Sunday, May 3, 2009

It's Time to Perfect My Bartering Skills

Once we arrived on Koh Chang, we caught a taxi to the beach we stayed on, Klong Prao.  We got a bungalow for $9 a night and decided to grab some breakfast.  At breakfast, we discovered the joys of fresh pineapple pancakes (They might even rival your pancakes, Dad) and fresh fruit shakes.  In fact, when I ordered a watermelon fruit shake, the guy had to go down the road to the fruit market to grab a watermelon to make my shake with!  After breakfast, we explored the local shops a bit and decided to go on an elephant ride. The company provided transportation for us from our bungalow and we were able to ride an elephant through the rainforest for about an hour!  Although the tour guide’s English wasn’t very good, we did learn a bit about the elephants and the rainforest plants during our ride.  After our ride, we got $5 massages from a little place right next to our bungalow.  This was enough relaxation for us to realize that we were absolutely exhausted from our non-stop travelling, so we crashed on a resort’s private beach a short walk from our bungalow for a long afternoon nap. (It had padded lawn chairs!)  We grabbed dinner in the evening at a delicious seafood restaurant and shopped and bartered for souvenirs from the locals.  The bartering process goes a bit like this: you grab an object and ask, “How much?”  Then, the shopkeeper grabs their calculator and puts their initial price in.  You then glance at the price, laugh incredulously, and shake your head.  The shopkeeper asks, “How much you give me?”  You then type your counter offer into the calculator and continue the process until you seal the deal.  We got so good at bartering that we were afraid we’d try to barter for items once we were in Australia too!

The next day, we grabbed a taxi to a fishing town called Bang Bao on the southern tip of the island.  We grabbed another bungalow for the night ($8 a night this time!) and headed to the boardwalk and pier, where they have a ton of souvenir shops and seafood restaurants.  We bartered for some more souvenirs and enjoyed watching the fishing and touring boats come into the pier from the Gulf of Thailand.  That evening, we found an adorable seafood restaurant along the water and enjoyed some delicious seafood and Thai cuisine.  Sunset on the water and the incoming boats’ twinkling lights made the view from the restaurant a gorgeous one!

            In the morning, we grabbed a taxi all the way back up the coast to the northern pier and rode the ferry back to the mainland.  We took a taxi from the ferry to the bus station and bought tickets on a VIP bus from Trat back to Bangkok.  The use of the term, “VIP” is grossly overused in Australia and SE Asia, so we laughed at the idea of taking a “VIP” bus.  However, we were pleasantly surprised.  The bus had slightly hideous pink frilly curtains, and free blankets, candy bars, and Coca Cola for the passengers.  (All the makings of a proper VIP experience!)  However, our experience was kind of ruined when they turned on obnoxious Thai “comedy” on all the bus TVs and blared it through their surround sound system.  So much for a quiet and pleasant VIP ride!  We met an English woman on the bus ride, so we shared a taxi with her from the bus station in Bangkok to Koh Sahn Road, the backpacker district of Bangkok.

I'm not sure if this is going to work, but here is the link to my Facebook photo album of Koh Chang (Just copy and paste it into your address line!):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012426&id=1177830018&l=ee876fb0da

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