As we waved goodbye to gorgeous Jum sitting on the deck of the Lanta ferry it began to rain. Little drops of refreshment at first. Then big splodges that quite frankly just started to piss us off. But by the time we began to care, it was too late. Every inch of cabin space was taken and we were left out in the cold for the 90 minute journey. Pleasant. We had made plans to hook up with Paul and Sarah, a couple from London we met volunteering in Khao Lak. They were doing a similar route to us, and we got on really well, so we decided to travel together until our paths split.
We met (drenched) on the Koh Lanta pier all gung-ho and ready to go, but it seemed we had forgotten one tiny little detail, research. Under normal circumstance this probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But as Lanta is a pretty big island with a pretty big selection of beaches which are all vastly different and thus can quite easily determine the type of stay you have, it probably would have been a good idea to have at least opened our Lonely Planets before we actually arrived.
Unfortunately this wasn’t the case.
Luckily what we had all picked up on our various paths was that the further down the island you went, the less ‘touristy’ it became. So we grabbed a taxi and headed South.
A quick scan through the “Yellow Bible” set our sights on a beach called Ao Kantiang. But our driver (who, come to think of it now, must have been damn convincing) managed to persuade us to go to Hat Khlong Khong instead, as apparently ALL the accommodation on Kantiang was SUPER expensive and full. She then swiftly drove us to her friend’s set of bungalows which we politely refused. Sneaky little Thai Lady.
Anyway, we ended up checking in at a place called Lanta Nature Beach Resort. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t really feel the need to tell you exactly where we stayed, but our little fan bungalow could have potentially burnt to the ground while we were sleeping peacefully in it, so I thought it deserved a little mention.
It was only because I happened to wake up as the fan switch just above my head began to throw luminous sparks at us, and smoke started to fill the air with that ‘you’ve got 10 seconds before I burst into flames’ aroma, that we’re still here to tell the tale. Fortunately the mains switch was within Marc’s quick grasp, and we were able to wheel the bed away from anything with a voltage. I can’t say it’s the most pleasant night’s sleep we’ve ever had.
Moving swiftly along.
Our first night entailed a rather large catch up session which started with a bottle of Samsung (Thai whiskey) and ended at a beach party with one too many buckets of Samsung. Needless to say the next day was spent under a Samsung blur blanket with all of us swearing we’d never touch the stuff again. Sound familiar?
Other than coming out the other side of a sever hangover and our exciting little fan fire event, I’m not really sure what to say about Lanta. We stayed on an ok beach, in an ok place, with ok food. We rented scooters for a day and went exploring, but didn’t really find anything exciting enough to write about. We bought a pair of fire chains, Inspired by the mesmerising fire throwers that light up the beach at night, and discovered that it does actually hurt when they hit you (even when they’re not lit).
And that’s it really.
It wasn’t horrible or bad by any means, It was just a bit of a non event which is disappointing as we had heard such great things about the place.
Having said that, I have no doubt that if we had done a tad more reading up, we would have had ourselves a completely different experience. The only thing to do is go back me thinks, and give it another go.
K&M
Check out the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43679192@N07/sets/72157623136431770/
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