27 Jul

27 July - Google Earth has updated their high resolution photos and the northern section of Koh Chang can now be seen in detail, rather than a blur. Even down to zooming in on individual houses - such as the red roofed house in this photo which is mine. Well worth a look if you're planning a trip to KC, but the photo used is over 18 months old, as our footbridge was built in Nov 2004 and doesn't appear on it. Also everywhere south of our place isn't in high resolution.

Here's a very good deal for anyone wanting to have a business on Koh Chang. Forget about renting a little shop unit or taking over a restaurant or internet cafe and rent yourself a resort which was built under a year ago. 3 Rai (4,800sqm) of land with 15 ensuite fan bungalows, a 300sqm restaurant, quiet area on a hillside above the main road in Lonely Beach. Bars & shops are only 5 mins walk away. Land rent paid until May 2007. 11 years lease remaining. Price: 2.2 Million baht - including all kitchen equipment, all bedding, two phone lines & a website. Annual land rent is 110,000/year - fixed for the next 11 years. All you need do is hire a couple of staff and you're up & running. (This is genuinely a very nice little resort with great views, I've been recommending it to people who email me looking for quiet, clean, good value, conveniently located backpacker huts.)

The Larry King Award for insightful questioning this week goes to, ironically, a CNN producer who stayed at our place last week. Using his searching journalistic mind to discover what really makes 'Baan Rim Nam' tick, his leading question was "So, where does the dog shit?" It had been playing on his mind for a while apparently, and the idea of the dog taking himself off down the footbridge to the coconut field hadn't been considered as a possibility. Taking another leaf out of the 'King of Talk's' book, we then spent the next half hour discussing the plight of those caught in the middle of the Israeli shelling of Lebanon - featuring the story of an IDF gunner who tripped over a spent shell casing and twisted his ankle, leading him to miss his brother's Bar Mitzvah the following day. Our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time.

Another week, another warning/threat email from an expat living on Koh Chang saying that I shouldn't mention any businesses or any specifics about Koh Chang "Just talk about the island" because "30 baht of gas and a match later...Think about it, people have time on their hands during low season" Fortunately that was countered by just over 100 emails this past week from people thinking of visiting the island, all of whom seemed pretty happy about what they've read on the site.

21 Jul

21 July - Koh Chang 'Atlantis of the East' so goes the tourist authority's new advertising slogan dreamt up by copywriters who never let a bit of rain get them down.

Zoltan, the Hungarian photographer, not the nemesis of Superman, stayed at our place earlier this year and took a few rather arty photos. One, of Klong Prao beach, is opposite. See his photo site with pics from various countries here.

Info on a new private minivan service between Siem Reap & Phnom Penh and Koh Chang. This service is designed to ensure that anyone wanting to combine the delights of Angkor Wat or Phnom Penh's riverside bars and the beaches of Koh Chang can do so safe in the knowledge they aren't going to be taken on a magical mystery tour by the van driver. All the details here

If you're staying at our place and have your laptop then you can now spend all day hiding in your room or sitting on the deck by the river surfing the web for free. No-nonsense with passwords etc, just power up your lap top and you'll have access to our 1MB connection and you too will quickly come to learn that not all 1MB connections actually work at that speed, some, such as those on Thai islands, are much slower.

There's a rather large fisherman's house for sale in Bangbao - area 25m x 15m, can park a boat outside, price 3 million. Would make a good spot for a dive shop or seafood restaurant.

Following statistics courtesy of the TAT, who are putting the 'anal' back into 'analysis'. Were you one of the 149,108 foreigners who visited Koh Chang last year? The TAT's number crunchers have finally come up with that figure which represents a 49% year-on-year increase over 2004. Pretty impressive, but two things to consider . . .

. . . first it's only slightly larger in terms of the number of additional visitors than the increase of 41,000 more visitors in 2004 over 2003. Plus a large proportion of 2005s increase over 2004 can almost certainly be attributed to people who would have otherwise visited Phuket or Khao Lak - had their resorts not been wiped out by the Tsunami. Thus bumping up figures for the first few months of 2005. 'Make Koh Chang your first choice when your original vacation destination gets wiped out by a natural disaster' Maybe that's too long to fit on an advertising hoarding.

Anyway, if you were one of the lucky 149,108 then you probably spent around 3.84 days on Koh Chang, spent 2,330 baht daily and stayed in a hotel/resort with 41% occupancy rate.

14 Jul

14 July - I've been back in Bangkok again for well over a week or so, enjoying such delights as KFC, Starbucks and traffic jams.

Back on KC now for at least a month or so as we're pretty busy with the start of the summer holidays in Europe and guests who are looking to swap the summer sun back home for cooler, damp days on KC.

On Koh Chang, the road widening scheme is nearing completion and will probably be almost complete for a few more months. An additional 1.5 metres of best Cambodian grade concrete has been added to the width of the road south from Whitesands to Kai Bae. What it's actually for is anyone's guess: parking? an extra lane for traffic? an area for stallholders to set up shop? a dedicated bicycle & motorbike lane? a footpath? or simply a combination of all of these. (I'm going for the latter.)

