In the morning, the Swedes and I headed for breakfast at a place John recommended. A little pricey, but we’re starting to figure John wasn’t as frugal as we’re trying to be. I had a pancake, hoping it would look as glorious as the ones we saw at the night market, but it was fairly underwhelming.
Another travelling day, this time to Ko Lanta. Ko = Island here in Thailand, so we’d be taking a boat at some point. We were supposed to be picked up at 10, but our taxi did not arrive until closer to 11. We piled in, and headed to the bus terminal, where we hopped on a (blessedly) air-conditioned minivan. It was a little crowded, and I ended up sitting on Robin’s suitcase for the first fifteen minutes or so. I was nearly at the point of cursing the lack of meat on my posterior, when we dropped off the mother and daughter I was sitting next to, and I had two seats to myself.
We picked up a couple of more people on the way, and dropped off some others, but I managed to retain my seat. The young girl in front of me was pretty cute, and seemed quite taken with Robin’s camera. The Canadians I met in Te Anua had given me some Canadian pencils to give to kids on my travels, but they were buried in my luggage, otherwise I’d have given one to her.
We got on a ferry to Ko Lanta Noi and drove across the island, and got onto another ferry – this time to Ko Lanta Yai. There were some police inspecting vehicles, but we managed to make it through without much incident. The bus dropped us off at the bus depot, and we went through the never pleasant task of trying to figure out where we wanted to sleep for the nights (or at least one night) on the island, We told the guy in charge of the taxis we wanted to be dropped off in the middle of one of the beach areas. He told us it would be 50 baht each. Steep ($1.60), but a twenty minute taxi drive.
The taxi was a pickup truck with two benches running along its side. To our surprise we were dropped off nowhere near where we wanted to be, about 5 minutes later. We tried to tell the driver that we weren’t where we wanted to be (there was a decent resort, but nothing around). He had no clue what we were talking about, so we had to negotiate another 30 baht to get further down the beach.
Now where we wanted to be, we tried to find a place to stay, but the places in the area weren’t really what we were after, price wise. The driver, whose company we didn’t like was still following us around – hoping for a commission from the resort, no doubt. Jolina and I left Robin with the bags, and headed towards the beach to check out the next place, but it too wasn’t what we were after. When we got back, Robin was talking with someone who had a good place down the road. He offered to drive us there for free, but changed his tune when he spotted our taxi driver. The taut for the resort made haste and took off, and we decided we’d eat some food, hoping the taut would return.
Had a great lunch at a place near the main road. As we waited, a truck pulled up and another taut from another resort offered us a room. We haggled him down to half the price, on condition of seeing the place, and went to check it out.
Blue Andaman Resort turned out to be nice. Robin and Jolina definitely got the better of the two rooms, but I certainly feel I got my money’s worth. 300 baht (less than $10) for my own bungalow with private shower and bathroom.
I headed to the beach and had a look. Low tide, so the beach looked a little rocky, but the beach faces west, and before long we were hit with the nicest sunset I’ve seen in forever.
