On Monday, April 15th, our bus left for Ao Thammachat harbor at 7:45 a.m. After about 6 hours of bus travel, we took a ferry from the harbor to the island of Koh Chang. There, a taxi took us to our accommodation in the south of the island.
We immediately fell in love with our simple bungalow! It only had a mattress on the floor, but a colorful bathroom, a quiet fan and, best of all, a veranda with 2 hammocks and a sea view!
View from the veranda We rested a bit in the hammocks before heading down the road to the village of Bang Bao. We ate something, looked at the souvenir shops, walked along the pier and explored the diving schools. The pier with lighthouse of Bang Bao.
The next day started just as lazily, in the hammock with coffee. At around 1pm we settled into a restaurant. We went on to a rocky beach to snorkel. We saw some corals and colorful fish! But there were also some dead corals. The day ended where it had started: in the hammock:)
Coconut on the stone beach
On April 17th we went diving in a marine national park. The first dive was very nice with colorful fish and beautiful corals! The second dive was mixed. The visibility was very low at the beginning, then it got better and at the end it was bad again. Overall it was still nice to dive!
Selfies!
The next day we went to an abandoned hotel ship called "Galaxy". Thanks to the hiking app Komoot, the walk was a bit difficult. However, we managed - by chance, really! - to avoid the ticket seller (there is actually an entrance fee). You can't get into the hotel ship, but you can get into the other buildings on the former hotel grounds. We don't know why the whole thing had to be closed. But the beach was beautiful, you could swim wonderfully and the hotel's outdoor showers even still worked, so you could shower off after a swim in the (warm) sea.
The hotel ship "Galaxy"
A day later we went to Lonly Beach. That was also very nice! We actually wanted to rent kayaks to go to the small islands offshore. But the wind was too strong. So we had no choice but to stay on the beach, go swimming, sunbathe, and I got a massage (and how cool is that?! A nice massage with the sound of the sea in the background!).
The next day was hardly any different. Except that I had a long phone call with my mother and then we called Benni to wish him a happy birthday. We spent the rest of the day on a beach again.
On Sunday, April 21st, we went diving again. The first dive site was an old ship that had been sunk on purpose. You couldn't see anything from the water surface. We dived down and slowly saw the outline of the 100m long ship. The closer we got, the more details we saw. The rusty railing, the holes in the deck, the Thai flag hanging limply in the weak current. The visibility was good and we saw lots of fish! Whole schools of shimmering silver fish swam past us! It was absolutely amazing!!!
The second dive site was near a large rock in the sea. There were lots of corals and our highlight was a loggerhead turtle that was snacking.
In the evening we went to a Songtra Festival. There was a lot of music, a lot of water and a lot to see. But we were pretty tired from the day and went home early to our cute bungalow.
