Koh Chang Expedition

For this year’s expedition, the Sixth Formers decided to go to Thailand’s eastern island, Koh Chang, which is several kilometers off the province Trat. I had a great time during this year’s expedition, not only because of the various activities [e.g. snorkeling, kayaking, game activities, etc], but also because of the great time I got to spend with the rest of my friends. In my opinion, this year’s expedition is somewhat equal to or even better than last year’s Nan expedition… Anyway, without further ado, let’s get this photoblog started… A little warning, there are about 115 pics here, so the page may take awhile to load.

Topsy and Nun as we waited for the buses to arrive.

Nun and Tina.

Joe and Ta.

Girls: Topsy, Nun, Bifern, and Yuka.
Guys: Me and Gaf

Tien, Raghav, and Ta.

Because there wasn’t any space to play cards, we had to play them on Gaf, who was sleeping.

In McDonald’s at the stopping point.
Back Row: Raghav, Kitti, Bifern, and Yuka.
Front: Ta.

Boung, Yuka, Gaf, and Bifern.

Topsy and Nun playing Puzzle Fighter.

Ta and Joe as they watched A Knight’s Tale on Joe’s little DVD player.

Gaf and Tien before they took annoying VDOs of people.
Talk about VDOs, here’s a VDO clip of what was going on during the expedition [I was filming]. Note: Languages spoken are English and Thai, so you should know I little Thai to be able to follow what’s going on…

Yuka and Bifern as they waited for their turn to play Puzzle Fighter.

Me, Ta, and Bifern at the gas station.

Jeeb, Nun, and Boung.

Bifern and Nun playing “Pai Thoap” [Snap] on Kitti’s [who got on the wrong bus] stomach.

Waiting for the ferry…
Standing: Joe, Ta, Bifern, Kitti, Gaf, and Raghav.
Sitting: Me, Nun, and Topsy.

On the ferry…
Topsy, Ta, Me, Gaf, Tien, Nun, and Bifern.

Looking out at the sea.
Topsy, Bifern, and Nun.

[I'm so lucky my camera didn't fall when I took this pic!]
Nun, Bifern, and Topsy.

The view…

Nun’s bug-eye sunglasses became so popular during the trip that everyone wanted to wear them [and see their reflection in them!].

Another ferry that passed us on the way to Koh Chang.

Welcome to Koh Chang!
Gaf pointed out that the translation isn’t correct since in Thai, it’s saying “Koh Chang Ferry”, but it says “Welcome to Koh Chang” in English!

Coconut Beach Bungalows.

Bifern and Gaf comparing the VDOs they can take with their camera/phone.

Kitti and Nun.

Joe and Ta.

Nett and Becky.

Siki.

The Head of Sixth Form – Mrs. Keys, who did an excellent job organizing this trip.

Topsy on the beach.

Some people, like Nett here, decided to play frisbee while others…

…preferred to make sand sculptures [and sandballs that they threw at others], like Trin here.

A little view of the beach.

Kanae.

Aom.

Toy and Tina.

Burying Bifern.

We present our made-in-five-minutes art work – “Buried Bifern”… Haha, Nun, Charlie, Gaf, Raghav, Tien, Jeeb, and I had to dig up so much sand to make the hole for Bifern… Apparently, as we poured sand onto her, some of it also got into her mouth, which caused a great scene where Raghav had to run down the beach to get some water to rinse the sand from her mouth…

Prang and Blue with their little sand castle that has a moat, a bridge, and even a hole in the middle!

Acting all crazy…
Me, Bifern, Nun, Gaf, and Tien.

Here’s the real order of those who are in the picture [since some of them are blocked by others] – Topsy, Me, Bifern, Nun, Gaf, Tien, and Tab.

The sun setting…

Nithi.

Trin doing a handstand.

Jeeb, Toy, and Siree.

Joe and Ta.

Nithi and I.

Nancy, Julie, Pey-Shyen, and Jenny.

Dan, Ohm, Siki, Gunn, Nett, and Kong.

Bifern, Nun, and Topsy during the Mastermind game where all the questions were about Entertainment and Pop Culture stuff [There were three rounds - Famous Faces, Pop Culture Gossip, and Identify the Song by listening to the first 10 seconds]. “Our Humps” came second with only one point behind “Nerd Nation”!

Topsy during breakfast.

Me and Joe during breakfast.

The area of the resort that some of the guys stayed in. The building looks pretty scary, especially at night… The resort is also really quiet and we even thought of filming some sort of “teen horror” flick during our stay… Haha, we didn’t do it though…

My room… I stayed with Gaf and Joe. I got the biggest [and best] bed, while Joe got the “second to best” and Gaf got the worst [even though he thought it was the second best]…

Like last year, Ta kept on playing his guitar throughout the expedition… This time it’s his guitar though.

Joe: “I don’t wanna leave this place!”
Haha, just joking, I just made that part up… But I don’t know why, all of a sudden he started hugging the pole!

Blue, Aom, Prang, and Lillian.

