Koohling our Heels in Koh Lanta
It doesn’t get more chill than Koh Lanta
After three intense and draining — you might even say bone-breaking — days in Cambodia, we went 100% in the other direction in Koh Lanta, one of the bigger islands off Thailand’s coast. This place is the essence of a chill beach town (technically, Long Beach might be the actual town where we stayed?): while still having fantastic coffee, great food, decent transportation — and plentiful massages.
I’m told “Koh Lanta has many golden sand beaches and diverse terrain, including mangroves, waterfalls, and forested hills.” Perhaps. Yet, we pretty much stuck to Long Beach and got lazy.
The flashiest part of our stay were the tours (see below). Beyond that, what did we do here for more than a week? I am not sure. Time just flew by. You swim in ocean in the morning, go to Glass House for coffee and work, swim in pool, find dinner, repeat.
Right foot down
Our apartment here was the most rustic — nay bucolic — yet. Surrounded by lush greenness, we communed with frolicking geckos, rubbed elbows with birds, and battled bands of ants.
To my delight, this was true of pretty much the whole island. This was the path from the “main road” to the beach —
It’s not the very best place for nursing a broken ankle though (see our Cambodia post for the background story, once we publish it 🙄), as food delivery options are limited and tuk tuks don’t go all the way to the beach. But, could be worse
Millions of beaches, beaches for me
The beaches here were stunning as promised. After being — let’s be honest — somewhat disappointed by the rocky beaches of Adriatic, Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas in Europe, here we finally met smooth sand, warm calm water, and postcard tropical beaches. Long, broad and lined by laid-back bars and restaurants, it is the stuff of tropical rock ballads
As in Chiang Mai, nails and massages are refreshingly affordable, so naturally the girls made liberal use of them
Almost every day we would hit up the Glass House, an excellent cafe that happened to be about 1000 feet away from our cabin (though still requiring a tuk tuk ride for Masha). On top of top notch pour over, espresso drinks, and breakfasts, they also had perpetually ravenous koi fish and the food to feed them
Finally, most evenings (or so it seems now), we would go to watch sunsets on the beach
So many sunsets
We would then slowly transition to eating at Mr. Wee’s Restaurant on the beach under the enormous equatorial sky
lounging on sand beds, sipping $3 Thai cocktails, and munching on delicious Thai and Italian fare
and also enjoying their massive swing
Here, Alya honed her skill at coming up to strangers to make friends, which led us to meeting other worldschoolers on the beach. The adults would discuss schooling strategies and other logistics while the kids played
But even if you are not ready to walk up to strangers on the beach, Lanta has an active expat community, with regular meetups like Minecraft Mondays . Just look up the Facebook group and you’ll be plugged right in.
We loved Koh Lanta. The sandy beaches, the kind restaurants that delivered to Masha at the house, the next-door laundry place that also served as our tuk tuk drivers, and the landlord that came and did our dishes daily so Masha wouldn’t have to, as well as the peaceful sea air and beautiful greenery around us sealed the deal. This was exactly the rest we needed.
Snorkeling on Koh Ha and Kor Rok — the postcard islands
Though Koh Lanta itself is great, one of it’s lures is proximity to other even-more picturesque islands. For a small fee and five hours of your time, you could get excellent snorkeling (not pictured as we forgot our underwater camera), and swimming time at these slices of paradise
Koh Rok main beach
Koh Rok is that postcard Southeast Asia beach you dream of on a rainy weekday at work. An hour’s speedboat ride from Koh Lanta, it’s a gorgeous destination of it’s own, with turquoise water, buttery white sand and bursting green trees.
It’s also got amazing snorkeling right off shore, and these beasts just walking about like they own the place!
As we were riding on the boat to Koh Ha for some more snorkeling, I could hear Tom Hardy’s gravely voice in my ear —“You’re in f’cking Thailand mate, and you’re on a boat bobbin’ on waves and you want wot more exactly?” Well, nothing, I suppose
On the other hand, Thailand islands are by no means immune from the toll that heavy tourism takes. On Koh Rok, just a five minutes walk from the stunning main beach you arrive to another secluded bay on the opposite side of the island
At first glance, it is just as beautiful, maybe a bit more debris from the trees. But, look closer, and it turns out the beach is completely covered in washed up garbage
It was disorienting to suddenly come upon this. I suspect any wind-side bay beach in a touristy area would look similar, if not continuously cleaned up, but it’s a harsh reality to face.
Nevertheless, I would strongly recommend this tour — both for the island beach and the snorkeling. Many providers offer roughly the same itinerary — a 5 hour tour with a stop on the two islands (well Koh Ha barely qualifies as an island), with typically 3 snorkeling sessions, lunch and an hour’s free time on Koh Rok. You used to be able to do a tour to just one of the islands, but now that can only be done with a private tour. All the public tours cost $60-70 (as of January ‘24) once you factor in the national park fee, which you usually pay separately in cash. But it’s worth checking reviews as the quality of the tour experience definitely varies.
Koh Phi Phi (actually, Koh Pee Pee!)
Koh Phi Phi is a controversial place, famous and famously overrun. On the fence for a while, I eventually decided to go for it, as it’s a pretty quick ride from where we were (one hour door-to-door, so to speak). Masha’s recently broken ankle meant she had to sit it out, and Alya said one boat ride is enough. So, it was just me this day
Near the islands the cliffs thrusting from the water were stunning
Our first destination was Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Lee, famous, of course, from the movie The Beach. But, I had no idea how famous. The visiting process had recently been re-organized so that all the tour boats (long tails and speedboats) land on the other side of the island where a dozen at a time continuously disgorge people onto a small pier,
from which the hordes of Instagram influencers and Russian tourists walk single file down a wooden path to the beach.
The beach itself, with the light turquoise water surrounded by stunning cliffs, is indeed impressive
Ironically, you are actually not allowed to swim in the bay (at least not from the beach), one rule the Thais took surprisingly seriously, enforcing it with an aggressive whistle-toting monitor, who would periodically harangue Chinese tourists wading in too deep for pictures. I had flashbacks from Uzbek intersections and their loud-speaker whistles.
It seems there is also an option to see the beach from the bay entrance, but I think we got the better deal
From Lee, we sailed to another spot for some excellent snorkeling (no pictures sadly as I once again forgot the underwater camera) and then on to Bamboo island for lunch break.
Presenting beautifully desolate views, this island unfortunately didn’t make for good swimming because of the messy rocks
But it did have nice shady trees under which to veg out
From there, we headed back to the main island of Koh Phi Phi Don. Surrounded by beautiful, richly green mountains, the main port is a zoo. Recalling the primary towns of the Amalfi coast (Positano, Capri), the bay is swarming with boats just as the pier boulevard is swarming with tourists. Just another beautiful place ruined by over-tourism
On the way back, the water got a little choppy 😮
Also, are these boats meant to operate at 5k rpm continuously?
On balance, I would say the islands are worth seeing, but the crazy crowds on every stop of this tour (other than the snorkeling) definitely detracted from the experience, especially compared to the stunning but serene scenes of our first tour.
Leaving Koh Lanta, it seems both like we’ve been here forever and we just arrived. We will certainly be back!
