Tour De Lanta, The Bike

I managed to sleep until around 6am this morning and didn’t wake Claire up until around 6.45am.  I didn’t have to go to the toilet all night (first time) so maybe I didn’t drink enough last night.  It was the cockerel behind us that woke me but I was bursting as well.  I guess that I needed some catch up.

First thing, we dropped our laundry of with Yuko and picked up our bike keys.  Its quite an old bike but it goes better than most of these little automatics.  She charges 250 Baht (£5) a day which I thought was pretty good since when we were here last time it was 200 Baht.  Maybe it would be possible to get one a little cheaper but you need a bike to shop around and its very convenient for pick up and drop off.  We almost circumnavigated the entire island in a couple of hours; well at least as much as is possible.  There is a break in the coast road at the south of the island where the national park is.  Its not possible to drive through it.  We crossed the island over the hills heading eastwards, joining the road that took us to Lanta Old Town.  This looks a little like an old wild west town from the 19 century.  We spotted it last time, but now they have some quite cool looking restaurants there.  All the shops etc on the coastal side are built on stilts.  Heading further down the coast towards the other side of the national park, the road ends at the Sea Gypsy Village called Sang Ga U where they have some spectacular views between the trees over the sea with some small islands in the background.  Claire was too frightened to let me stop to take photo’s so you will have to take my word for it.  The closest I got was a spot where they have built a few sea view properties for the western market, advertised at, “Priced to sell”.

We continued all the way up the coast back to the other side of Saladan where the ferry port is passing the monkey training school on the way.  This side of the island (east) is almost completely under developed whereas the other side (west) has all the tourists.  We had a quick drink near the port on one of the restaurants overhanging into the sea.  The food prices were even cheaper there and large gangs of oriental tourists were brought in for banquette lunches.  The food was almost all fish and seafood so maybe we will try that one day.

One of our objectives today was to find out and price the best way to get o Langkawi back in Malaysia and we stopped at 3 tourist travel shops which were very consistent in what they told us but not in their prices.  Its not possible to get into Malaysia by ferry in the low season so we can only go by road or fly.  To fly we have to go all the way back to Phuket then fly to Penang then catch the ferry to Langkawi and the flights are expensive.  Also it cant really be done in a day.  The alternative is to get a ferry to Krabi, minibus to Trang, a taxi to the ferry point in Malaysia then the ferry across to Langkawi but this can be bought as a single ticket.  You start the journey at 8am arriving in Langkawi for around 4pm.  The prices that we were given were 2000 Baht, 1500 Baht and 1250 Baht (£25-£40 each).  Because of these differences we might try another couple and do some internet work before booking.

I’m not sure if the elephant rides are closed during slow season as we didn’t spot anything on our way around today.   Also Claire did a little research on the caves and has been put of because you have to get to them with a guide through the jungle and it takes 2 hours just to reach them.  Apparently they have only recently been found when they burned and cleared part of the jungle.  Lots of the internal of this island is original dense jungle which mostly has not been explored.  The other caves called Tiger caves, I think are a little easier to get to and I might have to settle for those at best, if I’m lucky.  We have a very good internet connection here which is good and bad.  Good for me but it means that Claire can easily find things out before we do them.

We ate lunch at the little Thai place across the road again, got a few more supplies and came back for a dip in the pool, some internet time and some relaxation, like normal tourists.  Another dvd night tonight me thinks.

According to the forecast it starts raining again tomorrow but we have to wait and see.  If it does, I will hand the blog over to Claire while I get on with my book.  By the way, we found the cheapest place to get supplies; its the Lanta Mart in the ferry Town.  They have the best choice at the lowest prices which means that their stock turnover is quicker so it should be fresher as well.  They even sell those little bottles of Red Bull that I was telling you about.  Time to chill.