Ko Si Chang and Si Racha

Early in March, Jake, Joe, and I decided to take a weekend vacation. We agreed we would go to Ko Chang, a beautiful island off the coast of eastern Thailand. When we were ready to leave we found out that the last ferry to the island from the town on the mainland leaves at 5 pm. It was about noon and the bus takes five hours so making the ferry was next to impossible. So instead, we decided we would go to Ko Si Chang, an island a lot closer to Bangkok, and Si Racha, a fishing town that is also the home of the original "Sriracha" hot sauce that's so popular in the US. You'd be surprised to know that you never see the Sriracha sauce anywhere, even in Si Racha. Thais don't eat it because they prefer other ingredients to make their food spicier.

Ko Si Chang is an interesting island that caters to few tourists of whom are mostly Thai and some Chinese. The island's main business is for fishing, so the seafood soups were absolutely delicious (for me, best in Thailand so far). It seemed as though Jake, Joe, and I were the only farang (foreigners) on the island, which I thought was a good thing. We were able to meet some very nice people but the nightlife was almost nonexistent. On Saturday night, the most bumping place on the entire island was a local karaoke bar where the three of us made up half the crowd. But we made sure we had a good time– we sang the Spanish version of Hero by Enrique Iglesias, which was hilarious.