Koh Lanta

In total we stayed on Koh Lanta for 10 days and we loved our time there.

Although it is quite a small island, there is plenty to do and something for everyone, including Scuba Diving, great snorkelling, kayaking, lazing on the beach, exploring the national park and the Sea Gypsy village, elephant trekking, trekking, watching Muay Tai (although it is very pricey). You can sample all types of cuisine: French, Greek, seafood, Indian, Italian (although the quality is generally better if you stick to Thai). Although we did sample the Greek Taverna and that was really good and Mr Wees 2 pizza was very good. We'd highly recommend Muslim Seafood near Pimilai and before the turning for Meteoroligical Department. The food is fresh, very reasonably priced and the staff are very friendly.

There are several 'hubs' ,if you like, where people stay and all the eateries and bars are. There is Saladan, which is the main town at the ferry terminal and there are a few dive centres there. Then there is Long beach which is a long strip of beach cafes, bungalows and bars and it has quite a nice vibe, however the beach isn't the most picturesque and it's quite rocky in places.

For the second half of our stay we stayed at a beach further south, Khlong Nin, which is a lovely stretch of beach with views of Koh Ha. We stayed in a gorgeous little family run resort called Fevrier. It only has 9 rooms, most of them are quaint looking bungalows with coloured glass windows and attached warm shower bathrooms. The lady that runs it is so sweet and helpful and they really pay attention to detail, cleaning the rooms everyday, providing bottles of water and a fridge. It's been a lovely stay. I would highly recommend it and according to Tripadvisor I think most other people that have stayed here would as well!

Not only is Lanta a great place, but we had some great company, which always helps. Jason was with us for 3 weeks and it was great to spend more time with him and get to know him a bit better, which we never seemed to get round to doing at home! I hope he's having a fab time in Malaysia. We were also lucky enough to meet up with Arthur and Justine while they were 'holidaying' and they were a lot of fun (as always) to spend time with. Last but by no means least, we managed to bump in to Phil and Megan for the third time! And so far we haven't been able to get rid of them!! Only joking, I think these two will be friends for life, feel really lucky to have got to spend so much time with them!



Right, enough of that..

Apart from the company, there has been several highlights of our stay on Koh Lanta:

1) I would definitely suggest hiring a bike for at least a day or so during your stay here. For the only other way to get around the island is by tuk tuk. Unfortunately, this island is under the influence of 'the tuk tuk mafia' which basically means they have agreed to charge extortionate prices. We have been charged 240 B just to go 2 km's down the road compared to Chiang Mai where you would pay no more than 80B to go anywhere within the city.
But it is also a beautiful island to explore. Inland there are mangrove forests and as you circumnavigate the island there are stunning views of hidden coves and the jagged limestone islands off shore. We had great fun with the 7 of us driving around the island in convoy stopping at various photo opportunities and bars with sea views.
2) We also hired a long tail boat and crew for a day to take us out to 3 different nearby island. This was a fantastic day out. Between the 7 of us we paid 4500 B, including the boat and crew, pick up and drop off at our hotel, cold water and lunch and use of snorkel gear. First of all they took us to a snorkel spot around a rock island. We jumped off the boat and off we went. Unfortunately the visibility wasn't very good, it was very cloudy but we still saw lots. The second snorkel spot was much better. It was off a beach and there was much
more coral and colourful fish. We then spent an hour or so relaxing on the beach and enjoying out lunch.
The final destination was much more than we expected – Emerald cave. We arrived at the entrance of a cave. It was quite choppy swimming in to the cave so we were given life jackets. We bobbed around trying to navigate ourselves towards the cave entrance sticking as close to our guide as possible, laughing at how ridiculous we each looked in our life jackets as they floated up above our heads. The cave got progressively dark and we realised we were actually going in to a tunnel. You could only see a few feet ahead so it was difficult to tell how wide and how far the cave went. Just as I was beginning to get a bit scared we saw sunlight and we came out of the cave in to a secret beach surrounded by high cliffs and forest. It was a real pirates hide out! Incredible experience!
3) Finally Megan, Phil, Martin and I decided to book a 'Discover Scuba Diving trip' when our other companions had gone home or moved on. We booked with Lanta Diver (visit http://www.lantadiver.com/en/About-Lanta-Diver ) and I would highly recommend them. The day consisted of 3 dives. It took 2 hours on the boat to get out to Koh Ha where we do all 3 dives. The boat is very spacious and they provide breakfast and lunch and a good supply of cold drinks thoughout the day, Our first dive was off a beach, where we were able to stand while we got used to the gear and practised skills, like being able to put our --- back in if it comes off and clear our mask. We then swam towards a rock island and had a nose around at about 5 metres. The instructors are great and we had 1 instructor to 2 people. Megan and I buddied up and the boys went together. By the end of the day we were calling Megan 'the Mermaid' as she was such a natural! I wasn't such a natural and a few times had to fight the nerves.
After about 45 minutes we were back on the boat, desperately trying to warm up as we'd all got a bit cold down there (my lips were literally blue!). Unfortunately it was overcast, so we had a few warm drinks and my instructor kindly found me another wet suit, so I could double up for the next dive. For the second dive, we jumped off the boat in the same place but swam towards a different one of the 5 islands (Ha means 5 in Thai). Here we went down a bit deeper and by now we were beginning to control our depth through our breathing which was exciting! We saw plenty of fish, including Boxfish, some angel fish,moray eels, and some shrimp. We were swimming around the rock island which was like a beautiful, colourful wall with lots of nooks and crannies. I loved swimming through shoals of fish and watching fish nibbling on jelly fish. Again we were under water for about 45 minutes and then had to swim back to the boat which was a bit of a challenge as it was a bit choppy, but we managed it.
Next we enjoyed lunch on board the boat, although it was still a bit chilly, before all deciding we wanted to do the third dive, which was optional. This dive proved to be a little trickier for me. It took me a while to equalise and we had to come back up to the surface once, but eventually I was okay. The instructor was very patient with me. The when we got down I was struggling a little with nerves as I felt that I was too buoyant and I couldn't seem to use my breathing to stay at the depth I wanted to. So my instructor told me to let some air out of my floatation belt as soon as I did this I thought I was floating up instead of down and started to worry. I didn't know what to do and felt helpless as I slowly drifted up towards the surface, my poor instructor ended up chasing me up to bring me back down. She later told me that what had actually caused this, which now seems obvious, but I didn't realise as I was thinking about everything else I should be doing. So while I had been concentrating on pressing the right button and worrying about my breathing I'd actually turned my body so I was upright in the water and I was kicking, so of course I was kicking slowly up towards the surface! Duh! I'll never make that mistake again!
I still really enjoyed the dive, there was plenty to see again and there was lots of rocky outcrops and coral to explore. My favourite sighting was a shoal of squid, which I'd never seen before. They look like cute alien creatures or the cartoon 'squelchy' characters we used to draw as kids.
All in all it was a fab day and good value for money! I would highly recommend this company, they were very professional and our instructors were very experienced and patient.