koh chang

When we left Bangkok early Friday morning for Koh Chang, Erin and I thought we had six luxurious days to kill there. This morning over breakfast, my cell phone rang. It was Sukjai, wanting to know where I was.

The conversation went something like this:

Erin and I are on Koh Chang.
"Where? You're supposed to be in Bangkok."
I thought Lita asked for two extra days off last Thursday.
"She and Alyssa and Amy and Simone asked off, but you and Erin and Kristy didn't."
There must have been some kind of miscommunication [imagine that!], because we all thought when Mariela asked off, she was asking for all the foreign teachers.

The compromise Mariela had come to was that we'd get Tuesday and Wednesday off in exchange for staying two hours late every day next week. She kept all of us informed on the status of these negotiations.

We assumed Sukjai understood that we all wanted time off. Hello? Why would the rest of us be happy little worker bees when four of our number were off gallivanting around?

I guess I'd forgotten what happens when you assume. He sounded ticked. Said he needed to talk to the three of us when we got back. It pretty much ruined my morning... until I went on a four-hour snorkeling trip! I saw a baby octopus. It was fantastic.

The rest of the long weekend was great, too. I had a coconut-oil massage, ate nachos, and stayed in a bamboo hut. Seriously. Wood floors, bamboo walls, corrugated metal roof, mosquito nets hanging over the beds. We had the works.

Incidentally, I loved sleeping under the mosquito net. Spaces in the bamboo walls made it so our nets were dappled in silver-blue patches of light. It looked and felt like we were sleeping under Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.

I really liked Koh Chang. There weren't touts bugging you every five minutes like there are at Koh Samet. And the food was cheaper, and better. There were fewer people there, making it a very quiet, chill weekend. Overall, I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I feel rejuvenated enough to face the coming wrath. Wish me luck.