Koh Chang day 1

The morning after Jay’s wedding, Jay arranged a minibus driver to take us to Sam’s hometown of Trat in the eastern part of Thailand by the sea. After a three hour ride we met up with Sam’s mom at the Tesco (Thailand’s version of Target) and proceeded to the family farm. It was raining heavily at the time and getting late, so we basically just showered up and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and took a stroll through Sam’s family plantation.

The next morning we went into town and met up with Sam’s two Aunt’s (and uncles). We went to eat at a local outdoor restaurant for lunch with one of the Aunts (and uncle). We ordered four noddle soups, tiger prawn, rice, drinks and another meat dish. The total bill came out to an amazing $11. They laughingly informed us that the tiger prawn was $6 alone since it was actually pregnant and a little bit more hard to come by.
After lunch we went to a local massage parlor and got foot massages followed by full body massages.

By this time it was about 3pm and time to head to the ferry to Koh Chang.

After the short ferry ride we took a 15 minute ride in a “two-rows” to the hotel with six other tourists (none from the US). A two-rows for those who don’t know, is a pick up truck with metal braces welded onto the back with two rows of seats about the same width as a picnic table on either side over the tire well bumps.
Sam had booked our hotel online only two days before and she did a good job. The chips below were in our room. Cheese and Onion flavored chips by “Lorenz.” It had to be a sign.

We checked in and got settled in time for dinner. We walked around the corner to where the river empties into the beach and ate at Iyara seafood restaurant on the water. We had a “blue hawaiian.”

Ramayana is the quintisential “tropical resort” that one might imagine when reading Jurrassic Park. Nestled in the heavy rainforest on a small road by the river was a hotel with little two-by-two bungalows arranged around a large central garden (with its own creek) in a loosely winding horseshoe shape (go bucks!). The only drawback to this formation was that the restaurant/office/pool was at the opening of the horseshoe and our room was near the curve. This meant long walks back to our room if we forgot sunblock, glasses or a towel (which happened more than once during our stay).