Southern Thailand and the Islands

We boarded the plane in Chang Mai, looking forward to spending some time on the west coast of southern Thailand, also known as the Andaman Coast. Unfortunately the flight from Chang Mai to Bangkok was late and we had to sprint through the airport to get to our connecting flight. Fortunately we caught the flight and made it to Krabi without any issues. By the time we arrived, all the ferry's and buses had left for the day so we had to spend the night in Krabi before moving on to somewhere more scenic. With views like this, however, Krabi isn't too bad on the eyes either.


After a morning updating blogs, we hopped on a bus and two ferries to Ko Lanta Yai, an island just south and west of Krabi. The island is less known, and (luckily) thus less touristed, than the nearby Ko Phi Phi and Phuket. Still, many hotels were already booked so we spent a few hours looking for a room in the oppressive midday heat. Tired, hungry, and grumpy, we finally found a hotel on Long Beach with just enough time to see the sun set and forget about all the travel related hassles from that day.

The next morning, all of our ambitions seemed to melt away at the first sight of white sand beaches and turquoise water. We spent the day reading on the beach with not nearly enough sunscreen. Again, the sunset couldn't have been better.


Pictured below: Ellie and I catching the last remnants of sunset in Ko Lanta. The small lights on the horizon are fishing boats at sea.


The next day, we rented a motor bike and explored the island. There were a few beaches but the sand was not as white nor the water as clear as Long Beach. There was however a goat - the first we've seen since Nepal.



The most interesting thing were tsunami warning signs along the road. On that note, Ko Lanta was largely spared from the tsunami in 2004 - today these are the only signs that anything happened.


That evening we had dinner with our friend, Bendigo, and ate fried fish on the beach. Later that evening, we saw fire dancers. The dancer in the center is twirling a flaming baton while the two outer dancers swing poi, which are somewhat like flaming nunchucks.


The next morning, we took a ferry to Ko Phi Phi Don, one of two small islands north of Ko Lanta. Ko Phi Phi Don is the larger of the two islands and was devastated by the tsunami in 2004. The area has been almost completely rebuilt, owing to the strength of the tourist industry, and except for high prices, no major signs remain. Our hotel for the evening was, coincidentally, located on Long Beach. The other island, Ko Phi Phi Leh, is protected and thus has no inhabitants. As the setting for the 2000 movie, The Beach, it propelled the two islands to fame and has since attracted a steady stream of tourists.

Long Beach, pictured above and below, is the kind of beach you see in post cards. Aquamarine, verging on imperceptible water laps brilliant white sand beaches while further down the island rocky cliffs jut hundreds of feet straight up from the sea. Longtail boats are visible in both pictures - since the island has no roads these serve as the primary form of transportation between town and remote beaches.


Pictured below: Ko Phi Phi Don at night.


We left Ko Phi Phi the next day headed for Khao Lak, a small town on the mainland more than 100km north. First, we had to take a long tail boat from Long Beach to a ferry, that dropped us off in Phuket where we caught a bus to Khao Lak. Pictured below: not so gracefully climbing into the longtail boat, laden with six months of gear.


If our days in Ko Lanta and Ko Phi Phi seemed lazy, it was not due to lethargy but an attempt to save our budget for greater things - namely scuba diving. The Similan Islands lie about 70km west of Khao Lak and feature some of the finest diving in the world.


Our dive site, Richelieu Rock, was teeming with marine life. We saw neon fish of every shape and size and creatures hiding in each crack and crevice. Unfortunately the picture below doesn't do justice to the vivid undersea world but schools of fish are visible in front and behind us. At times, there were so many fish that the visibility, 30 meters that day, was reduced to less than ten meters. We saw a great number of shrimp, crab, eels, urchins, puffer fish, and clownfish, among many others - my favorite though were the cuttlefish. These bizarre fish look like a combination between a squid and a flounder wearing a tutu and have a chameleon-like ability to change their color to match the surroundings.


We spent our final day hopping between local buses to get from Khao Lak back to Krabi. Tomorrow morning we will catch a flight to India where we will be for the next month.

Finally, one more picture of the fire dancers in Ko Lanta.