Week 59 - Ko Lanta, Ko Phi Phi (Thailand)

The train steward woke us at 6:30am to fold away our beds although we had another 4 hours before we reached Trang. When we finally arrived, Alex the helium filled zebra in tow, we were pounced on by tour agents at the station offering us minivans to Ko Lanta Yai (the biggest island in the Ko Lanta group). The van took a couple of hours and took two short ferries before we finally reached the island and were met by our pick up truck to take us to our beach cottage. The 12 hour journey we’d prepared Karen for took 22 hours door to door. The cottage we were staying in was great, in it’s own little bay Klong Nin with only a couple of other hotels and small restaurants nearby. Our hotel bar was on top of a hill with views out to sea and we spent the first night there just enjoying being by the sea and out of the city. After me and Rhys went to bed Karen ended up checking out the bar next door and along with a new found drinking buddy ended up whiling away a couple of hours waiting for the storm to pass so she could make it back to the cottage.

As we’d not stopped since Karen arrived we left her at lunch time the next day to relax on the beach and headed out on a rented scooter to explore the island. It’s pretty big at 6km wide and 30km long and doesn’t have a road going all the way around so it took us a good 5 hours with a couple of stops, at the national park to swim and see the lighthouse, at a viewpoint restaurant for dinner, and at another viewpoint bar for a smoothie, to get back to the hotel. We passed through Lanta Old Town and the sea gypsy communities and Ban Saladan, the main tourist area which really didn’t look all that appealing (although Rhys stayed there last time and had a blast) and we were glad we’d chosen a cottage further south where it was more hilly and jungly. Back at the hotel, Rhys dropped me at a cocktail bar overlooking the beach and went to pick up Karen on the scooter, the trip home was masterfully done with three of us squashed on the bike. Later that night we headed onto the beach for a bonfire and to open the belated anniversary champagne Rhys had asked Karen to pick up in duty free, backpacking is a hard life! 

Rhys in the National Park, Ko Lanta.

Rhys on our scooter, Lanta Old Town pier, Ko Lanta.

1st Anniversary champers on the beach, Ko Lanta.

We booked a day trip for the following day and were picked up and transferred to a beach further south to board our long tail boat. The boat was pretty crowded after we picked up some extra passengers whose boat had broken down stranding them out at sea. We made four stops. The first was at Ko Kraden for snorkeling with hundreds of jellyfish tangling around your legs as you swam and giving little stings like stinging nettles. The second stop was at Ko Muk to swim through an 80m cave to an Emerald Lagoon in the centre of the island. Next was Ko Rok for more snorkeling with slightly less jellyfish and finally Ko Ngai for lunch and a bit of beach time. Ko Ngai was a stunning palm tree lined golden arch of sand dotted with basic bamboo huts, after a lot of talking we decided me and Rhys would return in a couple of weeks after Karen left us. By the time we were back at our cottage on Ko Lanta we were all pretty tired and found spots in hammocks and under bamboo shelters in our little cove to nap in the late afternoon sun. That night we headed back to the cocktail bar for a posh fish dinner, between us we tried shark, blue marlin and barracuda. With an early start the next day we headed to bed.

Karen swimming in to the Emerald Lagoon, Ko Muk.

Long boats on the beach, Ko Ngai.

Chilling back at our beach, Ko Lanta.

At 7:15am our expected 7:30am pick up turned up. Rhys rushed to get Karen out of bed and I collected our breakfast in takeout boxes (soft boiled eggs and toast, not ideal picnic food). After a downpour drenched our bags on the roof of the truck we made it to the Ko Phi Phi ferry with minutes to spare. The ferry ride was short and after a sudden shower making us all run inside for cover we arrived at the pier. Rhys’s bag was saturated to the point where, when he put it on, the runoff made him look like he’ wet himself (quite amusing for me and Karen, not so for Rhys). We propped Karen up in a cafe for breakfast while we went to the tourist booths to find somewhere to stay. We ended up in little cottages on top of a hill at the edge of town where we could just about see the sea and the windows didn’t quite fit. After drying out Rhys’s bag, Karen climbed over her balcony and on to ours to start the vodka to help cheer a wet Rhys up. 

