Saturday
Our weekend plans were pretty low-key, even for us. We’re hanging out in Koh Lanta until Wednesday so we can dive again. Sleeping in, breakfast, swimming in the pool, some school work and screen time all in the morning. Then lunch with Keller! Today we went back to Yawee … despite being there the day before. Their extensive menu, low prices, and excellent food made it an easy choice.
We were able to order mostly different dishes this time, except we did opt for the papaya salad again. Goodness, it is so SPICY! It is quite innocuous too — just looking at it you wouldn’t expect it to be nearly so hot. It’s a tricky dish! 😉
Penang curry, fried chicken with sweet chili sauce, green curry fried rice. The kids shared a drink and we split fried bananas and mango with sticky rice for dessert. Definitely the best value for the money we’ve found this trip!
We wandered down to the beach after lunch. I really am enjoying our beach time. There’s almost no one on the beach, the water is calm, clear, and shallow, and the sand is soft. There’s also a river channel that cuts into the sea with fresh water from the island. It creates channels and flushes out coral and sand brought up by the tide. The kids happily played in the stream for almost two hours before the sun started to go down.
Once again, we had a lovely sunset! There are definitely afternoon storms in the area, but they stayed to our north and brought cooling cloud cover and stunning sunsets. It’s pretty hard to beat! Keller and I aren’t usually beach bums, but conditions like this make it a lot more pleasant!
After dark the storms moved across the sea to our west, over Phuket. They were full of lightning, so the kids and I sat on the stairs to the beach and watch for a while.
It’s easy to see why so many foreigners come to Koh Lanta to visit and end up staying long term. I don’t need a house here yet, but I could make Koh Lanta a return stop the next time we’re in the area. It’s a nice mix of quiet and calm, yet still with plenty of great restaurants and a very laid back, beachy vibe. Everyone is super kind and as a whole the area is quite clean. I like it!
Sunday
“Same same” for our morning — breakfast, school, screens, and pool time. I don’t think the kids have been dry for more than 24 hours since we got to Thailand. 😉 For lunch we wanted to change it up, instead of going to Yawee again. We’ll go Monday and Wednesday before we head out. LOL!
Instead we tried to go eat at Patty’s Secret Garden, which came very highly recommended. However, when we got there the board said they’d be closed until dinner time. Instead, we went to Sununtha right across the street. It was quite good as well! Our favorites were the pineapple fried rice and the “no name.” No name is fried chopped veggies, all combined in rice and tempura flour and dipped in sweet chili sauce. I think most dishes are improved by dipping them in sweet chili sauce, let’s be honest. 😉 No name apparently was created during the lean years after the Vietnam war when produce was hard to find. All the scraps would be combined together and fried, hence having “no name.” It’s definitely a regional thing and we haven’t seen it on many menus either.
We were markedly disappointed with the desserts, however. The ice cream was clearly packaged from the store and the cheap sprinkles and gummies scattered over the crepe and ice cream didn’t help it’s case. Oh well.
Where to next? The beach of course! We all messed around in the waves and the stream while the storms rolled around us again.
After dark, we cleaned up while the kids played in the pool (again) and then watched The Princess Bride. Keller grabbed pad thai and green curry for the kids’ dinner from across the street. Island living, right?
Monday
I bet you can guess what we did this morning. Yep, you’re right! 😉 Pool, school, and screens at the villa before lunch time. Oh, and laundry down the road. I can fit all our laundry in one large washing machine, but it takes at least 24 hours for the clothes to dry. The humidity in the air makes it take quite a while to dry on the porch. This is my last load of laundry before we leave for Patong.
Monday is our designated day to return to Yawee. We tried the deep fried papaya salad this time, and while the kids liked it, I thought it was more refreshing (and spicier!) in the normal presentation. Still tasty though! We also changed out the fried bananas for fried pineapple at dessert.
I grabbed some groceries from the market on the way back from lunch. The kids just wanted to play in the pool, which worked well so I could work on packing up the villa. We’re diving tomorrow, so I needed to get on top of everything here in advance. Keller snagged dinner for the kids from across the street again — the Big Two, pad thai and green curry. The kids are definitely predictable when it comes to their orders in Thailand!
Tuesday
We had a very early wake up call today — we needed to be up and ready by 7am. Good morning! We’re excited to go check out the diving at Koh Haa, our dive master’s favorite island chain to dive. We’re on a different boat today and left out of the Old Town pier. This boat is a lot slower than the fancy catamaran that we used last week, but there is plenty of space and shade for everyone and food on board to enjoy during the transition to Koh Haa.
