We left Koh PhaNgan and crossed southern Thailand, heading for Koh Lanta. When we arrived, we were happy to find a laid back and environmentally conscious atmosphere.  The locals have gone to great lengths to preserve the natural beauty of the island and their efforts have not been in vain.  All along the west coast of the island were little bays and beaches, many of which were completely empty, except for a few fishing boats moored in the waters.

 We arrived at our bungalow in the back of a pickup truck that had just bounced us along a dirt road through lush jungle. The bungalows were set about 100 meters back from the beach, which had a fresh water mountain stream in the middle that flowed into the bay. The bay only had two other bungalow resorts along the sand.

Since Koh Lanta is near Malaysia, the island was about half Muslim. Being American this challenged me to overcome misperceptions that were pushed on me through the American media. Our hosts were exceedingly kind and friendly. The mystique of the surrounds were enhanced by the daily Muslim call to prayer that would ring out through a speaker system and echo through the mountain sides that surrounded us.

The day after we arrived on the island, Meg and I set out on a motorbike to explore the island. We first rode along the bumpy dirt road to the southern most tip, where our map showed an unnamed tiny beach. We arrived to find a beautiful national park that had an empty beach and alot of monkeys!

We discovered the presence of the monkeys as one cheekily galavanted up to my bag and began to dig around in it to find out what treats I had for him. I managed to discourage this behavour with some hand waving and shooing. He got the message and looked for entertainment elsewhere. I grabed my camera and followed him. Moments later he discovered a crab in the grass and proceeded to take a seat and begin to devour it. ( he politely allowed me to photograph him at this point.)

When I walked back to find Meg, I became aware of how pristine and empty the beach was.

 The beach was also home to hundreds of sand and hermit crabs.

Some of the colors where striking.

As we were walking back to our motorbike, we noticed some more monkeys on the rocks, probably looking for more crabs.

We spent that evening in a cool little cliff side bar that overlooked a beautiful empty beach.

The next day we explored some of the bays nearby our bungalow. One in particular was hidden from the road by about 100 meters of forest. We felt quite special discovering this gem.

As we left, we got caught in an afternoon rain storm. We took shelter under the thick canopy of trees.

Our bungalow was set among lush tropical plants with a view of the our bay peaking through the greenery.

That evening, as we watched the sun setting on our bay, we began to realize how little time we had left in SE Asia.

That night, we sat under the stars and were treated to an amazing shower of shooting stars that seemed to never end. The next day, we simply enjoyed the beach near our bungalow. That evening, as the sun set, it felt like Thailand was saying goodbye to us.

Sitting under that sky, we vowed to return to Thailand and that this was only the beginning of our adventures.

The next day we took a ferry to the main land and boarded an overnight bus to Bangkok. On our last day in Bangkok, we took the river ferry to the center of the city.

We did some shopping, saw the big buddha, and had some great thai food.

As we sat at a cafe watching the boats go by on the river, we felt like we finally had gotten a handle on this crazy city that had seemed so overwhelming when we first arrived.

The next morning we boarded our plane to Australia to begin the next chapter.

(p.s. We will be posting about our time here in southern Australia in a few days when we get back from our beach hopping and boogie boarding trip along the Great Ocean Road.)

As we prepare to depart from one island paradise for another, it seems proper that we fill you all in on our time in Haad Khom,  Koh Pha Ngan. There’s been a lot of hammock swinging, reef snorkeling, sunbathing, chess playing, storm watching and fruit shake drinking going on. This is where we spent most of our time:

Yesterday, we decided to break the blissful monotony of our island life and go for a trek over a small mountain to Bottle Beach, just a couple of bays over.  We’d been warned that it was quite a tough jaunt through the jungle but we were confident that our able, young bodies could make the 5 hour round trip no problem.

The walk was beautiful. The path took us into the belly of the jungle, along mountain ridges, across streams and out on to rock faces being battered by the ocean.

We saw all sorts of wildlife: a monkey, a snake, a monitor lizard and to my dismay, a multitude of insects. These are just a few of the thousands of red ants that made the walk a little more “interesting”. Needless to say, I didn’t take these pictures.

The only problem was that the path itself seemed to dead end and although we could see the beach that we were trying to get to about half a kilometer away, we couldn’t get at it due to thick jungle on one side and a cliff on the other. So, after three hours of hard slogging and the beach in sight, we had to turn around a go back, never reaching Bottle Beach. That didn’t really matter… it’s the journey not the destination right? We made the return trip back to Haad Khom in record time (that might have had something to do with the impending darkness) and made it home just in time to catch the sun set.

Tomorrow, if we can finally tear ourselves away from here, we are heading west and will hopefully make it to Krabi, a town that is a jump off point to some of the west coast islands. The next day, we will head on to Koh Lanta.

Meg and I are well. We enjoyed Koh Chang and some of its hidden spots.

We also visited a nearby island called Koh Maak. Its was quite nice, we splurged for a bungalow that overhung the ocean and had a nice hot shower.

We returned to Koh Chang to start heading West, but unfotuntely, i got sick for two days so was out of comission. We have a rule, that if one person gets sick, we upgrade to a/c, hot shower, and TV until we are better. I was soon recovered and we started on our next leg of island hopping.

We did a 24 hour straight travel from Koh Chang to Koh Pangan. It was as follows: taxi to the pier, then ferry to mainland, then bus to bangkok, then bus to subway, then subway to train station, the train to south west thailand overnight, then bus to pier, then ferry to island, then motorbike to the town near our bungalow.

It was worth it .

We are now staying in a bungalow on a beautiful undeveloped bay with a great beach and two other bungalow resorts nearby who have good restraunts. Our bungalow is on the beach and has a hammock out front, with a great restraunt nearby run by the wife of the owner of the bungalows. Everyone staying there has been there atleast half a dozen times. Some have been there for a couple months. We can see that it can be hard a place to leave. Whats great is there is a family/old friends atmosphere and every one is really welcoming. Its pretty much exactly what ive been looking as far as an island retreat goes.

More pictures and stories will be coming soon…