We walked back into town to explore and stopped for a quick drink at the Irish Bar before a quick afternoon nap to prepare for a night out. The main town on Phi Phi is sandwiched between two mountains and two beaches, one beach is used as a port and the other is lined with bars. The warren of paved streets in between are a maze of bars, restaurants, cafes, shops, markets and tattoo shops with hundreds of tourists strutting around in swimwear and cyclists mowing them down. That night we visited the beach bars for cheap buckets and fire shows. The fire twirlers (for want of a better name) were incredible and had us mesmorised for an hour or so before we walked further down the beach to a quieter bar with mats out on the sand and two very friendly french bulldogs. Some BBQ chicken on the way home and we were in bed by 3am.

The next morning me and Rhys left Karen to potter around the cottages and went to the beach. Within 10 minutes of sitting down Rhys was bored and went for a walk to see what was in the next bay - apparently not much. He then headed off to find Karen who was chilling over a late breakfast in a beach bar. After lunch, me and Rhys wandered back for another afternoon nap and Karen returned to the beach before treating herself to a massage. The Spurs game was on at 7pm so we walked in to town to find a bar to watch it and ended up staying, spending the night playing Jenga with an Australian couple. 

Feeling a little fragile the next day we checked out of our cottages at 11am and set up camp on the beach to pass the time until we had to board our boat to Phi Phi Lei. For our wedding present Karen treated me and Rhys to a night on a sleep-a-board boat in Maya Bay. Since there’s no camping on the island it’s the closest you can get to overnighting on the beach from the movie ‘The Beach’. The boat left Phi Phi Don and made a short stop at some unexceptional Viking Caves, where there are apparently paintings inside but you can’t go in because it disrupts the swallows and they collect the birds nests to sell to the Chinese for soup. We then stopped at a little bay for snorkeling with thankfully less jellyfish than had been in Ko Lanta. The marine life was brilliant, a great array of fish and luminous patches of coral but the long tails roaring around with their engines made it a little scary. 

On route to Maya Bay, near Ko Phi Phi.

Our last stop of the day was at Maya Bay. It was a shame the sun wasn’t shining but it was still warm and it couldn’t take away from the beauty of the place despite the thousands of day trippers there. Luckily, we had until 10pm on the beach and slowly scenes from the movie were coming back to us. By about 6:30pm all the day trippers had left and the 26 of us sleeping in the bay were left. We had dinner and supper in a clearing behind the tree line and played drinking games and a vicious balloon popping game until we were packed back into our little speedboat and taken back out to our sleeping boat. We had 20 minutes to swim by the boat with the plankton, a bit like fairy dust that trails you in the water before we got back on board. It was then that the storm hit and we all had to crowd in to one of the two covered areas splitting mattresses one between two (fine for me and Rhys, but quite cosy for Karen with a random we’d only just met!). The bar closed and a few covert operations led only to the discovery of a bag of bread which the 11 of us up top munched down before turning in for the night.

Karen and Rhys at 'The Beach', Ko Phi Phi Lei.

We woke early at 6:30am with the sky a little clearer (Rhys had spent the last hour sitting on the front of the boat enjoying the sun rise). After a quick cup of coffee we were back in the speed boat and on the beach with only the park rangers for company. It really was a little slice of heaven. An early morning swim and a wander across the thin strip of jungle interior to a view point the other side and we were back on our main boat by the time the day trippers started flocking in. After breakfast, we fed the scraps to the fish by the boat and jumped in for a last snorkel. Again, there were so many different fish and all swimming so close to you that you barely even noticed the jellyfish stings. The boat headed back to Phi Phi Don and we were at our new hotel by 10am (next door to our last one but with windows that fit the rooms and a pool). 

Karen at day break overlooking Maya Bay, Ko Phi Phi Lei.

Us on 'The Beach', Maya Bay, Ko Phi Phi Lei.

Me and Rhys slept by the pool until check-in while Karen headed into town for a liquid breakfast. Once we checked in it was time for more sleeping. When we woke, Rhys was starting to feel a bit ill and decided to skip dinner. Me and Karen popped out for food and to wander around town then I left her in a bar with a boxing ring and headed back to check on Rhys. By that point he was really ill, the worst he’s been since we’ve been away (thankfully it turned out to just be a 24 hour thing), we stayed in the rest of the night. Karen was trapped out by a super strength storm and ended up staying in the bar watching the boxing for a couple of hours before having to wade back through the stream that had broken it’s banks near our hotel.