PHUKET

We’re all looking forward to a week of being beach bums, a pool, swim up bar and the warm warm andaman ocean. As we leave Phuket airport it pisses down, cats, dogs, you bloody name it, it hammers down like it can only do out here. Mind you it’s great to watch. Kim and I haven’t seen real rain since New years day.

By the time we get to the hotel it’s already stopped and starting to dry, it will be dusty again in an hour. Too knackered to travel far we have a cocktail and some dinner in the hotel restuarant which overlooks the bay. It is bloody lovely. Just about a year ago Kim and I were in the surf on the beach looking back at the palm trees and hotel wandering if we would ever be lucky enough to come back and here we are.

We’re in a family room, an odd arrangement means that both rooms connect into the loo, obvious opportunities for unfortunate accidents! What's more, half the dividing wall is glass with just a curtain for privacy. Ok for a genuine family but tough for 4 adults.

Kim and I go to work on “management” next morning. By use of the aircon and leaving a window open we’ve managed to make the walls run with water. We convince the manager that our 73 year old relatives will die if left in this room.  Kim and Janet had a battle as to who was going to take the room first and Janet won. Kim and I move to an upgraded room on the top floor that morning and Jan and Pete unfortunately make it through the night and move to a new room the next day. 

The pool area here is lovely and the swim up bar has an all day happy hour. Pete and Jan have bought marmite along with Gin and JD, in short, we’re in hog heaven. The only danger is from third degree burns from the pool surround as the temp tops 100 every day.

There’s a strip of family restaurants here which turn out great home cooked meals as well as doing your laundry. Every now and then we take a tuk tuk to town for the market and some beers. We walk the length of the stunning beach and spend an afternoon at the Ramada swim up bar. On the way we spot a restaurant with a steak special, with sunday coming it’s too good to miss.

They have Lamb chops! I can’t remember the last time I had Lamb chops, Janet I and Kim order Lamb chops, they only have lamb chops for two! I, who have not had lamb for months and will not get to see lamb for another 4 months forgo my chop so that JANET who goes home to bloody Hayling Island next week where a butcher with a cold cabinet full of lamb chops is a 5 minute walk away has my lamb chop and I do not get a single sniff. Not only that, she goes on and on how lovely they were. Bloody sisters!!

The days here in Khao Lak just melt away like suns setting into the sea, it’s wonderfully warm, we have coconuts fresh from the trees, the sunset bar looks across Khao Lak bay like a picture from a dream.........

All too soon we’re standing at the door of reception saying our goodbyes. What a wonderful time we had, we loved having you out here with us. Like we always say when we come to these lovely places the only thing missing is people we love to share it with. See you in August!

Jan and Petes car turns up bang on schedule at 07:30.

"Have you got anything cheaper" says Pete

"Ang-nar"o adds Janet, helpfully.

Ours is due at 07:40 we start chasing it at 08:00 around 09:00 a guy turns up and wants us to get in his car, we go into town and wait at a travel office. A mini van rolls up around 10:00 and we’re on our way to Krabi district and Klong Muang.

Klong Muang

History repeats in that we get dropped after two more van changes in an absolute downpour. The hotel has very kindly sent a car for us and they take us back to our digs. A wonderfully clean and tidy brand new family run place. Not the luxury of the last week but it will do. The beach at Klong Muang is stunning, long, curved, white sand. The only downside, some dead coral laying about which is sharp and lots of dead jelly fish, which sting like fuck.

Main draw is a peninsular of sand from where you can see all the famous lime stone Karsts (Think James Bond) from a long row of fresh sea food stalls.

It’s a lovely spot to while away the evenings after long strolls down the beach to the coffee bar overlooking the far end of the beach.

Koh Lanta

From here we get a bus/ferry ticket to Koh Lanta. It’s another 5 hours in a mini van but the reward is the kind of beach you dream of when you imagine southern Thailand. It’s endless, frangipane lined and the water is warm and soft as the sand. The sunsets are huge and vivid. 

Our hotel has a lovely pool and as we make our way back after dinner a down pour starts, the pool is still lit up like a christmas tree so in we plunge and watch the huge raindrops splash into the electric blue water while we're cackling like children.

