Koh Lanta, Krabi December 2011

Dear friends,

I had a visiting guest from France. We had talked for a long time about our trip in Krabi, a beautiful province in the south of Thailand. This is a good chance he's visiting Thailand during the nice season to travel to the beach. And the 1st day of our trip took place on Lanta islands that I want to share you some memorable experience here.

We took off with the first flight of the day. This time Airasia did well. The airplane departed from Suvarnabhumi airport smoothly on time.















As you may know there has been serious flood in the central part of Thailand, so when the plane was taking off, we could see large amount of water covered all over the land below.


I was wondering how long it would take to completely drain this flood water to the sea....

"Our airplane will be landing on Phuket internationa.... oops Krabi international airport" said the hostess. It was her embarassing moment but it did make smiles on passengers' faces. And someone even laughed out loud.


We took the bus from the airport to Krabi city and then connected to a minivan that took us to our hotel on Lanta islands. The van had to cross the sea 2 times on the ferries. First was from mainland to Lanta noi and the second was from Lanta noi to lanta yai.




Our hotel, Lanta Palace, was on Klong nin beach. A quiet beach on the southwest part of Lanta yai island. The beach was very clean, secluded and peaceful. I could see the panoramic view of the deep blue sea and light blue sky. And our first day weather was just perfect.






After we finished check-in process, we walked along the beach and found a little restaurant built from bamboos. The soft music they were playing was inviting. I had seafood fried rice and a glass of watermelon shake.

After we finished our lunch, we hired a taxi driver to take us to see around. Actually to see around Lanta islands we need a whole day but with this limited time we had, we selected to go to some recommended areas to relax and take some photos.

The driver took us to Ba-kantiang beach. It is a small quiet beach like Klong nin but it hasn't any hotels located on so I felt like I was on my own private beach.
















Our next stop was Bamboo bay. Another private beach which has only one hotel on. The rocks on the clean beach enhance the beauty of this lonely bay.



If I have another chance to revisit Lanta, my accommodation will be on this beach.








The last stop of us was Lanta National Park where we can see the lighthouse which is like Lanta trademark. I was so happy with its surroundings that gave the feeling of cool and comfort.

I walked up to the top of hill near the lighthouse. Touching of the wind on my face made me like.. Ummmm... I'm out of Bangkok, I'm far away from rushness, pollution and etc. I was so in love with that feeling.



When we got back to the hotel, I fell asleep like a baby for 2 hours. Because I woke up at 3.45 in the morning to catch the first flight.



That evening we had dinner in the hotel's restaurant. Spicy salad was tasty. It went along very well with soft steamed jasmine rice.



We had a little walk after dinner in downtown area. It surprised me a lot that this peak season the downtown was very quiet. Very quiet so I heard the sounds of insects very well.




I noticed there were few dogs on this island. It's because this island is the big muslim community. Normally muslim people don't have dog in there household. Unlike Koh Tao, dogs are everywhere there. That's true! Go to Koh Tao and you will see.

My day on Lanta was very enjoyable and I promised to myself I would come back again soon.