There are two ways to get to Koh Chang island from Bangkok, by plane or by bus. The first option is faster, it takes around one hour from Bangkok to Trat but you also need to factor in a taxi from Trat to the Laem Ngop when you arrive in Trat, the price for the flight is around ฿2,100 (£50) per person using Traveloka. The second option is to take the bus from Bangkok to Laem Ngop which is slower, the bus takes around 5 and a half hours but it is significantly cheaper - only ฿277 (£6.50) per ticket.

Thai phrase of the day “Sawadee ka(p )” means “Hello”, add the p for males

We decided to take the second option to save some money and chose to stay in a hotel in Ekkamai whilst in bangkok to make this easier. The day before the departure we got two tickets at this bus station to be able to reach Koh Chang Island.

Exchange rate at the time of writing £1 to ฿42.77

Since the price was so cheap, we were skeptical about the bus trip and expected an old bus with no aircon to show up in the morning. In actual fact the coach was quite modern and well air-conditioned. The co-driver also gave us some snacks and juice, there was the air con so not too warm and actually we fell asleep so we woke up very close to the ferry pier.

The bus dropped us off at a stall on Laem Ngop where we were sold ferry tickets and transport to our accomodation when on the island. We were charged ฿360 (£8.42), ฿160 for the ferry tickets and ฿200 for the taxi to our accomodation when on the island. However, we were given a refund for the ฿200 as our accomodation was too far off route for the driver to go to.

The ferry was pretty standard, there were some cheap snacks and and you could also buy a smoothie for the ride. The best part though was the view of Koh Chang as we approached the mystical looking island - it looked like something from King Kong or Jurrasic Park.

By the time we had arrived on the island we had managed to get our WorkAway host to come and pick us up who was a really nice and energetic woman from Cambodia. She told us to jump on the back of her small 4 by 4 with all of our luggage which turned out to be a really cool way to get an initial view of the island and the crazy antics of Thai drivers.

And that was us, we left our accomodation in Ekkamai at 7am and arrived in our accomodation on Koh Chang island by 2pm where our hosts were preparing a BBQ for our arrival.