08 April 2008 – 15:26
Khao Lang
Ironically, even though I’d gone to bed fairly early, I didn’t have a great night’s sleep. Another warm, sticky night that I thought would have been a little fresher after the previous evening’s thunderstorm. Admittedly the storm didn’t last for more than 40 minutes during our evening meal, but it did rain quite a lot in those 40 minutes, and it should have freshened up the air. It didn’t.
I rose without the need of an alarm, even though we needed to get up early for our latest move this time further south to Ko Lantra Island.
I had a light breakfast, and cleared our rooms by 7am. We took two mini buses for the three hours’ drive south to Krabi Port. We’d left Tree Tops at 7am because the drivers suggested it would take three hours. Clearly the drivers wanted to beat that time, and like men possessed they made the trip in two – much to the shock and horror for some of us, as they took risk after risk, passing vehicles on blind corners, and were regularly speeding. One of the two mini busses (thankfully not the one I was in) nearly had an accident, and had to do an emergency stop!
Halfway Katie instructed the drivers that we weren’t particularly happy with the driving, and to be fair the rest of the journey was far less eventful. Yet again we passed some wonderful scenery on our way down to Krabi, and the two hours passed fairly quickly. Once at the port we climbed out of our air conditioned mini buses and were hit by 9 o’clock sun. Our ferry to the island wasn’t for a while (because we were early), so after checking in and putting our bags behind the reception, we wandered around the port complex, opting to either sit in the shade, or sunbathe. With Felip, I first walked outside the port, hoping to actually see the sea, for the complex was covered by trees and you couldn’t actually see the water from where we were inside. The found the water’s edge, a little dirty from the swampy mud, but we both tested the water with our feet to find it deliciously warm.
For the remaining hour, we returned to inside and sat an lounged about, until it was time to get our bags and head down the pier to where the ferry would take us to our next stop. The ferry was about an hour late (“Thai style” time keeping), but we were relaxed and didn’t care that much, being happy to just sit and soak up the sun’s rays.
During our two hour ferry trip, we saw many beach resorts, with exotic huts and
reasonable looking hotels offering what looked like a reasonable amount of
luxury and comfort. We caught a few swifts flying like fighting kites, battling
with each other for air supremacy, and also saw a number of flying fish darting
away from our speeding ferry.
At lunchtime we had reached our port, which was full of a number of similar sized ferries to our own. It seemed a busy little port, full of tourists and little fishing boats. It definitely felt as if we’d reached a back-packer’s paradise.
As we were taken via truck to our new home for the next two nights, we noticed some detritus along some of the beaches, and a few buildings in various states of build. We all realised that this coast-line must have been hit by the fateful Christmas tsunami a couple of years ago.
Our hotel complex was a sight for sore eyes. After a few nights of discomfort and hygiene issues, we looked upon our chalets with a sense of relief and joy. Now the rooms were fairly anonymous in styling, but were cool, clean and bug free, along with a reasonable standard of facilities, such as a proper air conditioning, mini bar / fridge, television, safe, and a place to hang your clothes. I just knew I would sleep well here! Straight away we unpacked some of our stuff, and headed for the beach, which was adjacent to the hotel. This was (for us) luxury!
I took the opportunity to firstly wade, then to swim in the warm sea water. The water itself was surprisingly salty, and I found later that I had been mildly stung a couple of times by plankton As the water came to land (crashing would be too strong, but it was more than lapping) it stirred up the fine sand, and made the water’s edge brown rather than clear.
After the brief swim I had a lunch in the open air restaurant area of the hotel that looked onto the beach. I decided to ‘spoil’ myself, and the Thailand cooking theme, and went for a burger and chips. Not a brilliant choice, but it was the first time I had had red meat in nearly a week, and was getting withdrawal symptoms!
After a relaxed sit down, I chose to lounge in or by the pool for a couple of hours before we headed out for our evening meal.
The restaurant we chose to go to was based a few hundred yards along the beach. The seating, as usual, was based outside, with a thatched roof offering possible protection from rain. Most evenings it seemed to rain for a little while, and often at the same time of dusk.
We all sat on one long table, and enjoyed a reasonable selection of food. The menu was largely fish based, with a few chicken curries mixed in. During the meal, Katie passed round a paper lantern for us to write on a prayer or wish each.
In between the main course and desert, we were given an impromptu display of a professional poi-poi dancer. He juggled with flaming poi and pugel sticks, which in the darkened breezy beach setting made for a wonderful spectacle.
Once dark, after the meal we took the lantern onto the beach and lit the candle inside and when warmed up, we let the lantern lift gently into the sky. We watched for a while as the lantern steadily rose higher as it drifted along the shoreline before the light finally was extinguished five minutes later in the distance.