Koh Lanta Thailand - Day 2

Of course the girls woke up at 4:30 AM. It was expected, I suppose ;) I however, was still very much on Asia’s time zone and couldn’t get out of bed at such a time. Even the rooster who crowed at 5 AM almost had me out of bed but I honestly couldn’t be bothered. Isn’t that why iPODs were invented? For such occasions, on a tiny island in Thailand?

I begrudgingly got out of bed at around 6 AM. The girls had already explored the entire hotel premises, walked the beach (which was only a 100 yards away from our bungalow), inquired about going to either Koh Rok or Koh Phi Phi and had a morning snack consisting of granola bars. Since we didn’t get dinner the night before, they were starving.

Breakfast, which was included with our hotel, was held under a large thatched roof directly in front of the beach. Since we were also the only ones there, we had service that doesn’t exist in China, with manners and all the etiquette that Westerns are used to. I already noticed that China had changed me, just from observing the girls. I felt a little out of my element.

During breakfast, the girls caught me up to speed about what to do on the island since it was still the off season. Boat trips to the island, Koh Rok wasn’t possible just yet due to the monsoon and windy season and Koh Phi Phi would have to be for the next day since we’d need to catch an early ferry. We were told we’d only have 2 hours on Koh Phi Phi after a 2 hour boat ride- so we opted to stay the next night on Koh Phi Phi and one more night at the Moonlight Bay Resort. Since we weren’t left with many other options, we went to the southern tip of the island to Ao Kantiang where our hotel unfortunately ripped us off with the taxi ride but at least we learned our lesson and I quickly realized Thailand is more similar to China than I previously thought.

The day was happily spent catching up, body surfing and the girls got Thai massages. We all got rocked and thrown many times by they waves-almost choking from laughing so hard together. I hadn't had that much fun body surfing since we all went together in Costa Rica. The water was very inviting and warm- it was nothing like cold California waters. We also noticed the hotel that the man from the shack was trying to push onto us was directly on the beach and looked quite nice- but we were still glad we didn’t listen to him. We had a great Thai lunch on the beach and drank our first Thai beer, which is actually the only beer I have come to enjoy.

After the sun began to go down we walked past the wild monkeys, down the beach to a nice resort, Pimalai, where we ate one of the most delicious dinners I’ve had yet in Asia. It was another early night back to the hotel where we all packed up, ready to leave early the next morning for Koh Phi Phi. Of course the girls were asleep before 10 PM. I really was wondering whether they’d ever catch on to Asia’s time!