Koh Chang Pt.2

We spent about a week lulling about on Koh Chang. After the first night, the weather had calmed and the island was bathed in a lovely - but also sweltering - heat for most of our visit. Great if you want a healthy golden tan, and who doesn't? But not so good when you inherited the Scottish genes on your mum's side instead of the Italian ones on your Dad's and wind up with a healthy red singe... which makes you feel about as irritable as you look.

On a chance trip to one of the local piers to check out the markets, we bumped into two friends from Bristol. 'What are the chances?!' everybody cried, and actually they did feel particularly slim, considering the bizarre emptiness of the island.

We swapped stories and everyone agreed that some sort of black hole must have engulfed everyone else, so we felt the best approach was to join forces later that day. Thus our party of three (I forgot to mention that we'd picked up a New Yorker earlier that day whilst sitting on the beach: it was inevitable, she was the only other person there) became five for the rest of our time on Koh Chang.

Koh Chang was a bizarre place, not because of the geography, the people or the way of life - there was just something unsettling about the way it made me feel. It was it's own self-contained paradise: filled with suggestively decorated and named party hostels; romantic sunset walks; crystal clear waters; and beach bars kitted out with some pretty impressive-looking sound systems and chirpy bartenders. But there just didn't seem to be anyone else there to enjoy it - except for us of course - and how could I possibly enjoy something that nobody else seemed to be enjoying?

We continued to muse that it must be because it was Wednesday/ Thursday/ Friday, and not technically yet the weekend. But as the days went on and the weather improved, this argument grew less convincing. 9-5 wasn't really a thing out here on the island and it was the height of summer. There we were, relaxing on one of the most beautiful islands in the world, but somehow it seemed as though we had missed out on something better.

I would go to bed feeling restless and unsatisfied, and somehow find myself yearning for the bustle and mayhem of Bangkok, the liveliness of the city. This wholesome island existence did nothing to quiet my uneasy conscience - a sad compromise between a simple, local lifestyle and a tourist's hotspot, it had the facilities of both and the spirit of neither, and it became the beginning of a personal nightmare for me. The isolated emptiness which hinted towards a party which we'd long missed out on made me feel greatly at odds with myself, and I soon couldn't wait to move on - I wanted the outside world to dazzle me and fill me with its wonder, that was why I'd hopped on the plane in the first place.

Sitting in my bedroom in London now, on a cold Wednesday night in November, I still don't know that I would feel completely at ease if I were suddenly transported back to that solitary little beach so far removed from society. Even with a few friends around me, I'd still feel that I need the opportunity to meet more people, to have more adventure.

Perhaps a more contented person would disagree with me, but there's still a restlessness inside of me which I can't shake. On those days, happiness came like sunbeams speckling the ground between leafy shadows, and that swelling disquiet stirred constantly in the gloomy depths of the bay and along the stretches of darkened roads.