Ko Lanta

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Ko Lanta was like taking a holiday from travelling! It was very relaxing, the scenery was beautiful and the people were lovely. We stayed in a beach bungalow place called Strandbaren, which translates as Beach Bar in Swedish and was owned by, you guessed it, a Swedish guy. The island had a huge Swedish population, they even had a school with 180 children, so we're guessing Ko Lanta is Thailand's little Sweden. Our beach bungalow was great, thatched walls and roof. The bathroom was all decorated with shells and stones from the beach which was 10 meters from our front door.

After spending the first two days relaxing on this beach we hired a bike and went further afield in search of beautiful beaches. The first bike outing wasn't too successful as we got completely lost! We did end up bumping into some people who worked at Strandbaren though and so they pointed out where we went wrong. The next morning we got up early and took the right road to the beaches. The beach we found was amazing. It was this little bay surrounded by trees and cliffs with beautiful turquoise water that was completely clear when you got in. We had a good sunbathe. This beach was so undeveloped that there wasn't anywhere to get a drink or have some shade, so we went further South in search of a beach with both of these. The beach we found wasn't as nice, but we were able to see an elephant bathing in the sea! After a nice cold drink and some shade we went back to the first beach for a swim and stayed in the sea for ages as the water was nice and warm.

We got chatting to a girl on a minibus who was volunteering at Ko Lanta Animal Welfare and said they are always wanting people to walk the dogs, so we went a couple of times and took dogs out for a walk through a gum tree farm!

We then took a series of buses to catch the night boat to Koh Tao, which was certainly an experience. I (Laura) was really ill and had to stop to vomit periodically, which wasn't pleasant for me or anyone around me! The night boat was an open air deck where we were meant to just lie down and sleep! We got through the night, but there wasn't much sleeping going on! So now we're in Koh Tao and on our second day of our diving course. Tomorrow we have our first dive in the sea. We'll write about all this next time when we are certified open water divers!

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