Coming soon, some nice land on Koh mak for sale - only 4 rai, with a maximum of 2 rai per buyer for 950,000 baht/rai. 200 metres walk to the beach, views out to sea & across the island, has a Chanote title. Much better value than anything you'll find on Koh Chang.

For the benefit of American readers . . . this week's state sponsored colour coded Terror Alert warning for Koh Chang is . . . 'Lilac'.

Next update when I've got more time, I'll be adding some info on hassle free transport from Siem Reap or Phnom Penh to Koh Chang. A lot of people choose to combine a trip to Angkor Wat with a beach holiday on Koh Chang and the internet is full of horror stories about scams relating to overland travel. So, at present the only way you can travel to & from Koh Chang, assured of not being ripped off, is to fly in & out of the country. An expensive and also very inconvenient option as it means going via Bangkok. I'll have an alternative which is far cheaper than flying and also comes with a money back guarantee that you won't be scammed, duped, lied to, deliberately delayed, taken to any unknown hotels, dropped off at restaurants in the middle of nowhere several times during the trip, made to pay to fill in unnecessary forms etc etc.

"Is Koh Chang home to the some of the ugliest 'ladyboys' in Thailand?" That poser was posed by an emailer last week & I'm entitled to agree with him. A bloke in a frock is a bloke in a frock, regardless of the amount of make-up he has applied and how well his wedding tacked is tied back and there are more than enough blokes in frocks, or more often miniskirts & hotpants on KC.

It's deja vu all over again, last year several expat business owners complained when I wrote in a tourist mag that it rained quite a lot in the rainy season on Koh Chang. This year I've had a few emails from people who have far too much time on their hands now that there aren't many tourists around, here's this week's example in a new 'Green (NOT Rainy) season' feature entitled 'Disturbing Email of the Week', complete with original typos. I deleted info about the sender's businesses on KC, but bear in mind his businesses aren't mentioned on this site at all:

"who the FUCK do you think you are, to talk about +++++ the way you do. you call it a +++++, I have a +++++ there, yes I have a +++++, I can not find your office or adres on this site. so I love to meat you and I whant to see your face. so if your a big boy come over and tell me why you advertise like this!!!!"

Needless to say, when we spoke on the phone we agreed to differ as to whether I should be allowed to put my own opinions on my own website or whether my opinions should automatically change to reflect those of anyone who disagrees with me.

Take this site for what it isn't: it's not an advertorial filled tourist site full of platitudes for anyone who hands over a few baht. But a few thousand can buy a lot of love, as evidenced by impromptu plugs on this site for the Koh Chang Asbestos Co. Ltd., 'The asbestos 9 out of 10 toddlers prefer!'

3 July

3 July - "A blue eyed girl met a brown eyed boy . . " Holiday romance is alive and well on Koh Chang . . . at least that's what Santa thought, but after a few nights of wining, dining and serious petting by Lizzie, she was gone, back to England and straight into the paws of a young Lab/Golden mongrel. Leaving a tearful Santa with only this photo to remind them of their time together.

Today's Nation has includes this story 'Mudslide wrecks homes on Koh Chang'. Turns out no homes were wrecked, only four resort bungalows. The article doesn't mention one of the contributing factors to the mudslide may have been the owner of the resort digging away the side of the mountain in order to build the bungalows and not giving any thought to shoring up the resulting rock face.

We went to try 'Paddy's Palms' the new Irish pub on Whitesands. Irish in so much as the exterior is green, interior mustard yellow & cream with dark wood furnishings, leather sofas, obligatory prints of the old country on the walls and sells decent pints of Guinness and Kilkenny draught. Although I don't think Mam was expecting a pint of Guinness to arrive when she ordered a Pina Colada but, feeling sorry for the waiter, she drank it anyway. Happy hour prices, 4-7pm, are 140/150 baht/pint for real men's beers and 100 baht for draught Heineken & Singha. No food yet, which has a plus side as the food available comes from a Thai restaurant nearby and pretty good it is too. It's a bit lifeless at the moment, but so is everywhere on KC. The one difference between Paddy's Palms and other large Irish theme pubs was this . . . every Irish pub I've been into always has loads of small things that catch your eye, bric-a-brac, interesting touches to the decor, humourous touches etc. You notice new stuff every time you go in. P.P. doesn't have any of this, it should. Maybe it's on the way. However, come the high season I'm sure it'll become a regular meeting place for visitors & expats alike.

The new Bangkok Airport a.k.a. Suvarnabhumi Airport (which I guarantee you won't be able to pronounce correctly but 'Suwanapoom' is a good attempt.) will be conducting test flights on 29 July. Why is this important? Because Bangkok Airway's flight PG311, Trat - Bangkok is one of the lucky 13 test flights on that day. In addition to landing well over an hour's drive from the current airport, passengers will get a certificate 'I survived the test landing', a free lift into town plus the chance to see first hand if all the stories about cracks in the runway and leaking roofs are true.

Also, as of July 1, Bangkok Airways has raised the price for transfers from Trat airport to any resort on Koh Chang to 300 baht per person.

Not everyone likes this site as this brief email, from someone who gave his name as Klaus, but unfortunately didn't include a real email address shows: "Be careful what you say, people get hurt for less!"