The first day of our three-week October holiday was a travel day, and so it was filled more with excitement than relaxation. We were heading from Phuket, one of the country’s largest and most inhabited islands, to Koh Lanta, which is both smaller and quieter.
After a couple of hours of travelling across clear blue sea, our ride began to slow as we left the open water and slowly motored into the port of Koh Lanta. While a landscape of natural blues, greens and golden sand lined the distant view to our left, to our right was a line of buildings. Each had a wooden, open-sided balcony, yet each was distinct in its own way. I love the simplistic feel of structures like these, that are so much a part of the landscape in Thailand, and especially on smaller islands or in rural areas. Being inside them gives me the feeling that there is less of a barrier between me and the natural world, even while I am indoors.
As we pulled into the port, it became apparent that a tourist trap lay in wait for us – many locals lined the pier, waiting to charge us a tourist tax for entry and then to charge us a high price for a ride to our accommodation. Luckily, we were a little prepared on the transport front as we’d read before arriving that transportation on the island is ruled by local mafia – no Grab (Asian version of Uber) or public transport is available. The only options are tuk tuks which charge top prices due to the lack of competition or to hire a scooter (though this wasn’t possible immediately on arrival). After a good bit of haggling we were on our way. We travelled down the main road, which runs parallel to the west coast, in a Jamaican flag-themed tuk tuk, with a marijuana sign on the roof to create the full effect. Weed has become legal in Thailand in recent years, evident in the number of cannabis shops that had opened since I’d last visited the country.
My eyes flitted left and right as our ride bumped along the road, and I felt a rising worry and a little disappointment. Had we just arrived on a deserted island? Where was everybody? We had wanted to get away from the hubbub of Phuket, but had been hoping for some human interaction during our holiday. Though we saw the odd person wandering here or there, the place seemed mostly desolate.
Over the next few days we learned that the island did in fact have a gentle bustle of people about the place. It was just coming up to peak season so places weren’t yet full of tourists, but there were other foreigners here and there, and a large number of locals – just not in comparison to Phuket. This place was, it turned out, exactly what we’d been looking for. Life was slower here, and that suited us just fine.
Part of our first couple of days on the island were spent arranging to hire a scooter so we didn’t have to rely on tuk tuks, and finding new accommodation. We’d discovered a cockroach in our bathroom the first night of our arrival, replaced by a gecko later the following day. Some research meant we were reasonably sure in the assumption that said gecko had eaten our cockroach, which made the gecko a welcome guest, by all accounts. But overall, we were a little disconcerted by the quite large hole in the bottom of the bathroom wall that appeared to be a doorway through which any small jungle creatures may enter.
Our first grand adventure took us to a diverse range of landscapes. Bouncing along nearby country roads, we entered a village where families could be seen and heard from houses that lined the roadside, an old man walked around with his t-shirt rolled up to display a round belly beneath, and the odd cow could be seen among fields. Not the grazed and more visually organised fields that may be found somewhere like the UK, but a wilder landscape of tall grasses and palm trees.
We’d been thinking of going on a tour at an elephant sanctuary but had arrived too late to join that day. However, over the coming days we decided we’d prefer not to have a tour as it was very hard to understand how the animals were being treated. Though the elephants at the sanctuary had apparently come from previous lives filled with more hardship, the tour always involved being able to feed and walk with elephants – we didn’t understand how this could be possible if the elephants were allowed to roam free. How did they always happen to be in just the right place for a tour?
On the day we’d missed the tour, we remounted the scooter and set off towards the Old Town on the east coast – the more residential side of the island. After a meander along a cement pier trying to recognise the many dots of land that littered the horizon, we headed to the main long street of the town. Although this side of the island was less tourist-focused, this seemed to be the one street geared towards foreign visitors. There were a variety of small cafes and restaurants, as well as shops selling souvenirs.
As we wandered we spotted a bar with an external area made of bamboo, and had our eye on a raised platform with low tables and floor cushions with views out to sea. Neither of us generally spend much time in bars, nor buying or drinking cocktails. However, as we settled down on those floor cushions and took in our surroundings, chilled jazz playing softly, we felt there was no better time than this, just a couple of days into our holiday, to enjoy a cocktail.
We spent a good hour or so in absolute contentment and decided to head back only as the sun was setting. After making our way back over the large hill to the west coast, we were now in search of food and were delighted to find a laid-back reggae bar ‘Sweet Soul’ serving only vegetarian and vegan food, and – now that we had a taste for them – cocktails! We found seats at the front of the bar overlooking the sea, with only a low wall partitioning the space between us and the sand.
Over the next week and a half we returned to Sweet Soul on many occasions, loving the calming atmosphere of the place, not to mention the incredible food which was a fusion of Thai and Western cuisine. The owner was a Thai man, who seemed to love the opportunity the bar gave him to speak to visitors to the island. He lived there with his German wife and mother-in-law and had a son who lived in Germany (where the owner had lived for many years). Over the coming days we learned that we’d arrived not too long after the most violent storm they had experienced in 30-odd years. An excavator was working at different bars along the beachfront as groups of workers hurriedly reconstructed bars to prepare for the coming high season. The reggae bar had survived as it was made from wood, while the less flexible steel building next door had collapsed. The roof in the reggae bar was made of bamboo leaves, was hinged, and moved in the wind. This made it more able to cope with the varying weather conditions, but it needs to be replaced every 3-4 years.
After a couple of nights on the island we moved to different accommodation – a one-room cabin with a bathroom and a balcony. We were nestled at the back of a small community of such structures, some made of brick and cement, others of wood. Our front ‘wall’ was two large panes of glass, one a sliding door for us to exit and enter. This gave us a spectacular view of sandy paths and palm trees from our bed. Just a few minutes from our door was a beach which could only be accessed through our accommodation or one of the neighbouring ones, and due to the quiet time we had arrived on the island, this meant we were lucky to share the beach with only a handful of other people, several armies of mollusks, and a few dogs. As we settled into our first night in this new home, only mildly distracted by the musty scent in the air, our dreams drifted off with the waves lapping against the sand and stone, just a five-minute walk from our door.
