Our initial plan was to go to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, but we were advised to avoid that region during March due to the fires made by farmers, making the atmosphere pretty nasty to breathe… So we changed our plan and moved our visit to that region for later and explore Cambodia and Laos in the meantime.

An island before crossing: Koh Chang

There is not much to write about our next stop; we chose it mainly as a stop on our way to Cambodia and as a rest after the chaos of Bangkok and that’s what we got!

Koh Chang island is actually the third largest island of Thailand (after Phuket and Koh Samui) and has the advantage of being closer to Bangkok than the southern islands.

It is still a rather tourist and party island (though not as much as the famous Thai islands), but depending on the beaches you choose you can easily avoid it. Where we stayed, was one of the calmer yet still reachable beaches at the south end of the island. The general activity on the island is to rent a motorbike and visit the island and more natural places, but after seeing the bumpy roads and hearing the news of a few accidents that ended in the hospital from the very first day, we were not courageous enough, so we stayed where we were.

There were no parties going on, though we had some nice nights with the other guests and the owner of the guesthouse we are staying at. We had a proper beach holiday, read books at hammocks and chaise-longue by the beach, swam, had a Thai massage at the beach, hung out with the people at the guesthouse and left our hand prints on the wall.

Going to Cambodia

Our road to Cambodia was again a several step one that we had to figure out, though it went more smoothly than we imagined.

We were a bit scared of the Cambodian border as they are known of being corrupted and trying to get more money than the official visa costs. We ended up paying more than the official cost but we made a deal for not having pass photos with us. Also since then especially Louis started to get better at haggling - a necessary feature in Cambodia.

After one night in Koh Kong, we went on our way to our next step, Sihanoukville, we shared a minibus with a playful young Cambodian boy!