Oh Hollywood

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After a few days in Phuket we decided it was time to move on to a new island. We heard Koh Lanta was less developed and less touristy so we bought our ferry tickets and planned for an ambitious 7:15am pick up. Naturally no one woke up to their alarms and we ended up being woken up by the driver banging on all the hotel windows. This jolted me back to my last week at Deloitte, my plane left at 6:10 am, but I had accidentally shut down the alarm and didn't wake up until 6:30am... Oh and of course I still had to pack. Classic Dina morning.

There was a mandatory layover at Koh Phi Phi (where they filmed The Beach) and boy was it a change of scenery. The port was bustling with people, boats, restaurants.... It was chaotic. Dozens of taxi/tuk tuk/longtail boat drivers surrounded us screaming prices out convincing passengers to follow them. Our ferry to Koh Lanta wasn't leaving for another few hours so we decided to rent a longtail boat to go check out the island. Our driver was really nice and spoke broken English (Simo asked for a bathroom and the driver thought he was asking him for weed). He took us around a few lagoons to snorkel, sadly the coral there was dying and there were only a couple varieties of fish. The final stop was Maya Bay which was just a sad sad sight (the driver called it the Leonardo island). That was where many scenes from the movie were shot so hordes of people come visit it every day. The entire bay was full of parked speed boats and longtail boats, there was seriously nowhere to stand on the shore. There were hundreds of people swimming there and you had to be careful not to be run over by a boat. On one hand it's great to see that locals are benefitting from the exposure, but on the other hand it was heartbreaking to see such beauty be completely destroyed... This is apparently a common theme in Thailand, the rampant growth and short term vision for maximum profit is just not sustainable.

Away from the hustle and bustle of Koh Phi Phi, we headed to Koh Lanta. The wave of tuk tuk drivers battling for your business was still present but to a much lesser degree. The tuk-tuk drivers try to convince you to go to hotels where they get commission but we were forwarned that these places were often subpar so we decided to follow the lonely planet's recommendations and headed to a resort where the rooms were on top of trees. They were sold out, so we just walked down the beach with our backpacks on our shoulders (SUITCaSES would have been an epic mistake on this trip) until we found a place we liked. This resort had bungalows overlooking the ocean, hammocks on the porch and quotes from Fisherman and the Sea across the "lobby" (quick reminder of IB English)... The guy who greeted us was smoking a joint and looked at Simo with a big smile saying, "oooooh Morocco, good hashiiiish." Well at least he didn't confuse it with Monaco 😊

The bungalows didn't have any AC so we only lasted a night. They were very open so you felt like you were sleeping outside, which was quite the experience considering there was rain and a thunderstorm that night. The best part was the bathroom which was in a little garden with a bamboo roof so you could see the sky while showering. The heat and the endless amount of mosquitoes got us packing our bags the next day and moving on to a different resort on the southern part of the island. It seems that mosquitoes are doing something right in their lives because they are the only abundant creature here in heaven!

This was a lively part of Koh Lanta where we met quite a few Swedes and Germans who have been living here for years. As opposed to Phuket where there were loads of older white men with young Thai girls, there are quite a few Thai men with European girls on this island. There are apparently so many Swedes who live in Koh Lanta that there are two Swedish schools for their kids. This island is also 80% Muslim (according to a local we met) so we hear the adan (call for prayer) five times a day. It actually sounded so weird in the beginning because the beach is surrounded by a forest, all you can see is water, sand and trees, so it sounds like the call is coming from the middle of the forest. Most women are veiled here but it's not that strict so it's very confusing because the same women sometimes have it on and other times not. Most of them wear it but wear t-shirts, which is not surprising considering how hot it is. I was pleasantly surprised at how active the women are in the workforce here. Most (if not all) the places we have been to are run by women. Go woman power! 😊

We rented a bike again and drove around the entire island. The other side of the island is starkly poorer as there is no devepopment at all. Though there were huge plantations of rubber trees which are apparently a big source of income for locals here. There are obvious signs of deforestation around the island since, according to the locals, there is no government regulation. We had lunch in the old village and then headed back to our part of the island to kayak and do some afternoon tanning/reading.

The next day was our designated lazy day. We did absolutely nothing. I had a farmer's tan that I tried to even out and caught up on some reading. Simo and I are both reading Atlas Shrugged but I have a tendency to fall asleep easily so he's way ahead of me 😊

I'm leaving you for now but I'll be back soon with news about our last few days in Southern Thailand.

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Comments

[Othman]

c rassurant
Spiders too big to die under a belgha, mosquito battalions, praying forests and tsunami hazard zones; ya rien a dire, wlahila rassurant had le voyage 3andkoum. hurrah for coffee (nescafe?)! bises