We arrived in Koh Lanta after a two hour ferry boat ride, the boat was a larger multi-layered vessel, we had plenty of room despite meeting up with 4 boats near Ao Nang to pick up additional passengers. We arrived at the island without reservations, which is not like us, we were advised by our world-schooling friends that the place we were planning on staying at was not great, so we cancelled. So hopped on the Koh Lanta Tuk Tuk equivalent, a motor bike with a large side car that fit all of us and our bags. We arrived at long beach and after walking around for a bit we found two nice rooms near the beach and settled in. It wasn’t long before we ran into our friends the Foxes and Enfields.
We had almost every meal with the group and enjoyed their company for the week and even met another family the Wooleys. It was also good to have long discussions with other families about how and where they are travelling. The slow vs fast travel, luggage and world schooling. We are apparently on the fast travelling pace, with minimal luggage and our amount of luggage and a far more defined curriculum for school. I am very happy with our type of travelling especially the schooling and all the support from our great school district at home. I feel like they are being exposed the to the same amount of worldly travel but they are getting more specific studies than we did last year.
Our rooms were very close to Long Beach in a small enclosed beach area, we ended up knowing lots of the restaurants and stores. The mini-mart was our favorite place for quick food. The kids learned to walk out and buy food on their own, how independent! Our first night on the beach we wandered around looking at the hermit crabs that came out at night and then watched a fire show before heading to bed.
The next morning Nyall, the father of the Canadian family, and I exercised by swimming in the ocean along the beach, it was good to get some exercise in such a beautiful place. Long beach was perfect for the kids too, except that there seems to be some sea lice which feels like someone is rubbing sand on your skin. We spent the week playing in the water and hunting hermies, as we called the crabs, and watching beautiful sunsets over Long Beach. The adults enjoyed hanging out especially after putting the kids to bed as our rooms were close enough to allow for late night shenanigans.
Monday, after school Maddy took the kids to a local animal humanitarian facility to visit lots or cats and dogs. I was lucky enough to opt out and went in search of dive shops.
On Wednesday we arranged to go to a new water park in the area. We went with the 4 families packed ourselves into a big truck across to the northern island of Lanta Noi. We only paid 500 baht for our family (about $16) a total deal. The water park was a series of bouncy house blow up structures. I have not seen a water park quite like it; lots of slides and a huge pool for jumping on other blow up structures.
We enjoyed our time and mostly completed school and lounged on the beach. We found a good pool to frequent by Thursday and enjoyed the afternoons.
By Sunday I finally reserved a day to go diving and Nyall joined me, Maddy didn’t want to endure the 3 hour boat ride. We tried to go to the best dive site in the area Bin Huang but we were thwarted by rough waves and we had to settle for Koh Ha. Unfortunately it seems like everyone else on the island was there too, including a huge boat Chinese divers. Nyall and I had fun though and the diving was very good.
The next day we said goodbye to Long beach and our friends, although we are making plans to meet us with all three of them later. We packed our stuff and set off for Koh Lipe.
Travel-Trotter 