Happy New Year! What, you didn’t know it was New Year? Well, it recently was in Thailand, at least for the Buddhists, and it is now year 2562 over here. Songkran or Thai New Year ushers in the rainy season. The actual holiday is April 13 every year, but the celebration extends to the 15th (and even longer some places).
Having fun spraying everyone who walks by.
For our second week on Koh Lanta, we moved over to the West side of the island, which is far more built up and touristy. We thought we would be able to walk to more things, but we quickly learned that we don’t like walking in “real feel” weather of 105 degrees F in the middle of the day and decided to, once again, rent a scooter. Our helmets this time were even better….mine already had a big crack in it…..Oh well, we lived to tell the tale so I can’t complain.
Our hotel was cute and overrun with adorable little lizards. There were multiple varieties of lizards, including some that looked like little iguanas.
A lizard keeping us company near the scooter parking lot at our hotel.
Robert dove Ko Haa and we both snorkeled Ko Haa (I did it twice) with Lanta Diver.
Ko Haa means five islands. Oddly, however, there are actually 6 islands. It is a beautiful place and only about a two hour boat ride away from Koh Lanta.
Koh Lanta is an absolutely beautiful place. We spent our first week on Koh Lanta on the East side of the Island in Old Lanta. We absolutely loved it. It was quiet and relaxed and laid back. But be warned, if you stay there, you pretty much have to rent a scooter (assuming you have a license and insurance) because there is very little to walk to and what passes for a taxi in this part of the world (usually, the back of a pick up truck but sometimes a side cart attached to a scooter) is very expensive for this part of the world (we payed $13 to get across the island one way). So, what did we do in our first week (besides visiting Lanta Animal Welfare)?
We played on swings over the ocean at various beachfront bars and restaurants.
Lisa in Old Town at Rareview Coffee and Restaurant. This place is fantastic for grabbing a drink, enjoying the view, and watching the eagles (more on that later). The food is pretty good too, but the absolute best meal we had on the East side was at a place called Pinto. If you are in town, you HAVE to eat at Pinto.
Our first full day on Koh Lanta, we actually set an alarm for 7 am. What on earth would cause us to do that? One word: DOGS! (Ok, fine, maybe two words: DOGS! CATS!).
One of the cats at Kitty City.
So, yeah, things have been pretty quiet around here, haven’t they? Honestly, we haven’t been doing much of interest. In fact, we have been doing so little, we don’t even have any photos for this post.
After leaving Yogyakarta, we could have written about our one night at an airport hotel in Jakarta. We could have written about the hotel’s horrible airport transfer that took 1.5 hours to get us the couple of kilometers from the airport to the hotel or the massive amount of ravenous mosquitoes in the hotel lobby or the disgusting food at the restaurant or the fact that they kept their limited supply of wine under lock and key at all hours and had to find a key holder when I ordered a glass during happy hour. But that would have sounded like whining, so why bother? Continue reading
Watch the video, keeping in mind that Robert’s camera doesn’t have zoom. Enough said.
