Thursday, November 3, 2016

Chilled out Koh Lanta Island

After almost 2 weeks straight of constant adventuring and traveling non stop, I welcomed the chilled out vibe and relaxing atmosphere Koh Lanta promised.  I was lucky enough to get a great hostel right on the Klong Dao beach for only 320 baht/9 US dollars per night called Hey Beach Hostel.  My plan was that I would do nothing for several days except read a little, write a little, and relax a lot.  My plans were temporarily ruined when it decided to rain for a day and a half.  As the sun seeker I am, I looked everywhere for good weather, but unfortunately all was the same.


One of the days in the hostel I met another traveler, Tobi, who was the type of travler who looked for more of an authentic experience with locals rather than your average party hostel.  We decided that we would explore the islands beaches the next day on motor bikes, even though I had never tried, and up to this point, had been too afraid!

We rented bikes for 200 baht/5USDollars for the entire day, and I finally got my chance to try out yet another new activity.  Tobi gave me a run down of the basics and helped me as much as he could, and even though it felt a little weird not only to find the right handle and speed, but as well as driving on the left side of the road, I got it down relatively quickly.  Accomplishments! Fear conquering!


We started out with several other people but went our separate ways as they wanted to check out some caves on a guided tour, and we were looking more so to find "THE beach" throughout the day, and didn't want to waste any of the daylight we had.  I want to add that the weather was PERFECT as luck had it.  Finally.  Barely a cloud in the sky.  Riding on the moped, wind in my hair, sun in my face, was the type of feeling that neared towards perfection.

We rode our bikes to the most southern part of the island at the National Park and paid 200 baht for entrance to see the beautiful and clean beach and park.  This was a nice sight to see after seeing so many littered beaches.  It really is sad to see garbage lining what would be a stunning place.  You can look past it and still see beauty, but you can't have tunnel vision forever.





At the park, we saw, yet again, monkeys!  Again, theives, stealing food and water and whatever they could get their hands on if they had the chance.  We watched our things very closely!



When swimming in the water at this particular beach, we would get little stinging sensations all over our body, which at first we thought had to do with our mosquito bites, when really there were tiny jellyfish we were unable to see stinging us!  Very uncomfortable, but worth the slight discomfort for the amazingly warm, calm ocean.



After going around most of the island for hours, we headed back to our hostel, as we had seen many gorgeous beaches and little towns.  We may not have found "the one beach," but I didn't crash or get scraped up on my first outing on a moped, so really, it was a fabulous, sun filled, perfect kind of day.



  


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