i do to bangkok right now. thank goodness we won't be back in the bkk for at least three weeks.

for now, i'm gonna go catch up on some fbook and some ny times and some digg, cuz even though i'm on a phenomenal island, i still love my internet :-)



*this is a silly word.