Old town Lanta is worth a visit, very chinese colonial, tiny shop houses and fish restaurants hanging over the water. Kim and I share a fried snapper in tamarind sauce that was just sooooo good, then negotiate a tuk tuk ride back over the mountain with its’ stunning views to Nim beach. On the one hand we feel we’re getting lazy here but on the other it feels like we need a little stop to think. We’re planning the next leg of travel, into Malaysia, Langkawi, Penang, Kuala Lumpur then flights to Indonesia, back to Kuala Lumpur? Sri Lanka? We spend a day round the pool deciding on our next steps and forward planning.

From here it’s a 4 hour ferry to Koh Lipe, way out in the Andaman Ocean, from there, another couple of hours will see us in Langkawi and Malaysia, then again by sea to Penang, overland to Kuala Lumpur and we’ve booked return flights to Indonesia and then think about Sri Lanka on the way home. Kim’s negotiated some deals on Air B&Bs in Penang and KL, we’ve booked a hotel in Kuah Langkawi, sounds like a plan!

Songkran!!

Regular readers will know how much fun we had at last years festival. So as the Buddhist year 2562 dawns we bundle into a song theaw, a kind of open backed flat bed communal taxi. Here in Lanta a lot of the population are Muslim and don’t celebrate Songkran so we can walk the street to the tuk tuk stop without getting soaked, just a gentle splash or two from the family running one of the local restaurants.

It’s a 20 minute drive to the end of the island however and as we pass settlement after settlement the road is lined with water butts and enthusiastic crowds. The driver thoughtfully slows down so that we can be thoroughly and entirely drenched by giggling locals, sometimes by folk who have kindly taken the trouble to fill their water containers with Ice. Were it not 100 degrees plus it could all become quite annoying.

Having made our way to the end of the island we make our way back piece meal, from beach to beach, little groups of bars have all provided huge water butts, regularly replenished from mobile bowsers. The fire brigade are in on the act, a fire engine with side hoses on full, takes slow sweeps up the road drenching everyone, wherever you look laughing, dancing, kids and adults armed with huge water pistols, buckets, pretty much anything that will hold water are soaking each other. We’ve rarely (since last songkran) seen such unabandoned merry making.  I don’t know how else to describe it, it’s magnificent, we should adopt it, believe me, New Years Eve anywhere else I’ve been doesn’t even come close!

We’re soaked, dried by the sun, soaked, dried by the sun, over and over, finally we negotiate a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel and again we’re drenched as we pass bars and restaurants on the way back. The Muslim lady who is driving the tuk tuk is soaked and also laughing like a child, wonderful!

Weird as it seems, back at the hotel we jump into the pool, it’s still crazy hot and we can feel the pressure building as storm clouds start building out of the ocean. We hurry down to the beach and sit, feet in the sand, meters from the crashing surf and eat some squid, and barbequed ribs (Magnificent)

Right on cue, songkran which celebrates the coming of the rains is going to deliver in spectacular fashion. The first big, fat raindrops are starting to hit the ground, sending up puffs of dust as we make our way back to the hotel. We get our deckchairs arranged, pop two large Singha beers and a packet of peanuts (the luxury!!) and sit and watch the fireworks.

The hotel is set in a little valley that leads down to the ocean, we have Jungle on one side and the pool on the other. There are howler monkeys in the jungle which wake us with their noise every morning, joined soon after by some local bullocks, they start kicking up a fuss as huge lightening strikes sear across the night sky, they quieten down as the thunder kicks in followed by a downpour of biblical proportions! A fantastic day!

Koh Lanta is one of those dream like places. By day it’s a huge, long curve of golden sand lapped by emerald ocean. The beach is by and large deserted, just a few collections of beach bars and seafood stalls here and there. They provide some seats and shelter from the sun in return for you ordering the odd beer, otherwise you’re dependent on the overhanging palms or Frangipane trees for shade.

At night the place transforms to a fairy tale like stretch of twinkling lights, candles and flaming torches as the bars move tables down toward the surfline where you can sit and watch the stunning sunset while slurping a cocktail, feet in the bath warm sea, the barbeques are coming up to speed, the waft of charcoal, cooking shrimp, fish, chicken, ribs...................kill me now!

The Fat Turtle is just one such bar, perched under a huge tree on a rocky outcrop virtually overhanging the ocean. Right now, I can’t think of a better place to run up a bar tab as a huge, red ball sun, drops smoking into the sea, happy hour singha beers appear, popped into cooly covers, everytime you finish one, another appears, like the surroundings, Magic!

