Thailand time, part 1: Ko Lanta
I think there was a stretch during our trip planning when the time allotted for Thailand was going to be as short as a week. Over the course of the planning, it became clear that we needed much more time to soak up all that Thailand has to offer. I am so thankful that our CPO (that’s Chief Planning Officer, among other titles), LCL, saw that we needed more like 2-3 weeks.
We arrived to Krabi Airport via Scoot Airlines on the afternoon of the 4th and loaded into our tricked-out van for transport to Ko Lanta, a small island off the southwest coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. It hit us very quickly that the vibe in Thailand is quite different from Singapore. Of course, we expected this but it was still rather striking. While the vibe in Singapore could be described as clean-modern-orderly-green-urban and humid, the vibe in Thailand (at least on Ko Lanta) could be described as laid back-chaotic-gritty-developing and dry.
Our driver spoke no english but nevertheless he could tell we were quite impressed with the interior of his van.
Yassss Queens, welcome to Thailand!
You want to gas up your motorbike, motorbike tuktuk, motorcycle, car? These little stands are everywhere. It’s literally just a bunch of glass bottles with gas decanted into them.
One of the things we’re learning about traveling like we are is that when a place or experience doesn’t initially meet the expectations of one or more of us, it is key to be patient and work to adjust our expectations and lean into what a place has to offer. You can’t change the conditions but you can change your mind, right?! This is exactly what happened in Ko Lanta and once we got through this brief adjustment period, we ended up loving our experience and, I suspect, it will be looked back on fondly as one of our favorite stretches of this grand adventure.
As usual, our aforementioned CPO had designs on some excursions and activities while in Ko Lanta including a 4-island boat tour, a Thai cooking class and a visit to Lanta Old Town.
Island #2 on our 4-island tour - our snorkeling stop.
Shown here is the entrance to Marakot Cave, also known as Emerald Cave, which we were invited to swim through. Given the language barrier, it was a little tough to tell what we were getting ourselves into. I ascertained that it was an 80m swim and that it shouldn’t be a problem if you are a decent swimmer. The girls were game so we went for it. Our guide led the way in and we followed. A few minutes in, all we could see was his headlamp out in front of us. Here I am taking our 10 and 13 year old daughters swimming through a decent swell, surrounded by cliffs into a cave in the Andaman Sea - for a brief moment, it was hard not to wonder if I was making a good parenting choice. Every time I have one of those moments (like after dark on a White Mts backpacking trip when we are searching for a place to pitch our tents via headlamp or zip-lining several hundred feet in the air over a deep gorge in central Belize), I appreciate watching the girls rise to the occasion. I expected them to be a touch spooked but they did great. We stayed close together and before long we could see some light around a bend up ahead. As we emerged on the other side we discovered that the cave led to a small interior area of the island surrounded by cliffs.
The other side of our 80m cave swim - now all we had to do was swim back through the dark to our boat.
Thai food! Is there anyone who doesn’t love it? Well, Poppy, at first. That was until we spent half a day learning how to cook it. We all had a great time learning from Mon, our wacky, talented, fun-loving and talented chef, instructor and all-around good dude. We learned how easy it can be to make pad thai, various curry dishes (massaman and panang are our faves) as well as Tom Kha, a coconut based soup with veggies and tofu. And, of course, Mango sticky rice for dessert. If you ever find yourself in Ko Lanta and want to learn from the best, look up Cooking with Mon.
Transportation around Ko Lanta was like everything else: quite casual. Our options were walking, motorbike, motorbike tuktuk or the bed of a truck as shown below. We tried them all. It’s amazing the things we hardly even question doing while traveling but wouldn’t even consider doing at home in Maine. I guess that’s one of the things about traveling - leaving home also means leaving perceptions, fears and expectations behind and embracing the moment.
