Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

27th September 2005 continued....

(Marc writes) So we escaped the wrath of the mad thai bloke on Samui and arrived safely in Krabi bus station after a journey by bus via Surrathani. Soon as we stepped off the bus we were sold two tickets to Koh Lanta. As we are here out of season the maim ferry from Krabi to Koh lanta isn't running so the journey is mainly overland with two very short ferry (more like floating platforms) trips. Just a 3hr hop skip and a jump and we're on Koh Lanta. We knew we were there out of season but this place was dead!! We got dropped off on some in the middle of nowhere as the driver spoke no english at all and we didn't know what to tell him because we didn't actually have any real idea of where we wanted to be on this island or more to the point where exactly was open at this time of year. Anywhere it didn't take long before some friendly local pulled over in his pick up truck and asked us if we needed any help. He ended up taking us to a small bungalow resort where he worked just down the road ("Blue Andaman Resort"). Quite a nice little place which had a few tourists already there and at 200BHT/Night (about 3quid or 4.5EURO) for a little bungalow we thought that was a deal. We were on the west coast of the island which was in fact hit by the December 2004 Tsunami however the locals told us that the island escaped mass destruction as the wave was 'only' 3-4 metres high when it hit!!! The water came inland about 20 metres and wiped out a few of the resorts but overall they consider themselves to have been spared. The beach half way down on the west coast wasn't particularly nice: dirty (random flip-flops and bottles), too rocky and way too steep. We rented a moped and decided to go exploring around the island. Most of the longer roads were 'proper' roads but we did have lots of fun trying to negotiate many of the hilly dirk track roads with our 80cc moped...bit mental really. Its a small island but does have some nice little spots along the south west coast with a national park on the southern tip which had a nice clean, deserted sandy beach surrounded by jungle. On the way we passed some pretty cool wildlife like big snakes (some kind of constrictor crossing the road), wild monkeys and some bloody huge monitor lizards running around the place. East coast of the island is sheltered from the bigger waves on the west coast and is where the old fishing villages are located. Beautiful viewpoint on top of a hill just where the road turns south giving views of loads of smaller islands and the mainland in the distance. This coast is where the 'Sea Gypsies' are located. These guys are some ancient nomadic sea tribe who, relatively recently, were granted Thai citizenship and land by the king of Thailand. They pretty much live in isolation from the rest of the island and do there own fishing thing. On the way down the east coast we came across the 'Sea Gypsie Music House' which was a really cool little set-up down on a hidden bay. Couple of these Gypsie guys and a canadian girl of all people have built an art gallery/jewellery shop/bar/cafe/music venue and just seem to hang out there all day. Bunch of hippies really.....but cool nevertheless (Not that I have anything against hippies).

So thats pretty much all we have to report on Koh Lanta apart from the family of cockroaches which Nora had me slaughter in the bungalow, meeting a bloke (Tim) originally from Pompey and the top tip of never visit Koh Lanta in the Low Season because the entire Island is pretty much closed and the sea is too rough to swim in...after two days and 3 nights we decided to head back to Krabi.

P.S We don't want to give a bad impression of Koh Lanta and we imagine that it is absolutley beautiful in the right season and would perhaps like to go back some time just to see the contrast