Island Paradise

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Greetings to all. We are currently on Ko Lanta, a beautiful island in the Andaman Sea. Unlike resort areas like Patong, this is a very relaxing place with no touts trying to sell you tuk tuk rides, suits or massages. The people are so nice and everyone is very laidback. This is what we need before we start traveling in more challenging places like Cambodia and Laos.

The islanders are mostly Muslims. This is the first place in Thailand where we have seen more mosques than Buddhist temples. There are no taxis here-the main forms of transport are on a motorbike or on the back of a pickup truck. The interior of the island is much poorer and less developed than the beach areas. In several places, people parked their motorbikes on the road. Not on the roadside-on the road itself, which I thought was pretty funny.

We had a fantastic day trip snorkeling and sea kayaking the islands around Ko Lanta. We kayaked around these beautiful limestone formations and into these caves. We finally saw some decent coral while snorkeling and there are some very interesting reef fish species here. Our favorite place was Emerald Cove, where you swim into a cave for about 250 feet. After going through the darkness, there is an amazing hidden cove with a beautiful little beach and a tropical forest. What a special place-I have never seen anything like it.

We also visited Ko Phi-Phi a few days ago. These are beautiful islands that were hit hard by the 2004 tsunami. Our first visit to Phi-Phi Don was just along the pier and waterfront, but on our second stopover, we had time to walk into the interior. The beach area has been rebuilt, but I was shocked how devastated the interior of the island still is and how far the tsunami came inland. There is debris everywhere and many buildings were completely leveled. Even though there is a lot of construction going on, it will be a long time before the rebuilding is finished. The coral around Phi-Phi is almost completely dead, especially the branch coral, though there are still many beautiful reef fish and the brain coral is making a comeback.

We also went snorkeling around Ko Phi-Phi Leh, which is the smaller island where "The Beach" was filmed. I have not seen the movie so I cannot tell you how it is, but the book by Alex Garland is fantastic and I highly recommend it. We did not go ashore because it is a national park and we would have been required to pay 200 baht each (US$5) for less than 1 hour, but the snorkeling in the bay was nice. There were many beautiful fish, though there are also these nasty little suckers that bite. One of them bit me so hard he even drew blood!

We have a SIM card on our mobile phone, so if any of you would like to call us, you can reach us at 011+66+67+7533955. Thailand is 12 hours ahead of US East Coast time.

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Photos

Limestone formation, Krabi province
Many of these formations have caves inside. We were able to kakyak into two of them and see the interesting stalagtites.

Beautiful bay where we got to snorkel
Just watch out for those mean little fish that bite!

Emerald Cove
This is the surprise that you get when you come out of the cave.

Emerald Cove sign
The post op ladyboy to the right was one of the more interesting trip participants.

Walking the plank
Getting off the boat onto the pier required each person to walk across a rickety board. We were about 20 feet above the water. Fortunately, no one fell in or got smashed between the boat and pier.

Longboats on the beach
This was taken near the beach where we stayed.

Comments

[Ken]

A message from a Parrothead.
Nibblin' on sponge cake, watchin' the sun bake; All of those tourists covered with oil. Strummin' my six string on my front porch swing. Smell those shrimp-- They're beginnin' to boil. Wasted away again in...... Can't get that song out of my head.