Advertisement
Published: January 29th 2011
Our Ko Lanta Bungalow
Not a bad little cell for Megan to spend 3 straight days in!!It has been a while since my last post so there is a lot to catch up on.
Firstly, I got traveler’s sickness on day 3 on Ko Lanta. It hit hard after dinner and I spent that night being the sickest I have been in a very long time. While I knew that getting sick while traveling would most likely happen and was prepared to make many visits to the bathroom I wasn’t expecting days of fever, vomiting, sweats and most horrific gut cramping I haven’t felt since my appendix almost burst! Any way, 3 days in bed in our air-conditioned room, a bland diet and poo meds and I was finally fit enough to make the trek to Ko Lipe.
It was a good thing Nurse Geoffrey insisted we stay on Ko Lanta until I was feeling good enough o travel b/c the 5 hour ferry ride to Ko Lipe was intense! It started off good. We met up with a Swedish couple, Markus and Karina, on our way to the ferry and joined them and their friends on the top deck of the ferry to lay chatting and dozing in the sunshine as the boat got
VIew from the resort
This is at Low tide. At high tide not of those rocks are visible. under way. Awesome! Until the waves started to crash over the bow of the boat where we were laying and soaked every one! And I’m not talking about a light refreshing spray but more like knock your feet out from under you crashing kinda waves. People started scrambling to get down below. Major chaos! The wind and waves were so strong that chairs and people were being pushed around like they weighed nothing. The salt water was spraying in my eyes so I could barely see and you had to hang on for dear life to the railing.
Once we finally got down below we were soaked to the bone! With our bags buried in the huge pile we had to make do with what we had. We managed to find a seat and settled in to dry off… only it was so hot and humid in the belly of the boat that you really couldn’t dry off. It was even hotter as there was no a/c (there were vents but nothing came out of them) and they had to close the hatches so that water wouldn’t come in. Imagine 60 hot sweaty damp people all crammed into a
Smart Kid
He was told that if he could see over the bar, he can order from it. room with no air flow except for the exhaust from the boat’s engines. Needless to say I spent the next 4 hours trying to find my happy place deep inside of me, which was not easy, but I somehow managed.
Ko Lipe is a smaller less touristy island and doesn’t have a pier or dock to pull the ferries up to so we all had to get off the ferry and pile on to a floating platform (with no railings) along with all the baggage and slowly climb onto long tail boats about 10 people at a time which then took us to shore. Thankfully the weather was a bit overcast so at least we weren’t standing in the blazing sun. And really at that point I was just so happy to be out of the ferry that I would have swam to shore with my bag on my head if I had to.
Once on Ko Lipe we followed our new 6 Swedish friends to a place called Coco’s on Sunlight beach where some of them were already staying. The accommodations left were a bit dodgy but as we just wanted to set our bags down and
Sunset
Our last night (really really last our night) on Ko Lanta shower we agreed to a bamboo bungalow for 500 baht for one night. Picture open planked floors, rickety bamboo walls with many holes and a dank dingy bathroom, which consisted of a toilet, a tap with a bucket and scoop and a hand held shower hose. The bed, which was actually just a hard box spring mattress, at least had a big mosquito net to keep out the critters while we slept. The beat up table fan barely gave off a whisper of a breeze on the highest setting. That was home for the night. As I still wasn’t feeling 100% awesome I stayed in as Geoff went out with the Swedes for some drinks. I wish I had gone with him! Once alone all the living things in and around the bungalow started to make noise so needless to say I didn’t get much sleep! And of course there was a rooster that woke me up before dawn even broke and would not shut up!
And to test my traveling will even more the next morning I woke up covered in a itchy heat rash! Awesome! It must have starting because with the ferry ride and got worst
A big ass tree
And a very beached Long Tail boat beside it. (This is as a result of the Tsumani) over night with the stifling heat of the hut. So here I am still getting over my traveler’s sickness, sore from a brutal ferry ride and tired from a sleepless night in a bamboo hut from hell and now I have a fricken’ rash! Come on! Give me a break!
Any hoo, so bright and early that morning we packed up and set off to find a better place to call home. A couple of places down the beach we found our Gypsy’s which is awesome! We are in a big CONCRETE bungalow with a beautiful open-air bathroom, a good strong fan and a gorgeous front porch where we get a cool breeze off the water. We bought a hammock and put it up on the porch so you can swing in it while watching people walk by on the beach. Paradise! And we are only paying 700 baht ($20 Canadian) a night. We love it! In fact we love it so much on Ko Lipe in general that we have cancelled our next 2 islands and will stay here until Feb. 4th at which time we will head into Malaysia and up to the Cameron highlands to celebrate
Team Awesome
I need a tan Cam’s birthday.
Ko Lipe is the Thai island we have both been searching for since we started this trip. It is small but still has all the things you need. Great bars and restaurants, shopping and friendly people. And unlike Ko Phi Phi it is not over crowded with tourists and the locals aren’t pushy and always trying to take advantage of you. The prices are cheaper and the food more authentic. It is much cleaner and more environmentally conscious than either Phi Phi or Lanta and the buildings have more character. The beach where we are staying has a nice breeze coming off the water all the time so the bugs a not a problem and you can get some relief from the heat.
Our new found Swedish friends have spent quite a bit of time here so they know all the great places to go and have a lot of good advice. They really area a great group of people and we are glad we have met them. In fact, Markus has given me some skin cream from Sweden that is finally making my heat rash go down. Thank jeebus! Nothing else I have tried so
Hank the Gekko
He was on guard in the Bathroom far has worked so I am very grateful to him for that. Maybe I will not feel like so a freak any more and actually put my bikini back on.
Oh ya, one of the best things that our friends told us about is this place called Serendipity, which is located at the end of our beach. It is a brand new resort and restaurant that has just opened up and it is heaven! Geoff and I went there yesterday for lunch and fell in love with the place. The restaurant is made up of multi leveled open air patios and built into the side of a cliff. We sat on the top deck swinging in hammocks looking out over the water. And I actually had a glass of chardonnay, which was lovely as there is not much in the way of wine in Thailand so it was nice to be drinking something other than beer. The chef is from New York and the food is a mix of Thai and Western cuisine and is delicious! The manager Karl gave us a tour of one of their bungalows. It was absolutely beautiful! About 5000 baht ($150 Canadian) a night,
Megan's fist meal in days
mmmmmmmmmmm, yummy plain rice and a banana shake. so way out of our price range but nonetheless it was nice to see it. And who knows, maybe when we come back some day we will stay there.
Well, I think that should be about all to catch you up to speed. Time to go wake Geoff up out of the hammock and take a walk to the shops. We need to drop some laundry off and I have been craving a good coffee so we are going to hit up an internet café where they actually serve real Brazillian coffee from real beans – not like the instant coffee granules that you usually get in Thailand.
Miss you all!
Cheers! ~ Meg & Geoff
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0491s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
gabriel and wendy
non-member comment
hammocks and amphibians
adventurers, glad you found a place to relax and that you are feeling better!! enjoy the hammock, beach, sun, and payback sex with your nurse. also try and forget what day it is (a great moment in any vacation) before you shove off to the next spot. big love to you. we are dreaming of hammocks and geckos of our own (the goofy one will be "murphy" and the pretty one will of course be named barfalatopous g w c l