Once again, Jessie is going to snorkel with the kids while Keller and I dive. Another dive master is going to be joining us during our dives too, James, as this is his first dive of the season after spending the last six months in London.
Our first dive was the best of the dives today! We were at Koh Haa Lagoon at Island 2. Visibility wasn’t quite as clear as last week, but we saw a lot of fish, including a large school of yellow back fusiller. We also saw puffer fish, box fish, and porcupine fish. There were sergeant majors, a clown fish family in an anemone, morish idols, and coral rock cod. Keller also spotted two moray eels, hanging out under some coral. New to us on this dive were the massive bat fish!
This dive also included a little swim through that was clearly the hide out for schools of small fish. They were all over the place and semi-trapped in the area as we swam through. There sure were a lot of them!
We made it a tick longer than last week’s dive — 47 minutes and went our deepest so far, down to 19.5 meters. We’re both getting more comfortable in the water and are doing much better controlling our buoyancy without constant adjustments to our bc.
Dive two was at Koh Haa Yai. It had fewer fish but had a lot of interesting rock formations, walls, a giant cave, and a swim through. The cave was neat … once your eyes adjusted to the dark you could see how massive the space was and find some of the fish hiding in the dim light.
This was our longest dive to date! We went 53 minutes and down to 18.5 meters. Keller’s air management is greatly improving as he used a regular tank for all our dives today.
For this dive, James swapped out with Jessie to snorkel with the kids and let Jessie have her first dive of the season too. He was great with the kids and taught them how to identify and sign a lot of the fish in the reef. The kids saw a sea turtle here, as well as more black tipped reef sharks. Still no reef sharks for us though!
Next was our lunch break on the boat — tasty curry and rice. They also have a big cooler full of mango drinks that are a definite hit!
Dive three was at Koh Haa Six. (Incidentally, Koh Haa means Five Islands. However, there are six. Andy said apparently the Thai person who named the island couldn’t count. LOL!) The currents would be a wild card on this dive. Andy was going to try to lead us to island five and cross the reef ridge on the dive, but he wasn’t sure how the currents would fare.
Unfortunately, the currents made the dive very challenging. Andy had a hard time getting us across the reef and we ended up stalled in a couple of places. Just as we would get past a ridge, the current would turn and push us back the other way.
Diving with and against a current is a lot more tiring than a drift or stationary dive. There were multiple times when I was swimming with my legs and using my arms and that was simply keeping me in place. We were both burning air quickly.
Ultimately, we bailed on the dive before we ran out of air. We didn’t get the impression it would improve in the near future and Keller was having a hard time balancing metered breathing and having enough oxygen for his body. He signaled “not okay” and the two of us surfaced. Andy surfaced shortly after and the dive boat came to get us.
It was a bummer to end on a sour dive, but sometimes that is just how it works. Overall we had a great time diving and were very glad we did it!
Getting back on land was a bit of a trip in itself. A storm was brewing over Koh Lanta, so the wind whipped the waves up a bit and it was raining heavily. Caden managed to fall asleep on a bench for about thirty minutes.
When we finally made it back to Old Town, it was low tide. Unfortunately, this meant that the scuba boat could not dock at the pier … the water was too shallow. Instead, all twenty-something people and scuba gear piled onto a little rickety long tail boat. It was SUPER TIPPY! Keller gave us 50/50 odds on ending up in the water. I insisted on life jackets for the kids (a little insurance policy, we’ll say). It was still raining and windy, so we’re all huddled on the sides of the boat as we motor to the pier. We did ultimately make it back to the pier without anyone falling in, but I didn’t have high hopes at the beginning! It wasn’t exactly as expected, but we can officially check “long tail boat ride” off our list.
Flip Flop Divers arranged for a covered pickup taxi to return us to the shop instead of riding in the rain across the island. That was much nicer! We said goodbye and thank you to our guides and headed home. I cooked satay and rice for dinner and we worked on packing up.
We’ve really enjoyed our time in Koh Lanta and I can see us returning here again at some point. The beaches are lovely, the afternoon storms cool everything off, the sunsets are incredible. We had a great experience with the dive shop and many excellent meals, especially at Yawee. I know there are many many places in the world to visit, but I have a feeling we’ll be back here eventually. 😉
Wednesday
It’s Caden’s birthday today! Hooray Caden! Unfortunately, we didn’t have anything special planned for today, but we do for tomorrow and it’s a secret.
