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Published: January 18th 2007
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The morning we left Pai was not a good one. I awoke from a restless sleep, and immediately ran to the bathroom to eject the previous night's dinner; a touch of food poisoning seemed the most likely cause for this upchuck, and for what was to follow. The bus journey from Chiang mai to Pai had been a stomach-churning ordeal, taking us round one nauseous chicane after another, and now, I had to do the reverse of this in my tragic gastric state. Sitting by an open window, I proceeded to give the outside of the mini-bus a new lick of paint, applied evenly at 15 minute intervals. Unable to keep even water down, this nightmare continued right up until we were on our flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.
Touching down in the capital's chaotic new airport once more, I was still in a very delicate state; badly needing a bed of any sort. No such luck. Anyhow, we still managed to arrange four tickets on the night bus to Phuket.
By morning I was starting to feel like myself again. However, Louise was still aching badly from the crash and required urgent attention on her knee. Changing
her bandage in the depressing ferry-port, we booked ourselves an extortionately priced boat, via Ko Phi Phi, to the attractive and serene island of Ko Lanta. We were to stay here for at least the next week. Bliss!
Arriving in our pre-booked guesthouse, we were very pleasantly surprised. 'Where Else!' was a friendly and relaxed place on the beach. Tens of charming bungalows sat behind a quirky restaurant and bar, full of bamboo seating bays, converted rowing boats and many quirky details. An impressive burning-red sculpture sat out the front which gave the venue a distinctive character that could be appreciated all the way along the beach.
The beach itself was a typical tropical paradise. Clear blue water lapped over the rocks as the tide rolled in. Although there were several great bars and restaurants along the seafront, this betrayed the fact that 'Hat Khlong Khong' beach' was essentially a quiet place where you could spend your days sipping iced coffees and collecting beautiful and interesting shells, some of which still contained their hermit crabs. Oops! (We put those ones back).
The evenings were equally agreeable. The typical pattern began with dinner at a nearby barbecue restaurant
where we would polish off plates of delicious grilled baracuda, tiger prawns and white snapper. This was always accompanied by the local canine contingent who would sit at our table on the sand and look hopelessly at us, and then to the food, and back to us again. Pathetic. The next activity was usually to take the short walk to our favourite drinking venue, the 'Monkey bar'. This was a really fun hangout with a great pool table area and excellent music. We were even allowed to bring along our own i-pod and put on personalised playlists. One evening, this sparked off the prestigious 'pod-idol' competition between the four of us and some extremely conceited scandinavian travellers. Night after night we poured our money, unbegrudgingly, into the pockets of this ideal establishment. We drank White Russians until the early hours, and Louise learned how to play pool expertly.
It wasn't long before we settled into this routine. In addition to the food and drink, Louise would change her own dressing each day and Michael and I would play beach football. We spent many long days relaxing on the beach, reading, paddling and eating ice-creams. However, we didn't want to
The bathroom in our beach hut
Louise loved the way they used natural materials to create interesting features for all the beach huts. They were all unique! spend a whole week on this beach and not take part in any of the attractions that the rest of the island had to offer.
One day, we decided to chance our collective arm at a spot of caving. Following a short ride in a mini-bus that we flagged down, we climbed up a small hill in the blistering heat and reached the entrance to the cave. This was a really new experience for us. It was dark and hot and at times extremely tricky. Nevertheless, it was an exciting challenge, especially for Louise's lumbering limbs, and we were able to spot huge spiders and hundreds of bats. The scariest of all, however, was the cave's exit, which was basically a seven-foot long tunnel about a foot and a half in diameter through which each of the group had to wriggle, worm-like, to complete the trail. We finally emerged, tired and sweaty, and returned speedily to our guesthouse for a much-needed shower.
The second day-trip we took was a little less demanding. First, we took a ride to a 'tree-top style' restaurant on the top of as hill overlooking one of the island's gorgeous bays. At one point
on the way up, we heard Michael emit a very girly scream; he was insisting that he and Amanda had just seen a two-metre long monitor lizard that resembled a dinosaur! They were rather adamant about this sighting so we gave them them the benefit of the doubt. Michael told us that he had been to this hill-top restaurant a few years ago and strongly recommended it to us. Unfortunately, we arrived there to discover that it had actually shut down. Anyway, we enjoyed taking in the view before ambling back down for the second leg of our day's adventure. Ko Lanta old town received a great write-up in our tourist brochure, primarily for its traditional architecture. In the event, it wasn't that amazing, although we did manage to purchase a marvellous hammock to equal the one that Amanda and Michael had picked up in Pai, and of which we had been so very envious.
Ko Lanta was also to be the place where we spent New Year's eve. For this, we decided to visit a bar on the main beach on the island 'Hat Phrae Ae'. We had been eagerly looking forward to this occasion, and we had
decided to get a little bit more merry than usual. Well, many vodka red bulls later (and the red bull in Thailand is very different from back home, trust me!) the effects were starting to get the better of us. The result ended up being a number of drunken arguments followed by an almighty parting of company where the girls returned to Hat Khlong Khong beach to see the night out at the Monkey bar, and Michael and I stayed on at the same bar. By sunrise, Michael and I returned to our guesthouse to an awkward reception and crashed out.
New years's day was one of reconciliation between both couples, and we sat motionless on the beach for large portions of the day, nursing our hangovers. This wasn't as bad as it sounds, and we did end up having a nice mellow afternoon followed by a amicable drink in the evening.
A few more days of chilling out followed, but we knew we had to make an important decision, as Michael and Amanda's visa was due to run out by the 5th. Either they could do a visa run to the nearest national border, or we could
quit while we were ahead and make our way to Malaysia which was always to be our next destination anyway. In the end, we chose the latter, and planned ourselves a real Borneo experience, first catching the night bus to Kuala Lumpur down the peninsular (but that's another story!).
So, our time in this tropical paradise had come to a sad end, but we vowed to return to Thailand's islands very soon to finish where we had left off.
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Laura
non-member comment
Sunsets and gory pictures
Loving the sunset pics - are you SURE you took them - they are some of the best photos I've ever seen! I'm not so keen on the graphic medical images - you should issue a health warning to your readers! I also laughed my head off at the picture of david's extremely dodgy moustache - ever thought of a career in erotic european films David? As always, keep it coming, love from Laura xxx