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Published: December 27th 2009
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We got a ferry from Koh Phi Phi to Koh Lanta, which took just over an hour. We'd heard that Lanta was less developed and more beautiful than Phi Phi and it was a good stopping off point before we went back to the mainland. We ignored the usual hotel touts at the pier despite them all offering free taxis (tempting and easy as this is we believe there's no such thing as a free lunch!) and got a bargain tuk tuk to take us to see some cheap beachside bungalows. We found a nice brick place right by the sea on Ao Phra-Ae beach on the west coast.
The beach was very long, straight and golden and the sea was lovely, although no good for snorkling. There were a few nice chilled out restaurants and bars on the beach, which we spent many a happy hour at watching their nightly fire shows and drinking cheap 7/11 wine with our Aussie/Swedish neighbours. We hired a scooter and went exploring the deserted and undeveloped beaches to the south west. We visited the most southern tip of the island, which is a beautifully kept national park with a lighthouse. The following day
Koh Lanta
Our own desert Island. we explored Lanta Old Town, the east coast road and found a lovely cafe with a stunning views over the many small islands to the east. We hired a kayak and rowed over to one of these uninhabited islands and went snorkling. Felt like Robinson Crusoe.
It was December and peak season, but the island and beaches didn't seem busy at all. The islanders were all busy building new resorts on the beach and inland despite there being many many hotels, restaurants, roadside cafes, shops, travel agents and bungalows already and all totally empty. We wondered how long it would be before the beaches we had found would become private concrete resorts. We liked Lanta a lot but it wasn't as scenic and beautiful as Phi Phi so we decided to move on after 3 nights and made our way to Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand.
We got a minibus and the car ferry over to the mainland and then drove to Krabi where we waited at the obligatory tourist bus station before catching another minibus to Surat Thani (I'm both impressed by their business savy and annoyed that they charge 10 bhat to use the
Koh Lanta
There was just the three of us on the island! loo at these places!). The journey was quite eventful because at first we sat next to a girl from Norway who that morning had been stuck in a taxi with scary German man who threatened to kill her so she was understandably upset. Then the people at the back of the minibus freaked out because they ''saw a big spider'' and nearly made the driver have a crash as everyone was screaming and jumping about. We caught the overnight ferry to Koh Tao and instead of seats, the ferry had rows of matresses on the floor so everyone could lie and sleep (not that we got much sleep mind!). We arrived in Koh Tao very early at 7am after our 18 hour journey and after some breakfast, Dee hired a sccoter to go and find a perfect sea view bungalow. He found just that overlooking Shark Bay to the south of the island.
We spent the following days on the beach, snorkling in the coral reefs and Nang Yuan Island and exploring the island on our scooter. The roads are very bad in Tao (just dirt tracks) and it's quite hilly, so we traded our scooter in for a
Koh Lanta
Lazy days more powerful dirt bike one day to get us to Tanote Bay on the opposite side of the island. This still didn't make our journey any easier and the bike struggled to get us up the 45 degree angle hills. At one point we failed to make it up a steep hill and skidded backwards in the dirt uncontrollably, the bike with us still on top was too heavy for us to stop. Turns out the breaks were also crap so this didn't help us. Eventually we came to a stop by hitting a tree. Fortunately neither for us got hurt but we could have really injured ourselves. Later we noticed lots of people with bandages on their arms and legs, maybe they'd had a similar experience? These roads aren't for the inexperienced and we traded the rubbish dirt bike back in for a trusty scooter the next day.
We moved bungalows in time for Christmas to be on Sairee Beach, a narrow beach lined with restaurants and bars that was also very good for snorkling. Christmas Eve was very busy and hundreds of Santa hat wearing people filled the beach bars and there were loads of fireworks displays.
Koh Lanta
Turn left out of our bungalow to the beach. We got into the spirit, drank a few buckets (Thai whiskey, coke and redbull) and had a boogie. Couldn't remember getting home and had a sore head on Christmas morning. Spent Christmas day on the beach and phoning family and friends on Skype. Couldn't find turkey on offer at any of our local restaurants so settled for beef burger and chicken salad and to be honest we felt just slightly sad not to be at home enjoying mum's Christmas dinner. You'll be pleased to hear we did find a pub serving huge Sunday roasts a couple of days later and gorged ourselves on roast turkey, yorkshire puds and cauliflour cheese.....awesome!
Koh Tao is very built up and developed and the locals are still building on any spare land they can find. We chatted to a guy who visited Tao back in 1995 and he couldn't believe how much it has changed. We were sad to hear that the main beach on Tao (Sairee) has been irreversible damaged and is very narrow because builders have used the sand to build roads and resorts. Like Koh Lanta, there seemed to be too many resorts, bars and restaurants and not enough tourists.
After Chrstmas, everyone was thinking and talking about New Year and NYE celebrations.......and it seems that everyone we spoke to or overheared was going to Koh Pha Ngan..........we hear that up to 100,000 people could be going to the island for NYE and to the infamous Full Moon Party.......we booked our ferry there, looked forward to meeting our friends and attend the craziest party on earth...........
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