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Published: April 27th 2016
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The island of Lanta. A tropical paradise. A conglomerate of the fisherman, the farmer, the tourist, and the hippy. A rasta beat intertwines with the thrumbing bass of electronic dance music and the whine of traditional Thai music. We have been here four days now and we are ready to call it home.
I'll give you a little taste of the life we are having here. This was my day:
I woke up just before sunrise and walked down to the beach to paint. The sun was rising from behind the mountain to my east laying a shadow over our resort. To the west was the ocean. It was low tide and local fisherman were out collecting crabs and prawns to sell during the day's market. Island dogs played, chasing each other up and down klong dao beach. A rooster crowed nearby. Just before 8 Seth joined me for breakfast. We ate a plain breakfast of toast and eggs, but around us, nothing was plain. The different languages of the island, French and Swedish and English and Japanese and Australian English (a different language in its own right) and of course Thai, combine like birdsong. The colors
of the horizon are like spilled ink. The breeze was warm and sweet, not yet blistering or muggy. The dogs wandered the beach, digging little holes to cool their stomachs or chasing each other in broad sweeps across the sand.
After breakfast we caught a tuk-tuk to the Khoa Mai Kaew Caves. After a hot hike through the forest up ladders cut in stone we arrived at a crack in a boulder where our guide stops to let us catch our breath. Then we descend. As I have often complained, I don't sweat. Even in the sweltering heat of Thailand in the peak of its hot season, the best I achieve is a glisten and slightly sticky skin. The high humidity accounts for most of that. But it also doesn't allow for sweat to evaporate. But as we dove into the pool of darkness and the dry air reached us, even the limestone was sweating. Bird eating spiders and whip scorpions hid from our roaming headlamps. Water dripped from the ceiling so far overhead that our lights couldn't penetrate down into the deep pool of water 40 feet below us. We moved through cracks we would have thought impossible
to fit through, down petrified wooden ladders, and across bamboo bridges spanning deep drops into blackness. At the end of the cave we encountered a cavern of thousands of sleeping bats. Disturbed by our headlamps they swarmed. And I alone of the group walked into the cavern to stand among the hanging and flying bats.
Mud covered we returned to our room for a cold shower, and then back out into the high heat of the day for lunch (today it reached 95 with 70% humidity). This time we took our rented moped down the coastal road, past the massage parlors and halal restaurants and 90 baht mojito bars full of beach bums and ex-pats. After some searching back and forth, we found a vegetarian restaurant and both ordered delicious crepes. The restaurant was "a center of calm and chaos" where patchouli oil and seashell chandeliers filled the air and the shaved bald woman who took our order was covered in head to toe tattoos. After we polished off the crepes, salad, and a large beer, we ambled next door to a massage parlor for our second set of massages of the trip. I had a traditional thai massage
and Seth had a foot and leg massage, as his knee was bothering him. They kicked our asses! But left us feeling refreshed and relaxed (the air-conditioned building in the hottest part of the day helped as well). We came home, lazed about reading and showering off the day's grime until dinner, a traditional thai dinner of curries and rice at sunset on the beach where I began my day, and are now preparing to embark on a mission to find one of the island's three unmarked Muay Thai stadiums.
Seth insists that we have to go now, so I'll upload the pictures later.
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Katharine
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Thank you for bringing us along on your journey
It's great to take in the sights, sounds, tastes of your trip. Such a mix of experiences and an adventure to remember forever. More pictures, please!