Paradise Lost? We found it!

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It only took an hour to get from Koh Phi Phi to Koh Lanta and we sat in the air conditioned room (cabin?) the whole way - ace! As we were making our way to the door to go inside to the cabin, a Thai guy who maybe worked on the boat looked at me and said “No, you need more sun, more sun!” Cheek, this is the brownest I have ever been! and ever will be!

Koh Lanta is less stunning than Phi Phi upon arrival but definitely has it’s own merits. There were accommodation touts on the boat and touts who bombarded us with information about their resorts as soon as we got off the boat. We chose one, well I did as Matt decided he’d had enough of making decisions and I said we would take a look at it so off we went on the back of their pickup truck (with two French guys who we kept on bumping in to) which took us straight past the actual area we said we wanted to stay in (a place called Prae Re or Long Beach) to a quieter area south of it. At first we took this to be a bad thing, and debated whether we should leave and look for somewhere to stay on Long Beach, but it was ROASTING and would’ve meant at least 30 minutes hauling our bags around in the heat. Laziness won the battle, and we stayed where we were at Lanta New Beach Resort ... and we’re so glad that we did.

For 700 baht we got ourselves a nice little semi-detached air-conditioned bungalow 2 minutes walk away from the beach, and right beside one of the TWO swimming pools at the resort. The resort had a sister-resort right next door but apart from that there were no other hotels or houses for a 10 minute walk along the beach in either direction ... so it was like having our own private beach, awesome!

Lanta isn’t exactly party-central wherever you stay, but being in a resort that was so far removed from any kind of strip of bars/restaurants/shops was a welcome change of pace after the full-on nature of Phi Phi ... and if we did want to head into the town it was only a 20 minute walk or 60 baht tuk-tuk ride away. We’d hit the accommodation jackpot and once again it was Cate who chose it (but still insists on occasionally letting me take the reins, and then we end up with ants and cold showers!). Call it women’s intuition - which is something I have been trying to tap into while we have been away and more often than not, if I really listen to what I think, it works out well.

We lounged around and snorkled in the sea on the first afternoon, then waited to watch the beautiful sun set which was directly out in the front of us, across the sea. This was something that we did every day for the three days that we stayed there. We watched it from the resort the first night whilst drinking a few beers, then from the beach the second night (while Matt drank some cans of Chang he had bought), and from in the sea on the third night, (no beers involved unfortunately). The sunset on the second night actually overtook Kanchanaburi’s sunset for the way that the clouds became mottled shades of orange and eventually the whole sky lit up in a beautiful, vibrant red colour. I’d say we’ve probably got nearly 500photos of sunsets now across Asia, it’s going to be a stupidly massive task to go through all our photos when we get back home ... we’ve already taken 6,000 photos in 10 weeks!

After a quite strange dinner - for me - enchiladas made with pancakes, we walked up the the Long Beach strip along the dark bumpy road by torch light only. We just wanted to check out what it was like there and ended up staying for a few drinks, then took a tuk-tuk back to our accommodation.

Our second day in Koh Lanta started predictably slowly, partly due to having a few beers the night before, partly due to the meal the night before giving Cate all sorts of indigestion problems, and partly because we’re on holiday so we don’t need to get up early. When we finally emerged from our bungalow we headed down to the beach to take and walk and hopefully find my wedding ring ... which will mean nothing to anyone as I hadn’t mentioned that I lost my wedding ring, and that it wasn’t my REAL wedding ring but instead my replacement one. To cut a long (uninteresting) story short, I didn’t bring my proper wedding ring travelling (as I didn’t want to lose it, which now seems like a sensible precaution), and in Singapore we both bought some new rings (Cate’s made from Jade and mine from Onyx). Anyways, whilst snorkelling on the first afternoon my ring disappeared from my hand, doubtless nabbed by some cheeky fish, so we hoped that the tide might wash it up onto the shore the next day. It didn’t, or at least if it did we didn’t see it - it’s a big beach and a small ring. So I’m currently wearing some red string tied around my ring finger in place of my wedding ring. As you do.

Anyway, I digress, where were we? The beach! Yep, so we didn’t find my ring but we carried on walking down the beach anyway, which was( as usual) deserted. When we came near to the rocks at the northern end of the bay two Thai kids who were playing in the water (jumping off boats into really shallow, rocky water) beckoned for us to come and join them in the water. So we spent the next hour or so larking about in the sea with two local kids, seeing what games we could invent through the wonders of sign-language and copying. We came up with a surprising number of games actually, although they all tended to be subtle variations on chucking yourself into the water or chasing each other and trying to splash water on us. Every so often they’d rush off out of the water and up to their bikes, before returning with sticks of chewing gum for us, bless ‘em! It was definitely my favourite part of our time in Koh Lanta. These children couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old, a boy and a girl and were so pleasant to us. Matt even used his party trick of standing in the water, pulling his shorts leg out to create place for air and dropping into the sea, causing bubbles to rise to keep them entertained. He was really like a big kid. The chewing gum was a nice gesture too and although I couldn’t refuse the children for fear of hurting their feelings, they did have green spots on them which I wasn’t sure wasn’t mould so I just chewed on the end of one and passed the rest to Matt to put in his pocket.

Lanta was wicked - a well earned rest. I found myself thinking as I had a shower one of the days that our room and bathroom was so luxurious even though upon looking around, there was mould growing in the shower room, cob webs throughout the bedroom and very obviously rats or mice in the roof - we were woken up by an urgent squeaking sound and running and banging coming from the roof on our final morning there. It sounded like the mice were running around and creating pile-ons onto other mice. It’s funny how my standards have lowered so much on this trip yet I was perfectly happy there, especially when a cute little Gecko called Gordon appeared on our inside wall. They are well cute.

Cate was still feeling unwell on the third day, we’re not really sure what exactly was the problem but a combination of too much and bad food probably wasn’t helping (the down side of the secluded position of the resort was that we’d largely eaten at the resort, it was not good food) ... so on our final day in Koh Lanta we ventured towards Long Beach in search of medicines and some decent food. We returned better fed, having played a game of connect four each with the bar tender who managed to beat both of us and with a large bottle of Gaviscon, result. We watched our third and final Koh Lanta sunset from another different perspective, having a little sunset dip in the sea ... not a bad way to spend an evening really.

After 3 days and nights of well earned rest (although unfortunately not that restful for Cate, what with being ill and all) we were ready to get going again ... the next morning we left Lanta New Beach Resort (sadly) and headed for a ferry bound for Railay.

Matt and Cate x

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Photos

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View from our beach bar

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I wasn't allowed a massage here ...

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Our (virtually) private beach