Koh Lanta was pretty uneventful. The ferry across took about an hour and a half and was fine and we spent the afternoon on the beach near our hostel which was called M hostel. The hostel was nice enough, when we arrived they gave us these green sweets which were kind of like Turkish delight but chewier with something hard in the centre. They were pretty grim to be honest but it was a nice gesture. The beach near us is called long beach and it was quite nice, more full of families than any we've been to so far. Koh Lanta itself was pretty average I'd say. I think it was my least favourite island but I can't put my finger on why. I think part of the problem is that we've heard such great things about it so we all had quite high expectations. We spent the evening doing some. Admin and chilling in the hostel after we had dinner on the beach at Sans Sunset Bar.
The next day we had booked for a boat tour around the four islands (Koh Ngai, Koh Mook, Koh Cheuk and Koh ...). We stopped at Koh Mook first for a spot of snorkelling which was quite good, there weren't that many fish but that's the way I like it, there were just enough that you could see them all without them being near you. Then we went to Koh Ngai where we had a buffet lunch on the beach. The beach was the most beautiful one so far I think. The sand was lovely, white and soft and the water was so clear. We spent a while sitting in the sea because it was so shallow and then hopped back on the boat. He took us around the corner for some more snorkelling and threw some bread in the water to get all the fish out. This time there were absolutely hundreds of fish swimming all over us and touching your legs. That was too much for me. I liked looking at the coral and swimming alongside the fish but there were times when you had to cross a path of fish and they all swam at your legs and slipped passed. Not sure how I felt about it, especially when the guy on the boat threw fish right next to me and I was swarmed by fish. Grim. When the fish calmed down a bit it was nice though, generally I think I prefer the coral to the fish and the coral there was pretty cool.
After that we all piled back on the boat and he took us to the emerald caves in Koh Cheuk. These were so cool. We swam in lifejackets through this pitch black little cave and out the other side it felt like you were in the middle of a volcano with cliffs up all the way around you. It was originally found by pirates and they used to store their treasure there which is pretty cool. After that we went onto the next island which we just looked at from the boat.
When we got back to dry land we stopped off for the evening in The Old Town. It was really cool there and there were loads of restaurants over the sea with swings right on the edge of the peir. We wandered around a couple of shops and went for dinner at one of the restaurants on a peir. Kate was having some stomach issues so she had a spaghetti with tomato sauce dish, Amy and becki had sweet and sour tofu and I had green curry with tofu. We then got a taxi back to the hostel and went to bed.
Tomorrow we're going to pack up and head to the beach for a Thai massage in the morning and then travel over to Bangkok in the afternoon. Its a long trip with a 14hour bus journey but they supposedly serve dinner so it should be interesting! I'm excited about Bangkok and I will update you there.
