1 Oct

1 Oct - There are certain things in life that you swear you'll never do. For some it's marry a Protestant, for others it's give a hand knitted sweater as a Christmas present, and for me it's put bus timetable on the front page of the site. But I've just done it, and for good reason, as unlike in the bad old days of the early 21st century anyone arriving at the new Bangkok Airport (Suvaranbhumi) no longer has to head into Bangkok in order to catch a bus to Trat. They can head to the airport's transportation terminal from where a bus direct to Trat can be caught. The times below are the departure times from Morchit Bus Station, Bangkok & Trat Bus Station - not the times the buses arrive/leave at the airport . . . I've no idea what they are.

The new airport opened a couple of days ago with very few glitches. The airport authorities even took it upon themselves to do away with the impersonal electronic signboards which display flight information for a couple of hours, and instead, employ staff to personally notify passengers of departing flights by walking around the terminal building displaying printed cards. Another of the little things that make Thailand such a special place.

Ate at Invito, Italian restaurant on Whitesands, the other night partly because I'd already tried the Amari hotel's Italian restaurant last month and partly because someone else was (again) paying for the meal. As far as the food goes, prices were similar but the taste was much better than at the Amari. Being on an island you tend to get into the habit of expecting to be disappointed by western food as it's often a pale imitation of the real thing, it's akin to eating Thai food in Europe or USA, so Invito was a very pleasant surprise. It's a place to visit if you're celebrating something and are with a lively group of people - but not so good if you're looking for a place to whisper sweet nothings your loved one's ear, as these will be drowned out by the competing sound systems of neighbouring beer bars. As I keep telling anyone who will listen, there's a big demand on Koh Chang for a good quality romantic restaurant in a quiet location away from traffic noise, away from high volume dance music, somewhere where you can sit under the stars, enjoy good food and not have your significant other spend half the meal being distracted by the nearby bar girls lack of dress sense. Samui has a dozen places that fit the bill, Koh Chang doesn't have one.

It's been raining here - more than usual, due to the island getting the tail-end of a typhoon that's crossing Vietnam. But it's still enough to cut the electricity and make the main road along the west coast impassable for most of yesterday. On Whitesands the main street was turned into a river over a metre deep. Our electricity went out at 4am an our guests spent the morning watching trees float down river past the house . . . we also saw a fridge go past - so as bad weather goes, it was pretty bad. But it looks like the rain is here to stay for another 2-3 days.

Down on Koh Mak, this small housing development has been so successful, only a couple of plots remain, so the owner will develop an additional 10 Rai of land in the coming months. This land is located approximately 150 metres from the current development. Houses will be the same traditional Thai style, but rather than clearing and landscaping the land, the houses will be built amongst existing jungle - for a more natural, secluded feel. I'll be adding information regarding plots & prices etc when I get it. But, if you're interested, contact me and I'll put you in touch with the owner direct as the best located plots will be sure to sell quickly.

If you're in Dan Mai between 8-11 Oct you can join the the local people at meetings to discover what plans DASTA has for making Dan Mai into an Arts & Crafts village. Don't laugh, this is meant to be serious. Given DASTA's past record, if the Arts & Crafts village turns out to be anything more than a prefabricated shop selling dried seafood, fruit by-products and souvenir straw hats I'll be very pleased, if not a little surprised. How this will help the local people and exactly why DASTA think that foreign tourists are clamouring for a sun-dried squid emporium is anyone's guess.

4 Aug

4 Aug -
"I'm waitin', waitin' on a sunny day
Gonna chase the clouds away
Waitin' on a sunny day"

Here's a good MP3 of the live version, from Barcelona 2002, of Bruce Springsteen's ' Waiting ona Sunny Day' stick it on your Ipod and you'll almost forget the rain outside your window. (The rain's due to a tropical storm over southern China & the start of the SW monsoon coming across the gulf of Thailand . . . so it's wet everywhere at the moment, not just on KC.)

I've now added a search facility to the site - on all pages except this one, so if you can't find the info that you're looking for, or simply can't be bothered trawling through all the crap . . . give it a go.

Google Earth isn't the only entity with aerial photos of Koh Chang. Aerial Photography Thailand, who, rather aptly given their name, specialise in aerial photography in Thailand are another. Justin, the boss, sent me a few small pics of the KC coastline - three of which are on this page. If you're looking of aerial photos of KC for whatever reason, drop him an email.

Would you pay 30 baht for a four bar cappucino Kit-Kat in preference to 19 baht for the regular flavour?

Business challenge . . .which of these two 'once in a lifetime' investment opportunities would you go for? 1) Anyone wanting to 'invest' 20 million baht in a proposed development built on a small plot of farmland by the road, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the mastermind. 2) Anyone wanting to 'invest' 20 million baht in a proven recipe for snake oil, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the inventor. If you chose 1) . . .you're the ideal investor for Koh Chang. If you chose 2) you probably have either an MBA or some common sense as 1) is actually real.

The Amari Hotel company would like you all to know that if you have US$325+++ handy you & your Mum can enjoy a 'Mother's Day' break during August at the Amari Emerald Cove, Koh Chang. Price includes: free return airport transfer, dinner for 2, spa treatment, fruit & flowers and the dreaded, sickly sweet 'Welcome drink'.

Will we be seeing any reverse swing at the Headingley test this week?

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the current international terror alert level on Koh Chang was 'Lilac'. A reader wanted to know what that means / implies. The answer is simple, we're on an alert that's a step down from 'Beige' and several steps up from any number of pastel shades.

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!"

