Koh Chang Beautiful

friends,
We have so much to tell you! The past four days have been absolutly amazing! It started off by catching a bus from bangkok to ranong (which we were more than happy to do). The bus ride was about 10 hours long, but it was very scenic. We got to see the country side of thailand and saw our first elephants and monkeys. The bus was full of mostly locals, because not alot of foreigners go to ranong except for a few back packers, so that was a great way to experience the culture. When we arrived in the town of ranong we hopped on two motorcycle taxis which took us to our hotel for the night. It was nice, our hotel was only about 8 dollars. The next morning we went for a walk to the town market and had some fantastic deep fried pastry and some tea with a couple from belgium who gave us great travel tips. Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel where the same motorcycle taxis picked us up and took us to the pier to catch our boat to koh chang. Koh Chang is a small island about 5 km off the west coast of thailand in the anaman sea. After about an hour long boat ride of sitting on rice bags we arrived at koh chang. When we got there the boat drove around the island and stopped on certain beaches to deliver goods, when we saw a beach that interested us we got off and walked to the nearest bungalows. Our home away from home sooon became Mama's Bungalows. Where we got a very modest bungalow with a bed and a toilet with no electricity. On the up side we had a beautiful view of the ocean and not even a minute walk down to the beach. All for only 5 dollars a night. Mama's also had a wonderful little restaurant where we ate like kings for only 3 dollars per person per meal. Two days ago we decided to go for a hike around the island. The trek was very beautiful, we walked through dense jungles and mangrove forest and even stumbled across a coconut farm where the farmer and his three sons got coconuts down from the trees for us, taught us how to open them and fed us fresh coconut milk. Cory tried climbing a tree and opening up a coconut, but they just laughed at his attempts. They also fed us cashew fruits with salt (that we thought was sugar), which caught us by surprise. As a token of our appreciation we tried to give them some money, but they refused. We were very grateful for these refreshments and we went on our way. When we got back to Mama's we got traditional thai massages for an hour and a half for about 8 dollars each. Anneke also played a thai game with the kids of the family who run the bungalows. Besides the Language barrier there was alot of laughter in common, which made us feel right at home. We're going to have trouble leaving tommorow, but it's definelty a place we want to come back to. So far we have learned that the people here are as beautiful as the scenery and are excited to see the rest of thailand. We miss you and want to hear from all of you.