Today we’re transferring to Patong, near Phuket. We wanted to eat lunch one last time at Yawee, so we ordered our favorites. The papaya salad is still amazing (and incredibly spicy). Caden got to pick out whatever he wanted for lunch … which was shrimp pad thai.
We arranged for a private transfer with Krabi Taxi Services again. They did a great job for the airport -> Koh Lanta leg and their prices were the best we found. The other option was a speed boat taxi across the sea (about two hours) which left Koh Lanta first thing in the morning and all the companies had awful reviews. Plus by the time we paid for 4 passengers, it was only about $15 more to go by van. That made the decision easy!
We were picked up right on time and had a smooth ride all the way to Patong. It took about 5 hours by van, including bathroom stops, so we were glad that we ate lunch before we left.
Our accommodations are on a steep hillside a little up from town. It’s very walkable though, especially down hill, so once we checked in the kids and I hiked down to the night market for dinner. Keller had to get set up and going for work, so we promised to bring him back something.
The night market is pretty cool! It’s definitely geared toward tourists, as Patong is a big tourist destination, but it has enough street vendor fair to seem at least a little authentic. We had some fried chicken and pad thai and the kids shared a very tasty orange and watermelon smoothie. For Keller we brought back stewed pork leg (one of his favorites). We hiked back up the hill and called it a night.
Thursday
As a treat for Caden’s birthday, I took the kids down to the main part of Patong to Surf House! They have a controlled surfing set up where you can learn some basics for boogie boarding and surfing! Neither kid was super enthusiastic about it on the walk down there, but once we got there they both perked up. There were only a few other people in their session, and as the first one of the morning it was discounted and 90 minutes long instead of 60.
Both kids did a great job learning how to steer and balance on the boogie board. Everyone was very encouraging and they had fun watching the other people surf too.
Kamy even got up on her knees at one point! Caden took a tumble over the back side of the wave which spooked him a bit, but he rode again with the instructor before we left. Both kids were pretty tired and were ready to move on in about an hour.
We hunted for lunch a bit before deciding on No. 6 Restaurant. What do you think we ordered? Pad thai and green curry. It was good, even if it was predictable.
Kamy and Caden were both interested in spending a little time at the beach before going back to the apartment. Patong beach is very busy and has designated swimming areas since there are so many power water craft nearby (seadoos and speed boats for parasailing, etc). There were beach lounge chairs and umbrellas for rent, but the kids said they thought they’d be ready to go in about 15-30 minutes.
Well, they happily played in the sand and water for almost 2 hours. At that point I wish I’d rented a chair but I was trying to save a little bit of money if we were only there for a short time. Oh well! Glad they had a good time!
Back to the apartment, the kids rinsed off and then jumped into the pool. Because apparently they aren’t waterlogged enough yet!
For dinner we went down to an Italian restaurant that Kamy picked out. We shared some pasta dishes and a pizza before going down to the night market. The kids picked out rolled up ice cream and Keller had a banana and chocolate crepe.
Also, Kamy and Caden wanted to do the Fish Spa! You put your bare feet into a tank with these little sucker fish who nibble all the dead skin cells off! Kamy was hilarious and Caden said they tickled. Both kids made it the full 15 minutes allowed. They liked letting the fish nibble on their hands too.
Near the night market is a little art gallery with oil paintings by local artists. Keller and I found a sunset painting that we really liked to remind us of Koh Lanta. Hooray — we found our painting for the trip! There are a few little imperfections on the painting, so they’re going to correct it overnight and we will pick it up tomorrow.
Friday
Low key again this morning. Keller had to work until almost morning, so the kids did school and screen time and then played in the pool until the rain started. During a break in the rain, the three of us walked down the hill for a light lunch. We opted for pineapple fried rice and green curry. Then we hauled ourselves back up hill to the apartment.
The rain came back in the afternoon, so we hung around the apartment for school and downtime and packing. We didn’t fully UNpack here, so it didn’t take too much time to get ready. Once the rain stopped, we walked down the hill for dinner. This time we ate at a local Thai restaurant. Some dishes were better than others, but we were all fed by the time we left. We walked to the night market where Kamy picked out another rolled ice cream dessert and Caden chose a banana and chocolate crepe.
We also stopped by and picked up our painting! The painters at the gallery had repaired the little imperfections on the canvas and it was ready to go. It just fits in a tube in my suitcase, so for now we’re able to haul it with us without adding another object to our travel bags. Hooray! We’re excited to add this painting to our collection to remember our time in Thailand.
