Tropical Island Paradise (or more adventures in the search for exotic places to swim)

This past weekend we took a trip to the Gulf of Thailand island of Koh Chang. Thailand's second largest island, after the resort-encrusted and tsunami-swamped Phuket, Koh Chang is fairly undeveloped/disturbed. In fact, it and its surrounding archipelago are a national park, and the island is considered to have one of the largest chunks of untouched tropical forest in Thailand, or the whole region.

Of course, that doesn't mean we weren't still there primarily to enjoy cold fruit shakes (read: beer) and fried, steamed, barbecued, and curried fish on white sand beaches in between swims in turquoise waters.

Here we had to "kick it in the cabana" when that noonday gets just too darned hot.

We did actually get off our bums once or twice...

We rented a motorbike for a tour of the island and a little interior hike.


And met these guys.

And when for a little hike up into the forest, and along a series of increasingly cool waterfalls...

...in which we swam of course.



The next day we went snorkeling. This is us setting out in the morning - when the low morning sun felt cool and refreshing. That skin looked red as a rare steak before the day was through, with Brian getting his worst sunburn in years. Ooops.



...But it's all going to turn into sleek suntan, right?


Luckily, this was the low season, so there were only about two hundred people on the half-dozen boats all touring the same four or five sites. I imagine that in the high season the bobbing tourists must cake the water like an oil slick. But then again I hear that in the dry season you can go to much more amazing (and uncrowded) open water sites, but the sea is too rough for snorkeling there now. So we crowded on a boat with scores of others for an all-day tour of the many islands around Koh Chang and for some 'pretty-good' snorkeling. (I guess it doesn't compare to the Caribbean (snif-snif)). I wanted to take some pictures of the fantastic, brilliant, neon multihued, multitudinous fishes, anemones, jellyfish, corals, and other stuff I still haven't identified, but the darned camera just fizzled and popped when I took it underwater! Huh.

So, you'll just have to use your imagination...

To cap everything off, that night we were just getting ready to put our sore selves to bed when we were treated to a bit of a show on the beach...

of fire-dancers doing their thing, which basically entails spinning around flaming batons, chains, or balls along with some basic dancing in time to modern ambient electronica kinda music. On a warm and humid night on the beach in Thailand with the waves crashing behind, it was a lovely spectacle. We just tried not to think about the hydrocarbons dripping away to the aforementioned corals, anemones, and fishes...