Kitti, Bifern, Nun, Topsy, and Tab.

Some of the kayaks…

A little demonstration on how to kayak by Ohm and Charlie.

Joe and Topsy with their “hand-made balls”…

Nun, Bifern, and Jeeb.

A cuttlefish that we found floating dead near shore.

Nun painting on the beach while Jeeb looks out to the horizon.

Ta, Kitti, Bifern, Gaf, Raghav, Tien, Shigeo, Shintaro, Yuka [Byron], and I playing Dodgeball on the beach.

Bifern, Ta, and Joe laughing at a VDO clip Gaf took of Bifern… It can be seen HERE. The VDO is basically showing that Bifern thinks that Gaf is taking a picture of her when he’s actually VDO taping her… Mainly Thai was spoken here…
Oh, here’s another a VDO clip of some people during dinner time that I took… Note: People mainly spoke Thai so you should be able to understand Thai to view this. It’s also a little bit dark [actually, really dark]…

Gaf with his Mohawk hairstyle.

Gaf, Raghav, and Nithi during dinner at the Italian restaurant nearby.

Joe, Gaf, Becky, Blue, Raghav, Nithi, and I ate at the Italian restaurant dring our free time and decided to skip dinner.

Aom.

Kitti during dinner thinking about someone …

Tab, Siree, Trin, Jeeb, Toy, Music, Plai, and Boung.

A pic of my group.

Chris, Lewis, Tien, and Dave.

Jeeb and Toy during the Icebreaker game.

The Japanese group – Masa, Kanae, Yuka [Keller], Yuka [Byron], Tak, Shin, Shigeo, and Jeeb – singing a Japanese song that’s said to be very popular. [Sorry, I forgot the name of the song... Ask Jeeb if you want to know...]

Sunrise, sunrise…

The whole Sixth Form in our “Super Six” t-shirts.

Another view of the beach.

Coconut tree…

Prang and Bifern at the American Diner.

Me and Prang.

Gaf.

Raghav, Tina, and Yuka.

Nun, Topsy, and Blue.

Kitti.

Becky and Trin.

Boung.

Joe and I.

Group pic… Don’t know why that bartender girl came and joined us… Sorry for the bad lighting… Apparently the flash didn’t reach us or something…

Leaving the resort…

On the mini song-taew…
Tien, Gaf, and Bifern.

Joe and Ta.

Nun and Tina.

A view of the ocean from the cliffs.

Nun and Bifern at the ferry.

Jeeb and Simba that Julie, who’s now in Singapore, gave her during her visit.

One last group pic on Koh Chang.

That mountain looks like a volcano from far away… And I think it’s that bird from San Francisco that’s in the smoke!! Why do all my nice scenery pictures have birds in them??

A view from the ferry. Even better, bird-free!

Bifern and Topsy during the national anthem… It was so funny because everybody was talking to one another and doing their own business, but as soon as the national anthem came up, everyone stood up right away… All the tourists were staring at us and wondering what’s going on…

Kitti, Topsy, Bifern, and Ta.

Nun and Plai.

Siree and Toy.

Plai and Nithi.

Bifern doing an impersonation of the ghost in Ju-On.

Topsy and Nun with their Starbucks.

Tien and Gaf enjoying their chicken.

Bifern and Yuka with their McDonald’s drinks.

Joe and Ta watching the deleted scenes of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Topsy and Ta… I don’t know why but all of a sudden, Ta felt like “eating” people’s heads on the last day, haha…

Chris on the other bus doing an impersonation of a monkey…

Reaching Bangkok…

Just before we got off…
Ta, Bifern, Yuka, Topsy, and Nun.

These are only about half of the pictures that I took [about 390 that I took but only 259 are up on the net]… The others are HERE, HERE, and HERE at the Yahoo Photo Album… Hope you enjoyed the entry… And there are no pics from snorkeling or kayaking this year since we didn’t have a waterproof camera…

Just some random thoughts: We were divided into Groups 1 & 2, and the other group was so lucky since on the day they went kayaking and we went snorkeling, there wasn’t any sun at all, but on the day we went kayaking, it was a full blast! Plus, the waves were so high but at least we didn’t fall out of our kayak, unlike when we practiced the day before… I was also told that Chris’s kayak flipped TWELVE times! Only because they intended to, though… Anyway, despite the high waves and blazing sun, my kayaking team [Bifern, Ta, and I] was the first to reach the island [after Mr. and Mrs Waterman... So second in all, but first of the students]! Even though we were shouting at each other to keep on paddling!

Overall, I think that it was a great time to spend with my friends. In my opinion, I liked this year’s activities more than last year’s, but I liked the fact that we had so much free time last year to do whatever we wanted… Anyway, great expedition!

I’ll just update about the AS Exams and Twelfth Night Production Performance and pics another time since this one is way too long.

Currently Listening to: U2 - They totally deserved their 5 wins at this year’s Grammy’s!

Recently Watched: Underworld: Evolution… One word: Bloody.