ANDY AND ANA KO LANTA AND KRABI, THAILAND. 18 MAY 2014

After leaving Ko Tao on the night ferry we landed in Surathani around 5am the next morning.  Off the ferry and we were ushered into a tuk tuk crammed in with the others from the ship all bleary eyed.  We were then dropped at a travel agency come café to wait for our onward mini-van to Ko Lanta.  We had a drink and then around 6.30 was crammed into a mini-van towards Ko Lanta – hurrah.  This actually meant that we were dropped at yet another travel agency where we could get breakfast and wait for our next mode of transport… After food everyone was divvied up into their destinations and we joined another mini-van to Ko Lanta – via two car ferries and a Schumacher style van driver.

We eventually arrived at Dreamy Casa (our guesthouse) around 2pm after being on our travels since 7.30pm the previous evening.  Blah to buying a ticket all the way to our final destination (we travelled on 1 4x4, 1 night ferry, 1 tuk tuk, 2 mini-vans and 2 car ferries) next time maybe we will take things a bit slower…

We were arriving on Ko Lanta in low season, the opposite side of the Thai peninsular to Ko Tao so the climate at this time of year is different.  We headed out to the beach to get an idea of where we were staying and we saw around 3 other people on the beach!  We stayed on Long Beach which spans for around 4km and there was hardly anyone else around, sweet.  We grabbed some food and had an early retreat back to Dreamy Casa for some…. dreams!

Up the next day and we ventured out to find out where we could hire bicycles.  Apparently we are in the minority and people only hire mopeds!  So we headed to the local gym who informed us where we could get bikes.  After trying a couple out we found the two bone shakers that would be our ride for the day.  First stop was breakfast!  We found a great café on the main drag to stop and have a good breakfast of our new faves – muesli and fruit and some baked goods – yum!  We then set off for our cycle down the west coast of the island to Ko Lanta old town (which was approx. 20kms away). 

Fruit, muesli and yogurt... standard Thai cuisine :)

We joined the road down the island and started our cycle passing local villages, mangroves, streetside stalls, fish farms, mosques and rubber plantations.  What a mix!

Small village on the northern point of Ko Lanta backing onto mangroves

Exploring in action

Mangroves... the root system in the mangrove forests are pretty intricate 

This small cup helps to identify this tree... rubber trees again.  Across SEAsia if it's not a rubber plant then it's palm oil megabucks industry over here

So Ko Lanta Old Town is down this road...

We eventually made it to Ko Lanta old town and stopped at a great place for a drink –excellent views.  

View across the islands at Ko Lanta Old Town

View minus me...

Andy happy that we'd reached our destination as it meant time for refreshment - hurrah!

Once refueled it was back on the bikes to make the journey back to Dreamy Casa.  Rather than retracing our steps we decided to cut across the island on one of the main roads.  This we knew would be hilly but didn’t realize how hilly!  Andy pretty much made it all the way to the top with only 1 stop to figure which way to go and I had cycled for all of 30 seconds before deciding that I was happier pushing the bike up the hill!  

Petrol station (these are not bottles of whiskey, well they were before they have petrol decanter-ed into them)

Ko Lanta Old Town, busy in comparison to the rest of the entire island!

Sweaty climb – but what goes up, must come down!  We cruised back via beaches and villages and were pleased to get off the bikes and into the air-con for a well deserved rest.  

Andy's wheels... not Sheilas

Oh and of course we spotted elephants on route too 

Later in the evening we headed out to a local stall for dinner and dined with a billion flies and mosquitoes, nice.

Next day we thought we’d better make the most of the empty beach.  So we headed out for breakfast and dropped our bikes back before setting up camp on the beach.  We were joined by a small group of around 5 others along the stretch of beach for the afternoon.  It got pretty hot so after spending some time in the sea we read a little and then retired back to Dreamy Casa.  For our final evening we went for food at a nearby food stall for some good thai cuisine.

View of the path onto the beach 

Long beach on Ko Lanta and two chairs for us

No we didn't borrow this stock looking image from Lonely Planet, Andy took this shot himself

As Kelly Barnett would say - I'm tanning-up (except this is no Emma Froud tan, it's the real deal! If you're out there Emma let me know you are alive!)

Next morning we were up and ready for our onward journey to Krabi.  We were picked up by mini van and crossed the two car ferries back to the mainland.  We were dropped at our guesthouse in Krabi where we would stay for 2 nights before making the journey down into Malaysia.  We’d not planned much for Krabi as we knew it would be a good point to stop and do some onward planning before leaving the country.  That afternoon we figured out the best way to get to Langkawi and booked our onward travel whilst deciding to stay the full validity of our Thai visas.  We headed out for dinner and got on with our admin. 

The women who ran this place couldn't thank us enough for eating at their restaurant, good duck noodle soup

By this time the Thai Army seized control of the government and put in place a military coup.  We didn’t really notice much of this in action as it was announced on this day after weeks of speculation.  They imposed a 10pm-5am curfew which meant that everyone had to be in their homes between those hours, this wasn’t much of a problem for us but they did take away the TV channels for the first night so we had the luxury of a TV with nothing to watch – scandal.  

Hang on a minute, it's one thing to take over government but it's another to take TV from weary travellers!

The next day we headed out for breakfast and found somewhere for peanut butter and toast with earl grey tea!  We headed around town, took pictures of the famous Krabi Crab and spent some time writing our blog and planning ahead.  In the evening we went out to the local night market and stocked up on some supplies for our big journey ahead.  

Krabi sky

When in Krabi, do an impression of a crab.  Obviously not as good as yours Alex!

Arrrgghhh... Andy's got crabs, sorry I mean been got by a crab - phew!

We'd not tried salak (aka snake fruit) so bought some from the market. It came prepared on a tray with a sugar/salt sachet and fish sauce... Needless to say Andy ate the fruit and only dipped one of them into the fish sauce, what's going on Thailand?!  Luckily we'd also bought emergency mango sticky rice for pud :)

The following morning we caught our bus to Satun which again was not at all straight forward and involved a couple of changes of transport, but a few hours in we reached Satun ferry port for a direct boat to Langkawi.  En route we met a German girl and an older Kiwi who both proved to be quite good company for the remainder of our journey.  

At the ferry port we were stamped out of Thailand and our passports were ready for our approval into Malaysia which will be our home for the next 5 weeks. 

Bye bye Thailand and farewell to the coup!