koh chang

room with a view

‘Down to the end of the beach, it’s the last but one bungalow.’
My little wooden hut (with A/C) is I suppose what I’ve always thought of as the ultimate in tropical holidays. Right on the coral white sand, I can gaze out of the window or sit on the verandah and watch the big copper coloured sun drop gently into a sparkling blue ocean, with only the sounds of the gentle waves and the wind in the palm trees.
Koh Chang is one of Thailand’s biggest islands, and most of it is a national park, with its rainforest still well preserved in the mountainous interior. I arrived by car ferry from the mainland after a breakneck minibus ride, and you could immediately feel this was something different from the overdeveloped, more famous Thai islands (but for how long?).
I hopped aboard a dangerously overloaded song thraew. There is one road that goes almost all the way around the island, and this passes all the little resorts and beaches and settlements. Arriving at Hat Sai Khao (White Sand Beach) I am unceremoniously dumped at the little settlement and pointed in the right direction. I walk back right along the beach to its far end, where the White Sand Resort has its bungalows stretched along the last 500m or so of the beach, past a rocky outcrop to which some rather more informal establishments cling, limpet like. It’s high tide and I have to make my way through the bars and shops of these places to get to my hotel. Eventually I make it and am sent to the very far end of the beach.
Last but one bungalow; and beyond that is a tiny shack where they do freshly squeezed juices and a menu with 2 items – chicken and sticky rice, or noodles – both delicious, so you don’t even have to get back to the resort café, you can just laze around and swim and eat and drink.
Resort is probably too grand a term. Just a big open wooden hut for the café and reception, and the bungalows, and the beach and the waves and the sun and the stars at night…
I swim under the stars the first night. Millions of them. And stars below too: those little phosphorescent dots of night creatures that glow as you thrash about and seem to cling to you. They are the only light here, except far out from below the horizon, the dim glow of the fishing boats working through the night. I fall asleep to the lulling sound of the waves, rushing ashore. I wake to the same sound and the brilliant early morning sunshine.
In the evenings you can wander right down to the other end of the beach to the brasher, livelier bars and restaurants. It’s still all fairly low key, mostly single storey wooden huts with their toes in the water at high tide. But while I am there at night the tide is low, leaving a big shallow foreshore, still gleaming wet to reflect the neon and the fairy lights.

fire dancing on the beach

You can select your dinner from today’s catch and have it barbecued right in front of you. There are laid back little bars with tropical cocktails and jazz, and some more organised ones where the waiters strip off their shirts a couple of times a night and perform a fire dance, skilfully chucking flaming sticks up in the air and whirling them around in time to the music.
The ultimate in relaxation.