We went to Koh Chang (Elephant Island) last weekend, to get some beach and fresh air after the holiday crowds and before my school started. It turned out to be my favorite island. Once we got there, we forgot about the painful long 7-hour journey we just took to get there (bus, pickup truck taxi, ferry, then pickup truck taxi again).
We stayed on Klong Prao Beach, which is a quieter beach, with some resorts and huts along the beach and quite a few restaurants right on the beach that are not charging rip off prices just because they are on the beach. Some swings are hanging from the tall trees, so that kids and big kids :) can enjoy swinging right into the water. The pictures should tell more than words...
The second day we took a snorkeling trip. On the same pickup truck that took us to the pier, there was a Korean man in his forties and his daughter. We only found out that they are Koreans after Brent started talking to the guy. When he found out that we are from America, he said "I am very grateful to America!" He said though the young people in Korea now don't like America that much, he is grateful because if America didn't fight the Korean war, south Korea wouldn't have been such a rich country. He kept on saying 'thank you' to us that we were speechlessly moved and I felt proud to be an American. I guess the man has traveled around and see that what South Korea would be like if they also lived under communist regime.
I am reading a fascinating biography on Mao (the 'great' leader of People's Republic of China). I just found out the reason why Korean war lasted so long, was because Mao kept on piping in Chinese "volunteer" army, and used it as an evidence to Stalin that he is able to be the boss of communist community of entire Asia, so that Stalin would give China the nuclear bomb he's been nagging for, so that he (Mao) can build a super power country and the world would listen to him. Kim Il Sung wanted to end the war two years before the war actually ended, because north Korea was in a shamble, and the country suffered huge human loss. But Mao, being appointed boss of Kim by Stalin, wanted to show his ability, directed Kim to continue the war, and his purpose was to drain and kill more Americans. He didn't care about Chinese lives, as there were plenty (in his own words), and he sent them to die, especially those he disliked (including a famous general who disagreed with him years before), and many soldiers who came from the Kwomintang army. Mao also ordered the POWs from the war returned to China being executed because they were "traders" that they were even captured.
It's rare to hear this kind of pro-America sentiments in the media these days. Even when we were in Shandong, my friends expressed that people there like America, and hate Japan, still. Shandong was occupied by Japan several times in the last hundred years and many were brutally tortured and killed.
The third day we went for elephant trecking before we said good-bye to the island. Our mahout was a bit crazy, probably half drunk, as he asked us during the ride if he could drink whiskey. He's very agile and he jumped from our elephant to the other elephant's back trying to scare the kids. He kept on pulling the tail of the elephant in front of us, and pretended it was a microphone and sang songs. I guess the elephant was not happy, because when he jumped from another elephant to her, she wiggled so he fell to the ground and scraped his arm! Thai elephants are half the size of African ones, about 3 meters tall, but they are gentler and smarter, and are tamed and used as farm hands. We loved touching their wiry hair. Even the baby elephant is 200 kg, so we wouldn't want to hold it.
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