Random Pictures

Ice cream and fried banana at Beach Tango, the restaurant/bar that we ate in almost everyday in Koh Chang.

I think this is in Songkhlaburi.

My favorite bar in Bangkok (the backpacker area if Khao San Road).

Leaving Koh Chang

Eight days on Koh Chang (Elephant Island) are finished. Today was just a day of travel back to Bangkok. Here is the ferry to/from the island.

I grabbed some pictures off of Dad's camera. Elephants, river rafting, and the Erawen waterfall from the tour in Kanchanaburi:

A couple days later near Songkhlaburi



And driving back from Songkhlaburi we stopped at the Hellfire memorial to Australians who built this part of the railway for the Japanese.

A Second Day Diving

Another day diving, this time around some rocks less than an hour from Bang Bao, Koh Chang. I didin't take any pictures this day, but here are pictures of some of the wildlife that I saw.

This is a bamboo shark. I didn't get a great look at him since he was hiding under a large rock. I saw a part of his head. The diving guide swam around to the rear of the rock and pulled on his tail. But we couldn't coax him to come out.

I saw an creature that looks like this one. I think it was the white-eyed moray. I only saw his head like in this picture. 

The puffer fish is really goofy looking. Big eyes. I saw one of these.

I also saw two spotted boxfish which I mistook for pufferfish at fish simply because they too look strange. They are shaped like a rectangle.

Not to be outdone in the category of weirdness, I saw a number of these beaked butterfly fish too.

And, also many of these moon wrasses.

In addition, I saw a number of batfish and Kuhl's stingrays (as pictured in my post a few days ago). I also saw some barracuda a little in the distance. They just presented long, slender silhouettes to me.

Each dive was for about an hour. It was one of the best days in Thailand and probably my best dive day ever. I didn't want it to end.

Koh Chang's East Side

Today I rented a scooter and explored the eastern side of the island. Here is the scooter at a pier somewhere down the coast.

I stopped in at a fishing village where all the buildings were on stilts as seems common here. The village is visible in the background here:

This side of the island does not have a lot of development. In fact I practically had the whole road to myself. The most interesting thing about the east side were the mangrove trees. They grow in the salt water but when the tide goes out (which it was) a large part of the root structure is visible. Some branches grow out from the trunk and then turn downwards to become roots too. Little brown crabs scurry around in the mud around the roots of the trees.

The east coast does not have a lot of sandy beaches. It is mainly forests of mangroves and many other trees. There were a lot of banana plants, and very tall coconut palms. I also saw some durian trees. I got hungry driving through these forests.

There were a few nice beach areas however.

I also saw one temple:

A Lazy Day

Tuesday was the laziest day yet. I even fell asleep in the sand.

Pictures From the Diving Day

Pictures from Monday

Our boat:

Cars and boats all have flowers for good luck:

Other boats out there:

Back to Bang Bao:

Diving at Koh Rang

After a day yesterday of lounging around at the beach, it was time to go underwater. Warm water diving is sure a lot easier than the cold water diving that I'm used to: no boots, gloves, and hood. No thick suit. And only a few pounds of weight.

The boat left Bang Bao here on Koh Chang and went to Koh Rang about 90 minutes away. The trip was choppy but the scenery was great past all kinds of small islands. We did two dives, and it was like swimming around in a tropical aquarium: lots of sea urchins, hard coral, and fish by the thousands. The boat crew and dive masters were all really friendly and helpful. They served us a pretty decent lunch of rice, noodles and various chicken and veg dishes. What a great day.

Here is a very small sampling of the types of fish that I saw (banner fish, bat fish, and kuhl stingray):