Christmas on the beach

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Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2008 is treating you well so far.

It seems like a lifetime ago now, when we set of travelling overland from the north of Thailand down to the islands in the south. 2 overnight trains, 3 bus rides and a couple of 'ferries' (floating bits of tarmac) later, we arrived at Ko Lanta. The journey is the destination and all that... Travel down there seems to be organised chaos. We never knew with any certainty if we were on the right bus or ferry, but somehow managed to end up in the right place.

We stayed at a lovely guest house called Nice n Easy on Klong Khong beach on Ko Lanta. We mostly relaxed, read, splashed in the sea and ate & drank. We met up with Libby and Dan who were staying on the same beach and had a drunken night with them. We also met up with Janice & Richard who were staying just up the road on another beach. Started on the Chang (Thai beer) at lunch and moved onto cocktails while watching the sunset. Another happy slightly drunken day passed...

We took a day trip to Ko Phi Phi one day which is made up of 2 islands - Ko Phi Phi Ley and Ko Phi Phi Don. The former is uninhabited and is just stunning. Unfortunately, the latter is really overdeveloped and crowded. We're glad we stayed on Ko Lanta, which was surprisingly quiet. We had a few small bars and restaurants along the beach and a shop nearby... all you need really. Our trip around Ko Phi Phi was via longtail boats, small boats that rock quite a lot when big waves hit them. Just like one we hit within 5 minutes of setting off. Our Chao Ley (sea gypsy) captain tried reassuring us “no more wave!”, but we all grabbed the life jackets anyway. We stopped off at a few beaches and coves for snorkelling and lunch. I gave snorkelling a try, but I kept getting mouthfuls of sea water. I blame the equipment myself...

Then it was time to move on to Ko Lipe, a 7 hour ferry ride further south. When we arrived it was a case of jumping onto a longtail boat with your rucksack, as there's no pier. Ko Lipe is tiny, we managed to cover the island in a matter of hours. It has 3 beautiful beaches and we stayed on the main one (Pattaya) at Varin resort. The accommodation wasn't a patch on the other places we've stayed, but we were on a beautiful tropical island so.... We spent Christmas there. Pancakes for breakfast, green curry fried rice for lunch and massaman curry for dinner!

New Year was spent on Railay Beach with John and Des. Railay is very dramatic with huge rock faces surrounding the beaches. After 2 weeks of small huts, cold showers and non flushing toilets, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when we got to our 'villa'. It was palatial in comparison and most importantly had hot water! That said, Railay was my least favourite of the islands/beaches as it's so overdeveloped. The beaches are lined from one end to the other with big resorts. What made Ko Lanta and Ko Lipe were the small bars and restaurants dotted along the beaches under the trees. However, we managed to enjoy ourselves!

We're off to Tokyo next...in need of an urban fix after all that nature stuff...

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