28 Jun

28 Jun - As it'd be depressing to post a picture of incessant rain I've added an artist's impression of a sunny day on Koh Chang. (Note the ominous cloud.)

Good (?) news for Koh mak & Koh Kood, the Thai government announced that they intend to use the Koh Chang tourism management model to systematically develop other neighbouring islands. Cue the sound of the cheering masses.

This is the same tourism management model that allows developers to do pretty much what they like, oversees the building of public toilets that don't have running water, sees that way too many slummy shop units are erected, provided close on a million US dollars for a waste management plant - that's actually a large hole in the ground, and, after several years of half hearted construction never got round to completing the road around the island.

The brain factory behind the scheme is DASTA (Designated Area of Sustainable Tourism Administration) committee - headed by Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Environment Plodprasop Suraswadi. The report also mentions that the model will serve as the development master plan for the straw-clutching 'Riviera' project, which aims to promote the eastern seaboard as an international beach paradise. (All that's required are international paradise-like beaches.)

But, who is Plodprasop? A quick glance at his CV shows he's the right man for Koh Chang ;-)

He was Thailand's Forestry Chief and is the guy who in 2000 allowed owners of two illegally built resorts in Tap Lan National Park in Khon Kaen to continue operating despite a court order for them to close. At the time he was quoted as saying "How can we demolish their buildings? They have invested a lot of money." Fair enough and just to show he could stand up to encroachers the Bangkok Post, 2 Dec 2000, reported that he dispatched a battalion of 1,200 armed men to demolish four Karen shacks in Thung Yai forest on grounds of encroachment. "The law must be respected." Plodprasop insisted. Even though the forest dwellers argued that the area had been the home of indigenous Karens for generations.

He also, in July 2002, decided that all you tourists should pay 10 times as much as Thais for entrance to National Parks. (No, the extra money doesn't go direct to the Park as park fees have by law to be returned to the central agency, Royal Forestry Dept, which isn't exactly renowned for its probity in administering funds. High-ranking positions in RFD are known, according the boss of the Center for Conservation Biology, Mahidol University, to be bought and sold for millions of baht.)

However, later in 2002 he took 'early retirement' when the cabinet was reshuffled and he was out of a job. Oh, at the time there was a little matter of him being under investigation by seven different government fact-finding committees following several malfeasance complaints but that's probably only coincidence.

However, you cant keep a good man, or Plodprasop, down for long and he remerged, reputation intact to head DASTA.

He still knows how to wow foreign visitors, as, at the grand opening of Chiang Mai Night Safari in Nov 2005 he announced: “The zoo will be outstanding, with several restaurants offering visitors the chance to experience exotic foods such as imported horse, kangaroo, giraffe, snake, elephant, tiger and lion meat. We will also provide domestic crocodile and dog meat from Sakon Nakhon province."

Running a zoo isn't all about dog burgers and BBQ lion ribs you've got to know your market . . . the animal export market, and no one knows it better than Mr P., as in 2004 an inquiry by the Thai government panel on wildlife and plant protection, concluded Plodprasop broke the law by allowing a private Thai zoo to export 100 tigers to China for "research purposes". (Probably to see what they tasted like stir fried.) Fortunately, the illegal export of endangered animals merited no more than a judicial slap on the wrist, so didn't result in any loss of job this time round.

Plodprasop is also an excellent judge of character, or possibly recognises his own kind. In 2000, at a meeting to map a national tourism strategy, chaired by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he called for a statue of Kanchanaburi Senator Chaowarin Latthasaksiri to be erected on account of his discovery of a huge stash of WWII Japanese gold & billions of dollars in US Treasury bonds hidden in a cave. Time magazine had this to say on the matter: "The lost treasure of Lijia Cave is now notorious as the biggest hoax in Thailand's history, a scam so brazen it came dangerously close to ensnaring the monarchy."

People are entitled to make errors of judgment, but so long as Plodprasop is liked by those on Koh Chang all should be well. Unfortunately, in May 2005, an adviser to Trat Environmental Conservation Group was reported as stating that "The organisation (DASTA) is killing our island" and had "Totally ignored people's participation in formulating the master plan". The report concluded by calling for the ouster of Plodprasop to ease local resistance to the project as the locals had questioned Plodprasop's transparency and his disregard for public opinion.

Will Plodprasop listen to the locals? Doubtful as this is what he had to say following criticism last year by Surapon Duangkhae, Secretary General of Wildlife Fund Thailand, over the transfer of wild animals from Kenya to Chiang Mai. Plodprasop was quoted in the Bangkok Post (9 Nov. 2005) as saying, "Mr Surapon is nobody. . . I'd like to warn him to stop making comments on the issue."

Methinks someone needs a spin doctor.

21 May

21 May - It's now been raining solidly for 4 days. Definitely the worst weather so far this year.

Today is also the day of the Koh Chang International Triathlon, so I hope participants have adequate insurance as the sea is pretty choppy at the moment. No doubt the last minute offer of a free Koh Chang to Trat ferry ticket (one way only, value 50 baht) for all participants, Thai and foreign, will have swelled the number of entrants significantly. When it comes to slick marketing, you know who to call.

However, organising the event on the same day at the well-established Chantaburi half marathon, taking place an hour's drive away perhaps wasn't wise, neither was giving athletics clubs around Thailand only one months' advance notice of the event. What you need time to train? Surely, it's only swimming, jogging and riding a bike?

I had toyed with the idea of heading down to see the start at 8am but as it was raining so much I decided that the better option was to scour the internet for a photo of a rabbit with a pancake on its head. Infinitely less off putting, to anyone thinking of visiting Koh Chang, than a photo of incessant rain over a stormy sea.