The hot, hot, tropical sun makes it difficult to stay
occupied during convalescence. Feeling weak and being out in the sun or in salt
water just further depletes your energy resources. Therefore, we watched quite
a bit of Netflix when we were able to stream and the Bourne movies, which we
downloaded, when streaming wasn’t possible. Jared felt well enough to use part
of our Christmas gift from his parents to go snorkeling at Koh Haa on the 29th.
Koh Haa is a group of 5 small islands which are part of the Ko Mu Lanta
National Park. Sidenote: We have seen ‘koh’ spelled both with and without an h.
This word means island in Thai. So, whenever there is a Koh ___ that means
island. For instance, we were just on Lanta Island. We are now going to Phi Phi
Island (pronounced pee pee; yes I giggle inside every time I say it). Here are
some of the pictures from our snorkeling adventure. Thanks again David and Jeannie!
The water was so clear; you could see for quite a ways in all directions.
It was around this cliff face that we saw eels hiding and swimming.
Turquoise water. It was nice and cool to swim.
I have a bit of a goggle outline on my forehead..
Overall, Koh Lanta is a nice, peaceful tropical island which has developed a tourist economy centered around European preferences. The
influx of Westerners during high season seems to have dampened the Thai culture.
As a result, the shops, restaurants, and advertised activities are tailored to
Western expectations. In the previous post, when I mentioned the large number of
Swedish and other Europeans we saw, that was not an under-exaggeration. During
an hour of sitting on the beach, at any point in time, we could look in all
directions and see only tourists. There were several restaurants which
advertised Swedish food and despite the Thai culture which seems to prefer to
start the day around 10 am there were places opening at 8 am to serve ‘Western
breakfast’ (I would be lying if I denied that Jared and I were waiting for them
to open on a couple occasions- we do love our breakfast). We did not do much
exploring and besides our snorkel trip we did not go beyond an 800 m radius of
our hostel. However, if there were a place that we had to choose for one of us
to be sick, Koh Lanta did not suck. With a pharmacy on every corner and several
international health clinics (we did not have to go to one but it was nice
knowing they were there), it made the healing easier than it might have been.
Another note on Koh Lanta, the number one rated activity on
Tripadvisor is actually their animal welfare center. We did not go there but we
noticed a difference in the apparent attitude of the Koh Lantians towards
animals. All the dogs and cats we saw were clean and appeared cared for. Most
also had collars and were friendly and well behaved. Here is the little kitty
that stayed at our hostel:
Sweet little buddy.
He would curl up in the shade of the plants during the day
and then come out and play in the mornings and evenings. His crazy cat antics put
a smile on my face and I will miss looking for him as I come and go. There were
also twin boys that lived next door. One day, they were leaving as I was
returning and one saw me and smiled real big and started waving. He ran to me
and gave me a hug. Melted my heart, little cutie patootie.
Phi Phi, here we come!
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