OK we’ve done these ferry trips before, packed like sardines into a huge speed boat. Getting on is never easy, the Thais are strangers to anything H&S when it comes to boarding boats. Leaping huge gaps while the boat rocks up and down you make your way down to the passenger deck. The crew makes you all put on a life jacket, they take a photo, then.....whatever.

Koh Lipe

We’re off, out of Lanta and on to what was once beautiful Koh Ngai, my screen saver at work for 10 years, a perfect circle of white sand with live coral, clear ocean, palm trees, hornbills, fruitbats, no roads just a nice beach and two weeks without shoes. Don’t get me wrong it’s still beautiful but popularity has come with a price, all the water and indeed anything consumable needs to come from the mainland, in bottles and packaging, and it’s everywhere.

No one wants to take responsibility for the once pristine beaches as foreign owned hut camps siphon money away from the locals. From Ngai to Koh Mook, another crescent of sand backed by jungle opening out into a beautiful bay, onto Koh Kraddan.

Kraddan was another favourite place of ours and we debated long about the wisdom of coming back. We remember hiking across the island to Wally's Paradise lost hut camp, run by Wally an ex haiwaian police officer, and then to a deserted, creeper garlanded, cliff backed, stretch of white sand and clear ocean where we stayed all day without seeing another soul.

As we stop on the beach to drop off passengers today we’re glad we decided against it. Some beaches at Phi Phi are closed to try to rescue the environment damaged by years of unsustainable development. It would appear a lot of folk have been redirected here.

It’s hard to credit it’s the same place. Beached boats are disgorging huge lines of Chinese tourists, clad in their orange life vests, they cling to long ropes as they snorkel to the shore, doubtless causing irreversible damage to the live coral.

How long do they think they can screw with this amazing asset that they have been gifted, before it’s ruined and people inevitably stop coming? It’s not in the Thai psyche to query such things, this is a “thing” they have, they will use it, when it’s no longer popular, or used up, they will find something else, Christ, what a shame.

On to Koh Lipeh. Lipeh is a stunning jewel set in the sea. The sand is like warm, pure white flour, the ocean is bathwater warm and clear as gin. Coral, packed with abundant sea life is well within a swim from shore, the sun reflected back from the sand beneath the ocean makes it glow a deep emerald, where it hits coral, a glowing sapphire.

We scramble off the boat onto a makeshift jetty then onto the deep soft sand. Rucksacks on we hike up the beach to our accommodation. We’ve had better rooms but the pool is big, only down side is that it’s hot as a bath and full of kids.

Lipeh has also got big and the pressure is starting to show. A walking street has been formed so that an area has been pedestrianised. When we were first here there was a single sand track across to the sea gypsy village, which overlooked the most stunning beach I’ve ever seen.

Was a time you could cross the island on foot in 20 minutes, there was no transport. Now everyone owns a moped. Side car transports are everywhere ferrying tourists on this tiny island sometimes with their luggage, the odd 4x4 has appeared, time is short I think if you want to get here, ...........hurry! It’s still worth it.

The beaches are still staggeringly beautiful, at the sunset side of the island a current runs which picks you up off a white crescent, in a crystal clear, warm water hug and drops you half a mile further down onto a spit of the whitest, whitest sand imaginable.

A Short hike up the beach to a beach bar with lean to sun shades for icy cold beers. Back across the beach and in the evening the whole beach front is lit from end to end.

At the farthest point of the crescent, Daya seafood is still family run. We are so pleased it's still here after 12 years as so much has changed. Plastic patio furniture on the sand a huge array of fish to choose from. Pick what you like the look of, the owner will weigh it, tell you how much it will cost, then pass it to the BBQ chef. A small tuna 1kilo 300 baht, and a kilo of the freshest biggest king prawns, a scattering of garlic and a swoosh of olive oil and salt then onto the coals and eat with your feet in the surf. Is this really our life?!

We wile away four days on Lipeh, Kim gets a manicure and pedicure (ridiculously cheap), I have one of the best coffees I’ve ever tasted, we have wonderful meals on the beach with happy hour cocktails as sunsets merge and we bob in the clearest water and caper with reef fish (we both get bitten by a pugnacious grouper!)