The first semester of my postgrad finished up in December, and I had a week off of work over Christmas, so Dave and I did what we always used to do in these situations: we booked a trip!
Right before we left though… We got some bad news…
Thursday December 21st, as I was leaving school for the day, Dave called to tell me that we were losing the apartment and that we had to move out before December 31st. This would have already been a nightmare, but we had unalterable flights on December 24th.
We were faced with a choice… Cancel our trip, lose the money, AND the holiday…. Or find a new place, pack up and move within 2 days. Saner people would have probably chosen the second option. We are not sane.
We spent all of Friday (minus the 2.5 hours I spent working) looking at apartments. Then we stayed up and packed until 2am. Saturday morning we had movers come and help us load up all our things (how have we ALREADY collected so much!!!)! By Saturday night, we were already entertaining guests. Sunday morning, at 7am, we left for the airport.
It would be deceitful to say we handled all of this in stride. It was a nightmare. Still, somehow we managed, and left for Thailand as planned. After 13 hours of sleep… We spent Christmas morning with this as our view:
We only had 6 days in Thailand, and we spent it all on a small island called Koh Lanta. We had never been to this island before, but we heard from friends that it is peaceful, quiet and has great snorkeling. It sounded like paradise to us, so although we didn’t have a super eventful trip, we did have a lovely time!
We stayed in Klong Nin Beach, on the advice of friends who had made the mistake of booking a hotel far too close to one of the big mosques on the island. The call is blasted on megaphones 5 times per day, with the first one being at dawn. I actually quite like to hear it when we’re on vacation; some of the Imams make it sound really nice… as long as we aren’t too close by…
Old Town
We spent quite a bit of our holiday cruising around the island on our rented motorbike. We had beautiful weather (aside from Christmas morning…when it poured rain for a while), so putzing around on the motorbike (as Dave puts it) was a great way to see the island.
Many of our motorbike trips ended in old Town, which has great food options, masseuses and souvenir shops. We didn’t have much room in our luggage, but we checked every store for nice post cards and found some curry mixes that we could take home with us.
Food!!
Thailand has some of the best food in the world and we made the most of our time there eating at lots of different local restaurants. Some of our favourites:
Our favorite restaurant on this trip, didn’t actually have a name, oddly enough. They were brand new, and located on the side of the highway, on the way into Saladan (the island’s main city, way up at the North tip).
The food might not look like much, but the curry was one of the best I’ve ever had in my life! They also had an incredible stir fried rice that got gobbled up before I could get a photo. The woman running the place was so lovely and friendly. She explained to us that they had JUST opened and that’s why their menu was hand written and why there was no signage. We had actually almost walked away from the restaurant, but we were greeted by a cat and took it has a sign we should stay. We’re really glad we did!
One really cool thing about this restaurant is that it’s right on the beach, and a huge colony of hermit crabs lives under their deck. The woman there feeds them and there are so many that you have to be really careful where you walk if you go into the sand!
Snorkeling Trips
Our favorite part of the holiday was the snorkeling trips we booked. We hadn’t been snorkeling since before COVID and it used to be a staple of all of our holidays. To say we missed it is an understatement!
There are two types of trips you can book in Koh Lanta. Speed boat trips run more reliably because those boats can handle choppy water a little better. They can also go further out. Long boats are slower and don’t go as far out, but at far as I’m concerned, they’re a lot more enjoyable. We did both of these tours during our short 6 days on the island.
Four Islands Tour by Speedboat
I’m not entirely sure which islands we actually visited, because it can change based on the weather or tourist traffic, but our first trip out was on a speedboat. We traveled to some small islands south-west of Koh Lanta.
We had 3 snorkel stops, and although visibility wasn’t great and there wasn’t a tonne of life in the water to see, we did still enjoy the day.
Our last stop of the day was particularly cool because we found dozens of fish hiding in a nook just off of an island. They kind of surprised us, and they were beautiful as they scattered in the dark…all I could see was silver flashes all around me.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of seasickness on this boat. I ended up sitting between 2 people who were both vomiting, which wasn’t fun. Still… We got out onto the water and honestly, I’m glad we saved the longboat tour for last, because it was spectacular!
Longboat tour
Our longboat tour was a lot nicer. It left from the old town pier, which wasn’t quite as chaotic as the Saladan peer, where we left on the speedboat. The boats are much smaller, which means smaller groups go, and there’s something about being on a traditional wooden boat felt good!
We had much better visibility on our longboat trip and saw some really cool wildlife! We spotted clown fish right away and Dave’s underwater camera got some good shots of them!
At one point, I went off swimming on my own. I like to choose a fish and follow it around for a while…you might say that I like to stalk the wildlife…Anyway, I saw something move from under a rock and it didn’t really look like a fish. I figured my eyes were playing tricks on me, so I looked again, and a Giant Moray Eel came out from under a rock and swam right near me! This is super rare for a snorkeler to see (divers see them often), so I was SUPER excited! I stayed at that spot and watched the moray for ages. I’d pop my head out of the water now and then to try and flag other snorkelers over to see (I couldn’t get anyone’s attention!). Finally Dave came over and I was able to point out the moray to him (at this point, just its head was sticking out from under a rock). He managed to get a video.
Another cool part of our longboat tour was our stop at the Emerald Cave. You stop outside what appears to be an island, but actually, there is a lagoon inside. They gave us lifejackets (that were WAY too big) and told us to follow the guy with the flashlight. It was eerie swimming through the darkness, but the views in the lagoon were gorgeous (but unfortunately, there were a lot of people there).
Of course, the best views we had were from the islands during lunch and breaks. The longboats are really very beautiful and we even got to see a bit of wildlife.
Our Thailand trip was over far too soon, and we had to head back to Hanoi (for a while). It was a wonderful break from the chaos of living in Vietnam’s capital. Upon our return, we were inspired to start cooking again (up until this point we were mostly just eating at restaurants). We’ve made some killer curries and I learned how to make Thai fried rice and cashew pork. In our beautiful new apartment (which is actually a lot nicer than our old one), we’re starting to make a home.
My next post will be about our trip to Hue! It might take me a little longer for the next one, because we’re back home now, and I’ve got a gig tonight!!!